מענדעלע

nekhtn farnakht hot zikh mir gekholemt gor a modner kholem.

a bavuster profesor fun harvard universitet hot ongeshribn an artikl, vos derklert dem oylem zeyer protimdik, az di englishe shprakh vet tsi frier tsi shpeter shtarbn, makhmes alts veyniker mentshn hobn kheyshek zey tsu nutsn. bald hobn zikh opgerufn etlekhe goyishe meyvinim, dervayzndik az der profesor iz nisht gerekht oder efsher a bisl gerekht, nor.. _kimat ale bayshtayerungen zaynen dershinen oyf yidish_!!!

s'iz do geven bloyz eyn khidesh. a bal-ivre mitn nomen lewis botwin, a mumkhe vos farnemt zikh mit telekomunikatsye un vos arbet inem mizrekhdikn nathan college, hot publikirt zayn meynung _oyf a geshmakn english_.

khaveyrim, lakht nisht vegn mayn shtusikn kholem, beser volt geven az ir tut a trakht un git mir an eytse vi azoy basheydn dem inyen. oyb ir veyst oykh nisht, vel ikh muzn vayter brekhn mayn kop.

peter kluehs wehrheim, germany

Five years ago, our fellow Mendelyaner Michael Steinlauf gave a fascinating and insightful lecture at Gratz College, where he was then employed, about the revival of Jewish memory in Poland. Recently Michael gave me a copy of that talk. I liked it so much that I posted it, with his permission, on the Web. Interested khaverim armed with browsers may check it out at this address:

http://www.philly.infi.net/~awcassel/steinlauf.html

Andrew Cassel

The effect of putting one's thoughts into writing and of submitting them to the criticisms of others is quite amazing, and that is even before the criticisms start coming in!

I had been thinking for quite a time about the fact that the the writing system used for the majority of Yiddish words (those of Germanic-Slavic origin) is pretty "phonetic", that is to say that there is a close correspondence between the written letters and the spoken sounds and that this should enable a computer program to be devised which would translate, into Yiddish letters, Yiddish transcribed into English letters (as we read all the time on Mendele). That would be as long as a uniform system of transcription were used. I recently submitted a rather long-winded posting to Mendele concerning this.

It has now become clear to me that my idea was hopelessly over-optimistic. Such a computer program could hardly be expected to know, for instance, that a word such as "farrikhtn" contains a double letter reysh. Or that "kind" (a child) though written with a final letter daled is prounouced with a final "t" sound. Yiddish spelling is just not _that_ "phonetic" (or phonemic). I don't think that of any language is.

And then there is the problem of the Hebrew-Aramaic words.

Of course it is possible to accurately tranliterate a Yiddish text into English letters. And of course a standardized system of writing Yiddish in "Latin" letters could be derived but that would mean Yiddish learners having to come to grips with two different standard ways of writing the language. What I had in mind was something quite different---somebody who perhaps does not know the Yiddish alphabet at all being able to unworriedly write the language in English letters as he or she hears it, its being then automatically turned into "correct" Yiddish spelling by computer.

The problem of the trouble-free transmission of Yiddish and Hebrew over the internet remains to be solved (I seem to remember that there is now a mailing list devoted to this topic for Yiddish). I naively thought that I was suggesting a solution for Yiddish which would could co-exist with the sort of transcribed Yiddish used on Mendele. How wrong can you get!

David Lidsky

I am collecting materials for the electronic exhibition on World Wide Web with the working title "Jewish Czernowitz: People and Books". The exhibition will focus on cultural history of the city, language situation, biographical and bibliographical information about writers, poets, artists, and scholars who lived and/or worked in Czernowitz. The exhibition will be "hosted" by Shtetl (http://sunsite.unc.edu/yiddish/shtetl.html).

Currently my list of Yiddish authors with the "strong" Czernowitz connections include (spelling according to the Library of Congress Name Authority File): Moishe Altman, Shlomo Bickel, Nathan Birnbaum, M.H.Breitman, Iosif Burg, Shimshon Ferst, Muni Fried, Jakow Frydman, Meir Harats, Hirsch Leib Kazber (Vainshtein), Joseph Kissman, Gershon Kizshner, Moshe Krinitz, Chaim Lecker, A.Y.Lobel, Itzik Manger, Hayim Melamud, Itzhak Panner, Mordkhe Schaechter, Bella Schaechter-Gottesman, Ikhil Shraibman, Nokhum Shtif, Eliezer Steinbarg, Jacob Sternberg, Lobel Taubes, Josif Trachtenberg, Kubi Vol, Ruth Wisse.

I would greatly appreciate any additions to this list and any hints about non-obvious sources of biobibliographical data (especially about lesser known authors and about publications in periodicals).

Although Czernowitz German-Jewish literature (Rosa Auslander, Paul Celan, Alfred Gong, Alfred Kittner, Alfred Margul-Sperber, Zelma Meerbaum, Immanuel Weissglas, and many other) is documented much better, I would be grateful for any interesting information, particularly about German-Yiddish literary relations.

Other relevant information would be welcomed as well.

Iosif Vaisman