[Cz-L] RE: czernowitz-l digest: March 01, 2010

These daily messages serve as mind medicine for the memory.

The only swearing I recall was by my dad who was Hungarian. He had learned German in the Austrian army during WW I. "Schlag treffen," was the only word I recall.

The only Yiddish I recall was from Onkle Yankle who had a tiny store. He would stand in front of it with a permanent smile rocking on his heels. If some Yiddish lilt got into my German speech, mother or grandmother would say, "Yiddle nicht."

It's odd, I don't recall when and how I learned Romanian. My kindergarten was run by a German woman and when my grandmother died and mother wasn't well, the German woman took me to the Black Sea with her daughter. I found some letters I had written to mother from near Mamaia in German. At Scoala Elite, everything was in Romanian, as I recall, but we had French and German daily I think. Dad spoke a dozen languages, all with a Hungarian accent. What we spoke in Cz, I think, was "Hochdeutsch." The only "looking down" on others regarding language was my mother who sounded critical of the way my paternal grandmother spoke German. Hungarian has Mongolian roots and if your first language is Hungarian, all other languages are a bit difficult.

American English of today reveals a strong Yiddish influence compared to American English of the 1940s. If you watch TV talk shows in America you'll also note a lot of hand gestures by young Americans that they never would have used a couple of generations ago. Jews and Italians would be fully justified to sue them for poor imitations because Anglo Saxons seldom get the knack of fully expressive "hand talking."

This reminds me of an old Jewish joke which may have come from Czechoslovakia, as I recall. An upwardly mobile Jewish family, wanting their little son to learn the local language properly, sent him to a school run by some Christian monks. During a school holiday they visited the school to see how their son was progressing. They approached a monk in his brown robes and sandals, introduced themselves very formally in the best local accent they could muster and asked where they might find their son.

The monk shrugged and pointed in a direction, saying: "Geh tsu dem gortn. Die Kinderlekh shpilen dortn."

By the way, does anyone know what the former Strada Traian is now called?

Andy Halmay,

> -----Original Message-----
> From: czernowitz-l_at_list.cornell.edu
> Sent: Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:54:27 -0500
> To: czernowitz-l_at_list.cornell.edu
> Subject: czernowitz-l digest: March 01, 2010
>
> CZERNOWITZ-L Digest for Monday, March 01, 2010.
>
> 1. RE: [Cz-L] Czernowitz Directories - upcoming release & street
> identification
> 2. [Cz-L] Are you from Rumania ?
> 3. RE: [Cz-L] Talk about Czernowitz and Transnistria at Columbia
> 4. [Cz-L] Following the " Ghosts".
> 5. Re: [Cz-L] Czernowitz Directories - upcoming release & street
> identification
> 6. RE: [Cz-L] Are you from Rumania ?
> 7. Re: [Cz-L] Are you from Rumania ?
>

-snip - digest deleted -
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Received on 2010-03-02 08:03:54