Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 15.008
May 31, 2005
1) Voices of the World (Bob Rothstein)
2) kak zey bkherem (Gerry Kane)
3) Proposals for the Symposium for Yiddish Studies in Germany (Marion Aptroot and Simon Neuberg)
4) orkheporkhe (Leizer Gillig)
5) orkheporkhe (Tzilla Kratter)
6) orkheporkhe (Lucas Bruyn)
7) orkheporkhe (Amitai Halevi)
8) orkheporkhe (Yaffa Glass)
9) orkheporkhe (Lucas Bruyn)
1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: May 31, 2005
Subject: Call for participation in Voices of the World
Should Yiddish be included in an international media project on endangered
languages? For information see The Linguist List at
http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-1693.html.
From the account of the project:
Voices of the World aims to build international popular awareness of
the diversity of mankind through a world-wide documentary film and media
project. We want to portray the peoples of the world, giving face and
voice to each culture and empowering every language community to speak.
[...]
Voices of the World is an international non-profit initiative of
UNESCO's Goodwill Ambassador for Languages Mrs. Vigdis Finnbogadottr,
based on an original idea by the internationally acclaimed filmmaker
Janus Billeskov Jansen, supported by the Danish Government, the UN and
by leading linguists from all >over the world.
[...]
Our first task is to create a media event in connection with UN's 60th
anniversary in October 2005. All the Nordic public service TV stations are
already committed to this broadcast. We are presently working on similar
arrangements with other European and international TV-stations. Our aim is
to reach a global TV-audience.
[...]
Voices will tell the story of the cultural and linguistic loss the
world is suffering from the threat of language endangerment. The film takes
its point of departure in a personal talk with UN Secretary-General Mr.
Kofi Annan, in his own mother tongue Fante, expressing his concerns for
cultural and linguistic diversity.
[...]
We seek case stories, which pinpoint the various stages from language
endangerment to language death. We look for storytellers who can explain
what it feels like to loose one's language.
[...]
We are looking for charismatic storytellers who can tell moving
personal stories to the world in their own language.
[...]
After the film is finished, all the footage collected and shot for the
Voices of the World project will be handed over to the Vigdis
Finnbogadottr Institute of Foreign Languages at University of Iceland.
The aim of Voices of the World and the university is to create a
database of all the world's languages, accessible to everybody via the
internet.
Among the topics to be covered are "the language generation gap,"
'language suppression," "language and technology" and "language
revitalization."
Bob Rothstein
2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: May 30, 2005
Subject: Re: kak zey bkheyrem
Let's get back to my mames yidish. ven men tut epes bkherem -- you do it
freely...you give it freely. So, when when one said of a person or group
"ikh kak af zey bkeyrem"...it meant that "along with all the other
reasons I gave for not liking or agreeing with that group, I also shit on
them". I suppose in that sense of the word it follows the classical
meaning of "kheyrem" in that "Ikh kak of zey bkherem" is a form of
reading them out your life.
Gerry Kane
3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: May 30, 2005
Subject: Proposals for the Symposium for Yiddish Studies in Germany
Because we didn't announce this year's symposium for Yiddish Studies in
Germany - which is to take place in Trier 26-28 September - we have
extended the deadline.
Abstracts can be submitted until June 15 to Simon Neuberg and/or Marion
Aptroot (neuberg@uni-trier.de and aptroot@phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de). The
conference languages are Yiddish and German (and papers are to be read in
one of these languages).
More information about the symposium and an archive of past programs can be
found on the Yiddish Studies Websites of the Universities of Trier and
Duesseldorf (Heinrich-Heine-Universitaet).
Marion Aptroot and Simon Neuberg
4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: May 31, 2005
Subject: Re: orkheporkhe
in der alter heym it was not uncommon for poor itinerants to spend the
night in the local botei-midroshim.From the context in the story (thank you
for posting the URL), one can deduce that orkhe-porkhe means "guests
that seem to come out of nowhere", or "poor guests, of whom there is no
shortage", in today's understanding more like homeless people - those whom
the rest of us would probably not choose to take into our own homes as
guests. From "orkhim" as in "hakhnoses-orkhim" and "porkhim" perhaps from
"froyakh" meaning flourish...
Leizer Gillig
5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: May 31, 2005
Subject: Re: orkheporkhe
According to Even Shoshan's Hebrew-Hebrew dictionary, arhey parhey is
Aramaic and appears in "Ktubot". It means wanderers, migrants, people
without a steady home. Mendele is quoted, as well as Bialik and Shneor.
Tzilla Kratter
Jerusalem
6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: May 31, 2005
Subject: re: orkheporkhe
Yoyne Freer asks in vol. 15007 about the meaning of orkheporkhe. She
correctly assumes it to be 'loshn-koydesh'. Niborski (fun loshn-koydesh
shtamike verter) gives two spellings: אורחי and פּרחיand ארחי-ditto, preferring the last.
His translation: vanderer, medine-geyer, betler. In his French-Yiddish
dict. he translates it: gueux, clochard. The 'wanderer' is in the first
part [shoresh alef-resh-khet - to travel. May be the wanderer gathers
flowers in the medine?
Lucas Bruyn
7)----------------------------------------------------
Date: May 31, 2005
Subject: re: orkheporkhe
It is an Aramaic expression which in Hebrew would be אורחים פּורחים. Literally it means "fleeting visitors", i.e., here today and gone tomorrow. It is used in Hebrew in the same sense as in Yiddish: vagrants, hoboes.
Amitai Halevi
8)----------------------------------------------------
Date: May 31, 2005
Subject: re: orkheporkhe
orkhey porkhey derives from the word oreakh, which is guest in Hebrew and
porekh which is some body who is literally here one moment gone the next.
Yaffa Glass
Leeds, England
9)----------------------------------------------------
Date: May 31, 2005
Subject: Re: orkheporkhe
On second thought, the second part of orkheporkhe might not be of
loshn-koydesh origin, but a Polish word in the guise of a losh-koydesh
word, shaped after the first part.
a 'porkh' is, according to Bernstein, a mangy person; fig. a good for
nothing. He relates this Polish word to another Polish word: parszywy -
scabby, mangy; fig. common, low class.
Weinreikh gives both words as:
parkh - canker, ulcer; (vulgar) rat, stingy person
parshive -mean, vile.
Lucas Bruyn
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End of Mendele Vol. 15.008
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