Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 15.022
August 7, 2005
1) Standardised Yiddish Romanization (Lucas Bruyn)
2) Itsik Fefer's poems (Jeanette Greenberg)
3) Yiddish in L.A. (Bob Berkovitz)
4) Yiddish in L.A. (Martin Jacobs)
5) Sholem Asch, "Der Amerikaner" (Larry Rosenwald)
6) Attribution of a well-known quote (Cary Karp)
1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 23, 2005
Subject: Standardised Yiddish Romanization
For those Mendelyaner interested in the history and details of the
Standardized Yiddish Romanization I refer to:
1. David L. Gold. A Guide to the Standardized Yiddish Romanization. Jewish
Language Review 5 (1985) pp. 96-103
2. pp. VI-VIII of the preface to Publications no. 3 of the Linguistic
circle of New York, 1969: Note on Transcription, Transliteration and
Citation of Titles.
3. The many entries on the subject in The Mendele Review and on the
Mendele List.
For the transcription of personal names, see Leonard Prager's
introduction to his Yiddish Literary and Linguistic Periodicals and
Miscellanies, a selective annotated bibliography.
Lucas Bruyn
2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 24, 2005
Subject: Itsik Fefer's poems
My friend requests words to two poems by Itsik Fefer.
She once had a phonograph record, with Fefer reading the text of
"ikh bin a yid" un "khasene in biro-bidzshan".
the second ends:
"oy iz dos a khasene,
a freylekher geven.
di velt hot aza khasene
nokh keyn mol nit gezen.
Please send us the text of one or both of these poems.
a sheynem dank,
Jeanette Greenberg
3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 25, 2005
Subject: Re: Yiddish In L.A.
Yiddish in L.A.
My point about Yiddish transcription is simply that a consistent method
is best. Teaching Yiddish, or any other subject, is made difficult by the
requirement that a student memorize exceptions. Surely, the problem of
maintaining consistent Yiddish transcription is not as serious as it is
with other languages.
An English illustration that many Mendele readers will recognize is Shaw's
alternative spelling of "fish", G-H-O-T-I. Shaw derived new orthography
for this word from "gh" as in "cough," "o" as in "women," and "ti" as in
"nation."
Bob Berkovitz
4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: July 25, 2005
Subject: Re: Yiddish in L.A,
Just one more word about Yiddish transcription, if I may A Mendele
correspondent recently questioned whether the YIVO system was valid for
French speakers, citing the fact that "sh" means nothing to a French
person. I would like to point out that the Niborski-Vaisbrot dictionary,
intended for French speakers, uses the YIVO system in transliterating words
of loshn-koydesh origin, and in particular uses the "sh". Is it really so
difficult to learn something a little bit different, for the sake of having
a universal system that facilitates world-wide communication"
Martin Jacobs
5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: August 6, 2005
Subject: Sholem Asch, "Der Amerikaner"
Dear friends, tayere mendelyaner -
I'm trying to find a story by Sholem Asch called, I think, "Der
Amerikaner." The story is recorded under this title by Chaim Ostrowsky on
Jewish Classical Literature (New York: Folkways Records, 1960), and the
text is printed in the notes for the recording, but I've been unable to
find the story in printed collections of Asch?s work, and have wondered
whether Ostrowsky might have extracted it from a longer work.
I should say what the story is about, in the hope that it will jog
someone's memory. It tells of a"biznes-man" long in America traveling with
a group of green immigrants to New York. One of the immigrants is a
pianist, a virtuoso with grand ambitions. But then the businessman gets
hold of him:
Well, Mr. Paderevski, I want to tell you something. . . . kunst, shmunst
["art, shmart"]. We've heard this sort of thing before, and with your
piano-playing there you're not going to surprise anyone. No, sir. America
needs business, and that's all! [my translation, as are all subsequent
ones]
And then, with a wealth of convincing detail and an abundance of English,
the businessman proposes an alternative scenario: not New York but a city
in the Midwest, say Memphis or Kansas City; not a grand public concert,
but private lessons, friendships with the ladies, connections with the
local "reverend" and his pretty daughter, good clothing, perhaps a concert
in a private house at a "five o'clock dinner," a music school ("it's a
business!"); and, at the end, money in the bank, a car, a house, a young
wife and two children playing in the garden. And Asch's young man is no
hero. He does not turn away from the American's appeals to assert the
cause of art. Instead, he is seduced by them: "suffused with joy, a song
in his heart, the young man listened to the American's speech, and it
resounded in his ears like the most beautiful of concerts"
Any ideas or suggestions of where to find this Yiddish text in a printed
source? I'd be most grateful!
All the best, al dos guts,
Larry Rosenwald
6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: August 7, 2005
Subject: Attribution of a well-known quote
The aphorism, "a language is a dialect with an army and a navy" ("A shprakh
iz a dyalekt mit an armey un flot."), appeared in an article published by
Max Weinreich in 1945 ("Der YIVO un di problemen fun undzer tsayt", YIVO
Bletter, vol 25 nr.1, pp. 3-18). Although Weinreich is often cited as the
author of this statement, his text clearly presents it as having been told
to him by someone attending a lecture during a graduate course he had held
a few years previously. This person was not one of the regular course
participants, but was a high school teacher who had immigrated to America
as a child. ("Tsvishn di tsuherers iz eyn mol oykh arayngefaln a lerer fun
a bronkser hayskel. Er iz gekumen keyn amerike vi a kind ...") Nothing is
said about where he, in turn, might have picked up the phrase and there
have been various suggestions about it having first appeared in an earlier
publication.
In a contribution to Mendele in October 1996
(http://shakti.trincoll.edu/~mendele/vol06/vol06.077), Joshua Fishman made
reference to the same statement having been made by Max Weinreich in the
proceedings of a conference in 1967, where "someone in the audience" of an
earlier lecture was credited as its source. Fishman suspected that he may
have been that person and was interested in locating the corresponding
documentation in the YIVO archives. Shortly thereafter, he acknowledged
receipt of that information and cited the article in YIVO Bletter quoted
above (http://shakti.trincoll.edu/~mendele/vol06/vol06.087).
Although Joshua Fishman recognized that both he and Max Weinreich might
have heard the phrase from a third party ("Ober efsher hobn mir dos beyde
fun an andern vos is oykh geven 'do in zal' beys vaynraykh hot geredt."),
recent references to it cite Fishman as its author. If Fishman's biographic
details are correctly described at
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/SUSE/Spencer_PRproject/indexaffiliates.htm he
cannot have been the person described in the 1945 Weireich article. Having
been born in the United States in 1926 he was not an immigrant, and it does
not seem likely that he would have had a teaching position in the Bronx in
the early 1940's.
If Prof. Fishman reads this note, perhaps he could comment on the
correctness with which I have pieced together the details reported here.
The relevant passage in the 1946 article is online at
http://www.bisso.com/ujg/pix/armyNavyFull.jpg.
Cary Karp
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End of Mendele Vol. 15.022
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