Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 5.098
August 27, 1995

1) Altfrenkish (Stanley Werbow)
2) Altfrenkish (Zachary Baker)
3) Altfrenkish (Peter Kluehs)
4) Goldfaden (Bob Rothstein)
5) Gesosn (Sam Abrash)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 27 Aug 1995 17:09:56 -0500
From: s.werbow@mail.utexas.edu
Subject: Altfrenkish/altfraenkisch

The expression "altfrenkish" may have special connotations in Yiddish
including perhaps reference to Sephardic persons, but the word has a long
history in German, as a glance at the entry in Kluge-Goetze-Mitzka's
Etymologisches Woerterbuch (19th edition, p.17) shows. There the
expression is taken to have designated good old fashioned German customs
and people as opposed to  newly imported, 14th century, French courtly
customs. The article quotes Hugo von Trimberg's Renner, ca.1300: Man
sprichet gern, swen man lobet hiute, er si der alt frenkischen liute.

Stanley Werbow

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 95 07:22:56 PDT
From: bm.yib@rlg.stanford.edu
Subject: Altfrenkish (continued)

More about "altfrenkish":

The word is attested to in Y. M. Lifshits's "Yudish-Rusisher verterbikh"
(Zhitomir, 1876), where it is defined as "starinnyi, [sta?]rikovskii" (p.
23) = antique, old-fashioned.  (I could use some help from our
Slavicists.)

More importantly, "altfrenkish" appears in the "Groyser verterbukh fun
der yidisher shprakh" (vol. 3, p. 1371), with a rather long entry.  The
etymology given is "Mhd [Mittelhochdeutsch]:  alt- vrenkish."  The
definition:  "Altfeterish [=fartsaytik], nor genitst ofter un s'rov mit
baytam fun nit-gefeln."  A number of expressions are given
("a[ltfrenkish]e malbushim, a[ltfrenkish] mebl, a[ltfrenkish]er shteyger
fun mishpokhe-lebn").  The pedigree, as I suggested in my previous
posting, is venerable.  The earliest citation given is to a phrase in the
"Mayse-bukh," one of the classics of Old Yiddish literature:  "Er velt
sheyne fingerlekh koyfn un alt frenkesh ding, er zolt im nit tsu tayer
zayn." The first edition of the "Mayse-bukh" was published in Basel,
1602. (The edition cited is Amsterdam, 1700/01.) The "Groyser verterbukh"
then proceeds to give other citations appearing in western and eastern
Yiddish sources over the following centuries.  One of the later citations
given (for "altfrenkishkeyt") is from Yankev Glatshteyn/Jacob
Glatshteyn's "In tokh genumen": "Di altfrenkishkeyt fun Yehoyeshes
iberzetsung vet ersht krign nokh mer onzen."

Hakitser, "altfrenkish" is a common Yiddish word, used for centuries, and
attested to in numerous readily available reference sources.  (And it's a
good thing it's spelled with an alef, since the "Groyser verterbukh"
begins and ends with that letter.)

Zachary Baker

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: 27 Aug 1995 20:36:00 +0200
From: pete@pko.rhein-main.de
Subject: Altfrenkish

vil ikh entfern tsu Zakhary Bakers frage vegn altfrenkish. do in
Daytshland banutsn mir zikh nokh keseyder mitn adyektiv altfraenkisch az
me meynt altmodish oder konzervativ, spetsiel vos shaykh bgodim, mebl un
dos firn zikh alpi di minhogim fun frierdike tsaytn. avade bazirt der
oysdruk oyf dem fakt, az di Franken vos voynen arum Nuernberg zenen alz
geven zeyer a konzervativer sheyvet.

s'volt geven interesant aroystsugefinen, far vos me zol hobn gerufn frenk
bloyz di shpanishe sefardim fun Turkey un nisht oykh di yidn vos shtamen
fun dem land Franken.

peter kluehs
wehrheim, germany

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 27 Aug 1995 23:11:39 -0400 (EDT)
From: rar@slavic.umass.edu
Subject: Goldfaden (was: Hotsmakh)

Dr. Mordkhe Schaechter was kind enough to call my attention to a fact of
Avrom Goldfaden's biography that I had misstated in my posting about
Hotsmakh (5.064).  I wrote that Goldfaden was "from Romania."  In fact,
as Dr. Schaechter writes, while it was in Romania that he established the
modern Yiddish theater, "geboyrn gevorn iz er in der ukrayine, deheyne
inem shtetl novo-konstantinov (nisht vayt fun zhitomir).  Oyf yidish hot
dos shtetl geheysn nay-kosntin... Avek fun der ukrayine iz Goldfaden in
elter fun etlekhe un draysik."

Bob Rothstein

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 1995 09:41:30 -0400 (EDT)
From: abrash@urvax.urich.edu
Subject: Gesosn

In Mendele 5.077 Rick Gildmeister passed on the following joke:

   A Litvak joins the army, and it's time to do rifle practice. Guns are
   blazing, and then the sergeant yells, "Cease fire!!" The Litvak
   proceeds to give a blast. The sergeant says, "Hey, don't you have
   ears, what did I say? The Litvak says, "You said, "Cease, fire," hob
   ikh gesosn!

As a novice to Yiddish, I don't know what the punch line means.  Could some
Mendelnik enlighten me?

Sam Abrash

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End of Mendele Vol. 5.098