מענדעלע

Dovid Braun wonders [6.136,4] about a dictionary in Morrie Feller's citation of Wisse's citation of Bashevis' reference to Peretz' readers.

They may have been using one of a number of dictionaries. Several of the options include:

Abraham Buchner, Otsar leshon ha-kodesh (Varsha: Avigdor b. Yoel, 1829)

Naphtali Shraga Feigensohn, Otsar shorshe leshon Rusya meturgam bi-sefat Ever uvi-sefat Ashkenaz (Vilna, 1874)

Joshua Steinberg, Polnyi russko-evreisko-nemetskii slovar (Vilna: Romm, 1890, 8th ed.)

Joshua Steinberg, Slovar drevne-evreiskago i russkago iazykov (Vilna: Romm, 1890, 9th ed.)

Iosif Dreisin, Polnyi russko-novoevreiskii slovar (Varshava: V.Til, 1894, 5th ed.)

Joshua Steinberg, Mishpat ha-urim: Otsar ha-milim le-Mikrae ha-kodesh (Vilna: Romm, 1897, 2nd ed.)

P. Kantorovich, Fremd-verter-bikhel: enthalt ale noytige fremde verter (Varsha: Kantorovich, 1900)

Yehuda Gur, Milon shel kis: me-Ivrit le-Rusit ve-Ashkenazit (Varsha: Tushiya, 1900)

Erich Bischoff, Judisch-deutscher dolmetscheer, ein praktisches jargonworterbuch (Leipzig: Th. Grieben's Verlag, 1901)

H. Klughaupt, Leshon limudim: Sefer milim Ivrit Ashkenazit u-Polanit ha-kolel (Brody, 1901)

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, Milon Ivri meturgam ashkenazit ha-meduberet ben ha-Yehudim ve-Rusit (Vilna: Y. Reznikovski, 1903)

Iosif Vaisman

for the record, these aren't synonyms. a tautology is a proposition that is necessarily true, either by virtue of the meaning of the words (e.g. a square has four sides) or by virtue of the rules of logic (e.g. if you gotta go, you gotta go). a pleonasm is a redundancy, esp a redundant lexical item, one that adds no meaning that is not already in the clause in which it occurs since its potential meaning is already conveyed by something else in that clause. all the cases we have seen here are pleonasms, as mikhl originally pointed out, not tautologies. more than you ever wanted to know... :)

ellen prince

ot iz a tsugob tsu mikhl hertsogs punkt [6.133] vegn litvishe pleonazmen: bay undz in der heym iz der kontrast geven nit tsvishn fisnoge un fisribe, nor tsvishn fisnoge un fisdogim.

elye kats

regarding eliyahu juni's citing of the word "kosher" [6.137] for its cultural baggage, I must agonizingly point out that it's one of the most difficult concepts i've ever dealt with in any of my translations from any of my languages. when i recently translated sholem asch's _God of Vengeance_ for a coming adaptation at an american theater, i had to struggle with the adjective "kosher" as a leitmotif that needled its way into every aspect of the text.

To clarify its multivalence and omnipresence, i inserted the yiddish word {in squiggly parentheses} into the english translation wherever it appears in the original yiddish and no matter how I rendered it in each given spot: "pure, innocent, virginal" and a dozen others. this was to be the version used for the adaptation and as a guide in the staging-though not of course as the final script. in the final version, appearing this week in the current issue of Der Pakn-Trager, i naturally omitted the original yiddish word and its squiggly bookends; however my introduction to the play highlights the major problems of rendering the text--especially the word "kosher" and its involvement in an intricate network of virtue and vice, good and bad, "kosher and treyf".

actually I did use the english word "kosher" once in the translation, when the wife says:

'The goy may be treyf but his money is kosher.'

the only thing that really gets lost in translation is: _time_.

i realize that both the play and the translation will raise a lot of hackles--but then, since neither is kosher, i have only myself to blame....

my next project, aside from the Thomas Mann selection i'm working on now, is a collection of Ansky stories for an american publisher....

Joachim Neugroschel

I am interested in the origins of Yiddish and new theories about the same. Can you suggest any recent material? I am looking for Weireich's book, but suspect there is more interesting readings around. I greatly appreciate any pointers, titles, sources etc. Thanks.

Barbara Levin

In Shloyme Shvart's lid "Shtolener Univers" baym sof fun der driter strofe vu er redt fun hoykhe binyonim, volkn-kratsers, vos tsien zikh hoykh, hoykh azh biz "tsu dem eyntsikn--gegartn eynem" -- farshtey ikh nisht vos dos vort "gegartn" meynt. Kh'ob gezukht umetum in Vaynraykhn, in Harkavin, in a Daychishn verterbukh un afile in a Poylishn un nisht gekent gefinen. Efsher ken eyner fun di Mendelyaner mir helfn. A sheynem dank.

Khane Faygle Turtletaub