Weinreich's "History of the Yiddish Language. Vol. 1" (Yale 2008), p. A 43-44 (the notes at the end) contains the following intriguing section (emphasis mine):
Late survival of Aramaic [§2.8]: ... Scholarly Maskilim have used Targumic for humorous effect until modem times. A humorist from the former Hungarian regions, very likely eastern Slovakia, has one of his characters say: “Krapple depowedlajo, tawjo Mikrapplo [!] dezworechanjo, dos heiß of [!] gallchisch: Powedelkröpplech [!] senn besser ais wie Zworachkröpplich [!].” Cf. P. Schwarz, Reb Simmel Andrichau (Vienna, 1878), 47. To achieve a superclimax (§1.6, note), Targumic is called galkhish ‘Latin’ here (§3.3).
For clarity, I'm providing the Targumic Aramaic with glossing below:
As Weinreich says, the source of this passage is a purim play published by P. Schwarz in Vienna 1878 titled "Reb Simmel Andrichau". Luckily, it is now available on Google Books, so let's have a look. The dramatis personae page of the booklet says "The Handlung spielt am Purim in einer kleinen jüdischen Gemeinde Ungarns" ("The events take place on Purim in a small Jewish community in Hungary") and I wonder what made Weinreich think it was in Eastern Slovakia, aka my homeland.
Sure enough, we do make a pastry we call krepľe and fill them with both plum jam (Powedel) and cheese curds (Zworach, cf. Slovak tvaroh) and yes, obviously the former are far superior to the latter. However, we do not refer to plum/damson jam as Powidl or povidla, that is - as far as I can tell - a very distincly Czech and Austrian thing; to us in Eastern Slovakia, it's simply šľivkovi ľekvar (plum/damson jam).
So I checked the text (printed in Fraktur, mind you) for some more clues, and sure enough, there they were. Like this on p. 6:
Mein Masel ober, kummt n' Orel mit e Sack auf'n Ruckenund thut sich tomid in die Stub umgucken;...Auf einmol sogt er: "No Schmerlitschko! Zo mie date"Sa koßek Stschiebro lebbo Slate,"Hrube wellize - namo duscha - hrube wellize"Jak wasche dwje Tschewitze?"
And that is nothing but good and proper, if a bit mangled, Czech. In modern orthography:
[My luck now, there comes an Orel with a sack on his backand starts looking around in the room;]...No Šmerličko, co mi dáte,"za kousek stříbra, nebo zlaté,"hrubé velice - na mou duši - hrubé velice"jak vaše dvě střevíce?"
"Well, Šmerličko, what will you give me,"for a piece of silver, or gold coins,"very thick - I swear - very thick"like two of your shoes?"
It should be noted that Schwarz provides translations of many Hebrew words used in the play - there are 263 endnotes for 49 pages of text, translating even common ones, like "Jeschiewe", "Emmes" and "Megille". And so "Orel" is glossed as "uncircumcised, gentile" and the entire passage I cited is translated, as are many others that feature dialogues in Czech.
Now the question is, what kind of Czech. The use of the word "hode" < "hody" by the aforementioned Orel (p. 8, translated as "Fasching" = carnival, religious feast) suggest that at least the Orel is from Moravia (cf. Český jazykový atlas vol 2., map 222). That the events take place somewhere in or around Moravia is further supported by a reference to Proßnitz, today's Prostějov, as a place one of the characters went to study in.
So alas, not Eastern Slovakia, but rather Western Slovakia, if we are to believe the author. And I don't see why we shouldn’t, when according to the 1851 census, Western Slovakia (bordering Moravia) was the part of the country (which back then was a part of the Kingdom of Hungary) with the highest concentration of Jewish communities, on par even with Eastern Slovakia. The image below is taken from the Historical atlas of the population of Slovakia.
And that's before considering the language of the play which seems to blend Yiddish with Standard German and South German varieties - the auxiliary "thut" in the passage cited above strikes me as very Austrian - and maybe even various registers of Yiddish, presumably for humorous effect. But that's another story.
No comments:
Post a Comment