מענדעלע

Sema Chaimovitz Menora asked [6.141,7] about the origin of Yiddish word _tsvinter_. In Yiddish it came by way of Ukrainian (_tsvintar_), but originally it was one of those Greek words (_koimeterion_) that became truly international: Latin _coemeterium_, Italian _cimitirio_, English _cemetery_, Dalmatian _czimitar_, Polish _cmentarz_, Slovac _cinter_, Hungarian _tzinterem_, etc. are all closely related.

Iosif Vaisman

Litvaks from some areas have a funny vowel where other Litvaks have ey, for standard Yiddish oy.

This vowel actually sounds a lot like a German o-umlaut followed by y, or halfway between oy and ey. You can hear it in the Yiddish and Hebrew of Lubavitchers, and my grandfather, from near Kovne, had it too, despite being a vehement misnaged (!). I've always imagined that was what was meant in Ro"yte Pomerantsn, though I don't know where the storytellers were from.

Bob Hoberman

Al Grand asked [6.145] if zakh is as good as zikh. Yes. Actually, it's preferred when the emphasis is not on the "zikh". Vos hert zakh? But if you're emphasizing the "zikh", you say "zikh", "tut dos nisht far mir, tut dos far zikh aleyn".

As for umlaut over the o in royte, it's a totally nonstandard spelling, and I think it's nonsensical. Probably, it was added to give the appearance of word in a foreign, Germanic language, which Yiddish actually is. I'd ignore the umlaut. Royte is the YIVO standard transcription, and is even the way most people write it who don't follow YIVO in their transcription of Yiddish. If you ignore the umlaut, all is well.

By the way, I'm a card carrying non-academic, but I admit some of my best friends are academics.

Mark David

zix is usually unstressed and pronounce variously, and correctly, as zex, zax, even zx in different regions. In my own speech, the zix variant is usually apparent only under stress.

As for the o"y in Olsvanger: It's probably intended to convey the quality of a regionally restricted vowel in the Yiddish of Kurland and parts of neighboring Lithuania. I would rather try to convey it with "eu" as distinct from the better known Litvish "ey" in "breyt" (mit puter), "reyt" (red), etc.

Mikhl Herzog

David Lidsky asks [6.144] about the possibility that Scott meant Yiddish when the heroine of Ivanhoe was said to be speaking Hebrew.

This may be a _very_ far-fetched analysis, but the heroine of Ivanhoe was modeled after a very real and living person, the Philadelphian beauty Rebecca Gratz. Scott is said to have been taken with her because she was alleged to have been a dazzler. She was born in Philadelphia on Mar. 4, 1781 and died there, unmarried, on Aug. 27, 1869.

Since Gratz was the daughter of Michael Gratz (b. Langendorf in 1740) it does not seem likely that Yiddish would be part of her skills.

Of course there is a limit to how much Scott might have appropriated from Rebecca Gratz' person, and I may have gone too far, but it is a distant possibility, in which case Scott probably really meant Hebrew and not Yiddish.

Sorry, that's the best I can do (but I can juggle and play Yiddish tunes on the clarinet at the same time which is somewhat better than my answer to this question).

Dan Leeson Los Altos, California

re david lidsky's query re rebecca in _ivanhoe_, accg to philadelphia lore, scott's model for this character was philadelphia's rebecca gratz. i don't know how true this is but i would certainly bet that rebecca gratz was more likely to have studied hebrew than to have spoken yiddish. perhaps someone else here has more information.

ellen prince

David Lidsky asked about Yiddish translations of Ivanhoe [6.144,6]. There were at least two: Ayvenhoye, oder Dos umkehrung fun dem krayts ritser (Varsha: A. Ginz, 1879) and Der shvartser ritser (Varsha: Bikher far ale, 1920). I don't know the names of translator(s).

Iosif Vaisman