Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 15.030
September 28, 2005
1) sklotshe (Shimon Frank)
2) Khayim Shvarts (Hershl Hartman)
3) grine bleter (Bob Rothstein)
4) Yiddish and the Past Conditional (Lucas Bruyn)
5) Yiddish and the Past Conditional (Seymour Shenkman)
6) Yiddish and the Past Conditional (Andrey Bredstein)
7) Yiddish and the Past Conditional (Ben Sadock)
8) Majer Bogdanski (Arieh Lebowitz)
1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: September 25, 2005
Subject: sklotshe
An old friend remembers the following song from 70 years ago in Eastern
Europe that his mother would sing:
vi zenen meyne zibn gite yor
un az nisht aleh, khotshe nor a por
eppes fun dem lebn khotshe
tsi iz den meyn lebn fun sklotshe.
The word sklotche, he recalls, may have meant sawdust.
Please send comments to sfyhf@aol.com
Shimon Frank
2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: September 25, 2005
Subject: Re: Khayim Shvarts
in opruf oyf der onfrage fun Shloyme-Khayim Cohen (Vol. 15.029), gefin ikh
in dem band "yidishe dikhter in gezang," aroysgegebn fun yidishn muzik
farband, 1966, geklibn durkh Mordkhe Yardeyni, dos lid fun Khayim Shvarts
"vandert volkns," mit muzik fun Yardeyni'n.
In response to the query by Shloyme-Khayim Cohen, I find in the volume
"Yiddish Poets in Song," published by the Jewish Music Alliance, 1966,
editor Mordecai Yardeini, Khayim Shvarts's poem vandert volkns (Wander,
Clouds) with music composed by Yardeini.
Hershl Hartman
3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: September 25, 2005
Subject: Re: grine bleter
In 15.029 Pavel Greenberg asked about a _Forverts_ reference to the song
"grine bleter." In her column of April 16, 2003 Chana Mlotek quotes a
letter from Frida Reynes of Netanya about a visit that Itzik Manger and Ber
Horowitz paid to the Yidisher Lerer-Seminar in Vilna in 1931 or 1932.
Manger praised the students (among whom was the letter-writer) and said (in
her paraphrase): "aykh kumt avade a matone, ober vos, velkhe? ikh vil aykh
shenken a lid. oyb es vet aykh gefeln, vet ir zingen un zikh dermonen on
undz - far aykh!"
Manger began to sing:
shpil, tsigayner, mir dos lidl,
grine bleter oyfn fidl,
tra-la-la.
shpil, tsigayner, a gantse nakht,
nor gehulyet, nor gelakht,
tra-la-la.
shpil, tsigayner, alts vos sheyn,
alts vos sheyn muz fargeyn!
tra-la-la.
shpil, tsigayner, alts vos fayn,
royt iz blut, royt iz vayn,
tra-la-la.
Bob Rothstein
4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: September 26, 2005
Subject: Re: Yiddish and the Past Conditional
Norman Buder (Vol. 15.029) asks a question about Yiddish grammar. After
giving a series of interesting examples he remarks: `I am puzzled by this
preference for the past conditional even when the present conditional would
seem to be more logical. Can anybody throw light on this phenomenon?'.
I will leave the answer to a teacher of Yiddish, but I would like to make
some comments.
1. The `conditional' tenses in English form a problem for both teachers and
students (both foreign and native speakers) of English. The terminology is
confused. We have a present conditional tense and a perfect conditional
tense and several types of conditional sentences, often called `first',
`second' and `third' conditional. In the formation of these tenses
auxiliary verbs are used.
If Norman Buder says that a certain form of conditional `would seem to be
more logical' to him, what is the logic he is referring to? A German or
French student of English or Yiddish will have a different `logic' than an
English student.
2. The Yiddish tense system, like Hebrew, basically has only two tenses:
the present and the past e.g. ikh shraybe/ikh hob geshribn / I have
written. The basic rule for the conditional in Yiddish seems to be that if
a condition is not met, it is considered to be a thing of the past.
In the examples given the `logic' seems to be self-evident:
1.Oyb es volt geven in shtub a bisl bronfn, volt ikh genumen.
There never was any alcohol, so I never took it.
2.Volt ikh geven a rov, ken ikh nit keyn toyre; volt ikh geven a soykher,
hob ikh nit keyn skhoyre.
I never was a rabbi, so I never knew Torah in the past and don't know Torah
now either; I never was a merchant, I never had any stock in the past and I
have no stock now either.
Lucas Bruyn
5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: September 26, 2005
Subject: Re: Yiddish and the Past Conditional
My response to this question was quick and intuitive.The same message seems
to be conveyed whether present or past "conditionals" are used. Use of the
past tense seems that the context becomes more abstract (less personal, ergo
more logical). Use of the present tense may make the listener (reader) more
involved than use of the past tense, which takes the scene further and
farther away.
Seymour Shenkman
6)----------------------------------------------------
Date: September 27, 2005
Subject: Re: Yiddish and the Past Conditional
In responce to Norman Buder's post I would suggest the following: Slavic
languages in general and Russian in particular significantly influenced
Yiddish grammatical choice. Having in mind that Russian has only past
conditional, there is no wonder that Yiddish prefers it in most cases. To
my mind, present conditional in Yiddish sounds awkward and artificial.
Best,
Andrey Bredstein
7)----------------------------------------------------
Date: September 28, 2005
Subject: Re: Yiddish and the Past Conditional
Norman Buder raises an important issue in his recent post about the
conditional in Yiddish. I do wish to disagree, however, with his assertion
that "every beginner learns that the present tense of the Yiddish
conditional is formed by using the auxiliary verb "voltn" plus the
infinitive? and that the past conditional is formed by using the same
auxiliary plus the past participle." My beginning students, for instance,
do not learn this, for the simple reason that it is incorrect. I have heard
other people make this claim, so it is apparently a widely held belief; my
suspicion is that it is simply a calque from English, e.g. "I would" vs. "I
would have." Yiddish does have a variety of strategies for expressing
conditionality, including voltn + past participle and voltn + infinitive,
but unlike English it does not have a way of distinguishing between past
and present, nor of marking counterfactuality. Perhaps in some dialects one
can make such distinctions, but I have never encountered this. In any case,
in Yiddish literature voltn + past participle is the most common form of
the conditional regardless of tense, as Norman Buder's examples illustrate
nicely. For a good catalogue of forms of the conditional see Sholem
Aleichem's monologue "Ven ikh bin rotshild" ? and note that the title
itself is conditional.
College Yiddish skirts the issue, introducing the common form of the
conditional (voltn + pp) without mentioning tense or counterfactuality, but
stating that "other ways of forming conditional sentences will be explained
at a more advanced stage"(p. 253). I owe my own understanding of the
subject matter to Hanan Bordin, who also pointed out what a rich source of
conditionals "Ven ikh bin rotshild" is.
Ben Sadock
8)----------------------------------------------------
Date: September 28, 2005
Subject: Re: Majer Bogdanski
Please note that at least two rather detailed obituaries of the noted
Jewish socialist and Yiddish cultural activist Majer Bogdanski appeared in
the British press, one in The Guardian and one in the Socialist Worker. A
smaller item was published by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency [JTA] news
service. Sources, and the first part of these, appear below.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,3604,1567662,00.html
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=7447
http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/articles/2005/09/20/news/world/yiddishist0916.txt
Arieh Lebowitz
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End of Mendele Vol. 15.030
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