64 Friday, February 13, 1981

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Mark's Yiddish Grammar Published After 50-Years' Preparation

By ALLEN A. WARSEN
The late Yudel Mark, the
Yiddish linguist and
lexicographer, authored the
394-page "Gramatik Fun
Der Yidisher Klal
Shprakh" — "A Grammar of
Standard Yiddish." It was
published by the Congress
for Yiddish Culture and
printed by Waldon Press,
Inc. in the United States.
Yiddish had its inception
about 1,000 years ago in
Lorraine. Since then it
gradually evolved into one
of the world's great lan-
guages.
Yiddish works began to
be printed in the 16th Cen-
tury. However, Mendele
Moher Seforim (Shalom
Jacob Abramowitch),
1836-1917, was the first
great Yiddish author to
write his books according to

grammatical and syntacti-
cal rules.

Similarly, the great
early Yiddish periodi-
cals, Der Yid, Der Fraynd
and others, by following
correct grammatical
usage contributed to the
standardization of Yid-
dish.

Yudel Mark's work was
not the first Yiddish
grammar to appear. in Vil-
na in 1920, ZaImen Reyzen,
later martyred by the Nazis,
published his scholarly
"Grammar of the Yiddish
Language." In Moscow in
1927, A. Zaretskyrs "Practi-
cal Grammar" appeared. In
addition, numerous studies
dealing with certain aspects
of the Yiddish language ap-
peared at various times. E.
Falkowitch's "Yiddish" was
one of them.

It is noteworthy that
Aramaic, Ladino, and the
other Jewish languages, in-
cluding Yiddish, adopted
the Hebrew alphabet for
their orthographies, and re-
tained the traditional spel-
ling of the thousands of He-
brew words that they had
incorporated.
The various attempts to
write the Hebrew ex-
pressions phonetically in-
variably failed, as Jews
have always regarded He-
brew as their eternal and
sacred tongue — "lcishen
kodesh." To Jews, to write
Hebrew in an untraditional
manner would be unnatural
and tantamount to blas-
phemy.
There are, however,
words of Hebrew origin
in Yiddish (very few in
number) that can be spel-
led either way. For in-

KEEPING THE
DREAM ALIVE

By Don McEvoy

THE NIGHT CALLERS

0

ne of the occupational
haiards of being in the
human relations business in the 60's
was the threatening telephone call in
the middle of the night.
I thought that the changes that
have taken place in this country dur-
ing the past decade and a half would
have made that old form of intimida-
tion passe, but apparently I have
been mistaken. It seems to be hap-
pening all over again, all over the na-
tion, with growing intensity and fre-
quency.
So, I have decided to share with
some of you who may be receiving
these kinds of calls for the first time a
few of the techniques of coping
developed by those of us who ex-
perienced it earlier.
Rabbi Jacob Rothschild of Temple
Israel in Atlanta operated on the
theory that a good offense was the
best defense. When . the midnight
kooks got him out of bed and began
their streams of obscenities, he simp-
ly would give it right back to them.
For every four-letter word they would
throw at him he would match it with
a couple of his own. The callers were
usually so startled, according to Jack,
by the outburst of vulgarity from a
cultured clergyman that they would
quickly hang up`in a state of shock.
Mrs. Tilly took a quite different
approach."Miz" Tilly was
something else. She was in her 70's
when I knew her and quite frail but

with the vigor and ferocity of a lion.
In earlier years she was reputed to
have stopped more than one lynch
mob in its tracks by simply interpos-
ing her tiny body • between the
vigilantes and the victim and refusing
to move until they dispersed. She was
a woman both of great - daring and
great faith. She was what. every
Methodist ought to be.

Miz Tilly kept a phonograph rigg-
ed up beside her telephone and when
the threatening calls came to her, she
put on a vocal rendition of the Lord's
Prayer and went back to sleep.

For myself, I considered an
unlisted number, but decided that
had more drawbacks than advan-
tages. I wanted to be available to the
people whom I wanted to call me
whether they had access to a private .
number or not.
Fortunately the Grand Dragon of
the KKK in Georgia shared that feel-
ing. Late one night, after a scries of
particularly abusive calls, I turned to
the telephone directory and began to
search. Sure enough, there it was, a
home listing for the Dragon himself.

I dialed the number and waited un-
til a sleepy voice responded. "Calvin,
this is Don McEvoy. I just called to
let you know that your boys are doing
their job tonight. I'll call back later
and keep you posted on how they are
doing.' .
I was never bothered again.

stance, balebos-baal
(proprietor),
habais
baleboste-baalas habais
(proprietress),
balebatish-baal-habatish
(well-to-do); klezmer-
kley-zemer (musician);
shekhthoys (slaughter-
house), shekhtn (to
slaughter) are spelled
phoentically, but shokhet
is spelled traditionally.
These exceptional ex-
pressions, it should be
pointed out, in the course
of time, lost their original
meanings and pronunci-
ations.
Yiddish grammar, like
those of all literary lan-
guages, has its terminology,
rules and characteristics.
The Yiddish grammatical
terms, like the English, are
predominantly derived
from the Latin, including
the names of the parts of
speech, the vortclasn. They
are: der substantiv, noun;
der adyektiv; der pronom; di
prepositsyes; der verb; der
adverb; di konyunktsye,
conjunction; and di in-
teryektsye, interjection.
Others include: de de-
klinatsye, declention; . di
konyugatsye, conjugation;
prefiks; sufiks; and the
kazusn, cases; nominativ;
akuzativ; dativ; and
posesiv.
However, the punctua-
tion marks, di opshtel-
tseykhns, are mostly
Yiddish. They are: dos
pintl, period (.); di kome,
comma (,); der
fregtseykhn, question
mark (?); dos draypintl,
ellipsis (...); der tire, dash
(—); der makef, hyphen
(-); dos tsveypintl, colon
(:); dos kome-pintl,
semicolon (;); di
tsitirtseykhns, quotation
marks ("); di klamern;
parantheses . 0; der oys-
ruftseykhn, exclamation
mark (!); apostrof, apos-
trophe ('); and dos
shterndl, asterisk (*).
There are four
grammatical articles, artik-
len, in Yiddish: der
bashtimter, the definitive;
der umbashtimter, the in-
definite; der naytraler, the
neutral; and der negativer,
the negative. _
The genders, minim, are:
zokher-menlekh, mas-
culine; nekeyve-vayblikh,
feminine; and naytral, neu-
ter.
The grammatical num-
bers, tsoln, are: eyntsol,
singular; mertsol, plural.
The principal tenses,
tsaytn, are: di itstike
tsayt, present tense; di
fargangene tsayt, past
tense; di kumendike
tsayt, future tense; di
langfargangene tsayt,
past perfect tense; and di
tsveyte kumendike tsayt,
future perfect tense.
There is no present per-
fect tense.
The past tense is formed
by combining the auxiliary
verb hobn, have, with the
partitsip, participle. For in-
stance, ikh hob gegesn, I
ate. There also are other
auxiliary verbs.

One of the characteristics
of Yiddish are its two di-
minutive forms. They are

ALLEN WARSEN
formed by the suffixes of the
letters "lamed" (1) and
ayen-lamed-ayen (ele). For
example, bukh, bikhl,
bikhele.
In addition to smallness,
the diminutive expressions
describe heartiness, irony,
perjorative and other feel-
ings. For instance, "My
Moyshele, may God bless
him." "This is some
Moyshele!"
A characteristic of
Yudel Mark's grammar
are the numerous fas-
cinating folk-sayings that
illustrate the
grammatical rules. Some
are: "Oremkeyt is nit
kayn shand, kayn vigode
oykh nit." "Poverty is

neither a shame, nor is it
a comfort."
"Verter zol men vegn un
nit tseyln." "Words are to be
weighed, not counted."
"Opvashn ken men nor
dem gufe, nit di neshome."
"Only the body can be
washed, not the-soul."
"Vu a minyen yidn, dort
rut di shekhine." "Where
there is a `minyan' of (10)
Jews, there rests the Divine
Presence."
"Mayn rotsn iz az di kin-
der zoln blaybn baym wald
beshutfes." (Peretz). "It is
my wish that the chil
remain in the forest
partnership."
Yudel Mark's "A
Grammar of Standard
Yiddish," an outgrowth
of his "School
Grammar," published in
1921, had been in prep-
aration for more than
half-a-century.
Comprising all facets of
Yiddish grammar, it is
recommended for univer-
sity upper-undergraduate
and graduate Yiddish
courses, and for people who
desire to broaden and de-
epen their knowledge of the
Yiddish tongue.

New Production Technique
Aids Israeli Cotton Farmers

HAIFA — Israeli cotton
farmers are greatly increas-
ing the .value of their crops
and cutting production costs
thanks to a newly-patented
technique for extracting
cottonseed oil which re-
duces the conventional
two-hour process to .seven
minutes.
For years,. the principal
edible product from cotton-
seed has been a high-grade
oil, used in margarine,
salad oil, cooking oil and
shortening. Israel has been
exporting most of its cotton-
seed oil to Sweden.
Now, however, with the
new quick method of extrac-
tion scaled up to industrial
demands, the remaining
cottonseed is further proc-
essed -with about 50 percent
of it becoming a meal for
animal feed and the other
50 percent a flour for human
consumption.
The flour is mixed with
regular flour to make low
calorie bread, rolls and
cookies and dark
"health" bread. Cotton
flour costs about the
same as regular wheat
flour, but has a much
higher protein content
and fewer calories, and
products containing it
have a longer shelf life.
When baked, the cotton-
seed flour develops a
pleasant "nutty" taste.

The new extraction proc-
ess is being carried out in
Israel's north by a company
called Milounor, one of a
complex of industries owned
by a group of kibutzim.
company executives report
that, in addition to flour,
cattle feed and oil, a high-
protein meat extender can
now be obtained, thanks to a
process recently developed
by their scientists.

Officials at the Milounor
plant note that cottonseed,
like soybeans, is a relatively
cheap, high-protein mate-
rial. Moreover, cottonseed
has none of the after taste or
odor that soybeans have,
and thus can be given any
flavor or aroma. Its disad-
vantage is that it contains a
toxic substance, gossipol,
which must be removed be-
fore it can be processed for
human consumption.
Cottonseed flour can also
be made into a "cotton bran"
which is good for digestion.
A pilot plant for this bran is
already in preparation and
trial shipments have been
exported to Europe, South
Africa and Canada. A full-
scale plant is to begin prod-
uction by the end of the
year.

Cummings Calls
Reagan A Man
of His Word

LOS ANGELES (ZINS)
— President Reagan's
friend Ted Cummings re-
cently told Haaretz that the
President is a man of his
word who Will not be influ-
enced by the diverse groups
who supported his election,
including the fundamen-
talist Christian group
Moral Majority.
Cummings, 70, '.vaE -1111
in Austria. While a you. 71e
was an actor on the Yiddish
stage. He now heads a large
construction company and
is considered one of the
Reagan's few close personal
friends. The families a-re
often house guests at each
other's homes.
Cummings and his family
annually visit Israel where
former Prime Minister Yit-
zhak Rabin is considered a
friend of the family.

