gevaisa

[Roger & Naomi Kingsley]

Is there any known source for the word "gevaisa" used in Going Postal ?
It seems tantalisingly close to "geniza", - except for one vowel sound,
and substituting a "v" (which anyway looks a bit like a Greek "n") ...

Roger Kingsley

[Farkle Pingleblobber]

Post by Roger & Naomi Kingsley
Is there any known source for the word "gevaisa" used in Going Postal ?
It seems tantalisingly close to "geniza", - except for one vowel sound,
and substituting a "v" (which anyway looks a bit like a Greek "n") ...

The book explains the meaning: "Well, when the Post Office started
accumulating letters it was storing words. In fact what was being
created was what we call a gevaisa, a tomb of living words."

Web searches show references to Terry's use of the word, as well as (1)
a fanfic author/reviewer who uses it as a nick and (2) street addresses
for people associated with .si and .hr domains.

-Farkle
--
-How many gevaisas could a gevaisablobber blob if a gevaisablobber . .

[Richard Eney]

Post by Farkle Pingleblobber

Post by Roger & Naomi Kingsley
Is there any known source for the word "gevaisa" used in Going Postal ?
It seems tantalisingly close to "geniza", - except for one vowel sound,
and substituting a "v" (which anyway looks a bit like a Greek "n") ...

The book explains the meaning: "Well, when the Post Office started
accumulating letters it was storing words. In fact what was being
created was what we call a gevaisa, a tomb of living words."
Web searches show references to Terry's use of the word, as well as (1)
a fanfic author/reviewer who uses it as a nick and (2) street addresses
for people associated with .si and .hr domains.
-Farkle

Thanks for doing the search.

Post by Farkle Pingleblobber
-How many gevaisas could a gevaisablobber blob if a gevaisablobber . .

gevaisablogger, shirley?
^^

=Tamar

[Farkle Pingleblobber]

Post by Richard Eney

Post by Farkle Pingleblobber

Post by Roger & Naomi Kingsley
Is there any known source for the word "gevaisa" used in Going Postal ?
It seems tantalisingly close to "geniza", - except for one vowel sound,
and substituting a "v" (which anyway looks a bit like a Greek "n") ...

The book explains the meaning: "Well, when the Post Office started
accumulating letters it was storing words. In fact what was being
created was what we call a gevaisa, a tomb of living words."
Web searches show references to Terry's use of the word, as well as (1)
a fanfic author/reviewer who uses it as a nick and (2) street addresses
for people associated with .si and .hr domains.
-Farkle

Thanks for doing the search.

Post by Farkle Pingleblobber
-How many gevaisas could a gevaisablobber blob if a gevaisablobber . .

gevaisablogger, shirley?

(chuckle, cough choke)

-Farkle
--
-How many pingles could a pingleblobber blob if a pingleblobber . .

[Daibhid Ceannaideach]

Post by Roger & Naomi Kingsley
Is there any known source for the word "gevaisa" used in Going Postal ?
It seems tantalisingly close to "geniza", - except for one vowel sound,
and substituting a "v" (which anyway looks a bit like a Greek "n") ...

I had to look up "geniza" (which my dictionary turns out to spell
"genizah"). "A room ajoining a synagogue for the safekeeping of old or
damaged books". Nope, I can't believe that's a coincidence either.

Possibly a gevaisa is "a tomb of living words", as opposed to a geniza
being a tomb of dead ones? I'd need to know more about genizas to know if
that works...

[Doug Urquhart]

On 3 Mar 2005 13:57:04 GMT, Daibhid Ceannaideach

Post by Daibhid Ceannaideach

Post by Roger & Naomi Kingsley
Is there any known source for the word "gevaisa" used in Going Postal ?
It seems tantalisingly close to "geniza", - except for one vowel sound,
and substituting a "v" (which anyway looks a bit like a Greek "n") ...

I had to look up "geniza" (which my dictionary turns out to spell
"genizah"). "A room ajoining a synagogue for the safekeeping of old or
damaged books". Nope, I can't believe that's a coincidence either.
Possibly a gevaisa is "a tomb of living words", as opposed to a geniza
being a tomb of dead ones? I'd need to know more about genizas to know if
that works...

Here's some information about the Cairo geniza.

http://www.tau.ac.il/taunews/97spring/medieval.html

I wonder if this is one of those stedtl - dorfl transformations.
Anyone Hebrew/Greek/Aramaic speakers out there care to comment?

Regards

Doug Urquhart

[Roger & Naomi Kingsley]

Ok, I know where Dorfl comes in, & I think I know what a stedtl was, but
what is a stedtl-dorfl transformation? Please.

Roger Kingsley

Post by Doug Urquhart
On 3 Mar 2005 13:57:04 GMT, Daibhid Ceannaideach

Post by Daibhid Ceannaideach

Post by Roger & Naomi Kingsley
Is there any known source for the word "gevaisa" used in Going Postal ?
It seems tantalisingly close to "geniza", - except for one vowel sound,
and substituting a "v" (which anyway looks a bit like a Greek "n") ...

I had to look up "geniza" (which my dictionary turns out to spell
"genizah"). "A room ajoining a synagogue for the safekeeping of old or
damaged books". Nope, I can't believe that's a coincidence either.
Possibly a gevaisa is "a tomb of living words", as opposed to a geniza
being a tomb of dead ones? I'd need to know more about genizas to know if
that works...

Here's some information about the Cairo geniza.
http://www.tau.ac.il/taunews/97spring/medieval.html
I wonder if this is one of those stedtl - dorfl transformations.
Anyone Hebrew/Greek/Aramaic speakers out there care to comment?
Regards
Doug Urquhart

[Daibhid Ceannaideach]

Post by Roger & Naomi Kingsley
Ok, I know where Dorfl comes in, & I think I know what a stedtl was,
but what is a stedtl-dorfl transformation? Please.

It's a theory as to the origin of Dorfl's name. All the other golems in FoC
have Yiddish words as names, but Dorfl's name *sounds* Yiddish but isn't.
Stedtl is a ghetto, from the German word "stadt" = town. "Dorf" is German
for village. So Dorfl = a small stedtl. Possibly.

[Michael Abramowski]

Post by Daibhid Ceannaideach

Post by Roger & Naomi Kingsley
Ok, I know where Dorfl comes in, & I think I know what a stedtl was,
but what is a stedtl-dorfl transformation? Please.

It's a theory as to the origin of Dorfl's name. All the other golems in FoC
have Yiddish words as names, but Dorfl's name *sounds* Yiddish but isn't.
Stedtl is a ghetto, from the German word "stadt" = town. "Dorf" is German
for village. So Dorfl = a small stedtl. Possibly.

After a fairly long time of lurking around here, this is finally
something I can comment on.
As a non-Yiddish native German speaker, I do agree with the connection
between town and village and the your train of thought (transformation
from large to small). However, I doubt that Stedtl specificaly means
Ghetto. It does sound just like a different spelling of the German
dialect word "Städle", which was immortalized by King Elvis in his
version fo the German song "Muss i denn, muss i denn, zum Städele
hinaus" during his military service in Germany.
Not speaking Yiddish myself, I have noticed from passive exposure that
it appears like badly spelled German (or some strong local dialect) to a
native speaker. Of course, the impression of "bad spelling" might come
from liberal transcription from Hebrew.
Anyway, as long as there are no Yiddish speakers to correct me, I would
translate Stedtl as town/city, not as ghetto. Dorfl would logically be
the smaller version.
Cheers,
Michael

[Mike Stevens]

Post by Michael Abramowski

Post by Daibhid Ceannaideach

Post by Roger & Naomi Kingsley
Ok, I know where Dorfl comes in, & I think I know what a stedtl was,
but what is a stedtl-dorfl transformation? Please.

It's a theory as to the origin of Dorfl's name. All the other golems
in FoC have Yiddish words as names, but Dorfl's name *sounds*
Yiddish but isn't. Stedtl is a ghetto, from the German word "stadt"
= town. "Dorf" is German for village. So Dorfl = a small stedtl.
Possibly.

After a fairly long time of lurking around here, this is finally
something I can comment on.
As a non-Yiddish native German speaker, I do agree with the
connection between town and village and the your train of thought
(transformation from large to small). However, I doubt that Stedtl
specificaly means Ghetto. It does sound just like a different
spelling of the German dialect word "Städle", which was immortalized
by King Elvis in his version fo the German song "Muss i denn, muss i
denn, zum Städele hinaus" during his military service in Germany.
Not speaking Yiddish myself, I have noticed from passive exposure
that it appears like badly spelled German (or some strong local
dialect) to a native speaker. Of course, the impression of "bad
spelling" might come from liberal transcription from Hebrew.
Anyway, as long as there are no Yiddish speakers to correct me, I
would translate Stedtl as town/city, not as ghetto. Dorfl would
logically be the smaller version.

The boundary between when one language is a dialect of another and when it's
a different but related language is a debatable one [1], and the
relationship between Yiddish and German is pretty close to that boundary.
Basicaly, as I understand it, Yiddish is a German-based language with some
influence from Hebrew plus bits of other languages from Eastern Europe.

The word Stedtl in German becomes, I believe, Schtettel in Yiddish, and [2]
was/is used to describe the Jewish villages & settlements in rural areas of
Eastern Europe, whereas ghetto is used for urban Jewish enclaves.

[1] The distinction can sometimes acquire a political significance and
strong feelings, so I keep out of such arguments whenever possible ever
since I attracted some flak for taking one side of the argument concerning
Sylheti and Bengali.

[2] Once again, this is my understanding as a complete amateur, and I could
be mistaken.

--
Mike Stevens
narrowboat Felis Catus II
web site www.mike-stevens.co.uk

Old grammarians never die - they simple parse away

[André Coutanche]

"Mike Stevens" <***@which.net> wrote

<snip>

Post by Mike Stevens
The boundary between when one language is a dialect of another and when it's
a different but related language is a debatable one [1], and the
relationship between Yiddish and German is pretty close to that boundary.

*****

"A language is a dialect with an army and a navy".

I knew the saying - which sums it all up - but it is only now on
googling it that I find it has Yiddish origins! See
www.olestig.dk/scotland/weinreich.html.

André Coutanche

[k***@wizard.net]

Mike Stevens wrote:
...

Post by Mike Stevens
The boundary between when one language is a dialect of another and when it's
a different but related language is a debatable one [1], and the
relationship between Yiddish and German is pretty close to that boundary.
Basicaly, as I understand it, Yiddish is a German-based language with some
influence from Hebrew plus bits of other languages from Eastern Europe.

My understanding is that Yiddish is more closely related to Old High
German, than it is to modern German. It's basically Old High German,
written in Hebrew characters, with extensive borrowings from Hebrew and
various slavic languages, mostly Polish and Russian.

[Doug Urquhart]

Post by k***@wizard.net
My understanding is that Yiddish is more closely related to Old High
German, than it is to modern German. It's basically Old High German,
written in Hebrew characters, with extensive borrowings from Hebrew and
various slavic languages, mostly Polish and Russian.

Much like the relationship between Dutch and English/German?

I found this Yiddish phrase book, which is quite interesting.

http://www.ariga.com/yiddish.shtml

Unfortunately it contains neither 'stedtl' nor 'dorfl', but there are
some wonderful epithets. I think I'll use the word 'gelaimter' to
describe myself in future.


Regards

Doug Urquhart

[Keith Edgerley]

--
Keith Edgerley
Ist mir mîn leben getroumet, oder ist ez wâr?

Post by Mike Stevens
...

Post by Mike Stevens
The boundary between when one language is a dialect of another and

when it's

Post by Mike Stevens
a different but related language is a debatable one [1], and the
relationship between Yiddish and German is pretty close to that

boundary.

Post by Mike Stevens
Basicaly, as I understand it, Yiddish is a German-based language with

some

Post by Mike Stevens
influence from Hebrew plus bits of other languages from Eastern

Europe.
My understanding is that Yiddish is more closely related to Old High
German, than it is to modern German. It's basically Old High German,

Make that Middle High German.

[Kate]

Post by Daibhid Ceannaideach

Post by Roger & Naomi Kingsley
Ok, I know where Dorfl comes in, & I think I know what a stedtl was,
but what is a stedtl-dorfl transformation? Please.

It's a theory as to the origin of Dorfl's name. All the other golems in FoC
have Yiddish words as names, but Dorfl's name *sounds* Yiddish but isn't.
Stedtl is a ghetto, from the German word "stadt" = town. "Dorf" is German
for village. So Dorfl = a small stedtl. Possibly.
--
Dave
Official Absentee of EU Skiffeysoc
http://www.eusa.ed.ac.uk/societies/sesoc/

And just to add to the fun, I once Googled on 'Dorfl' and it came up as the
name of a nice little village in SE Austria. Which means they called their
little village 'little village'.

Kate

[Farkle Pingleblobber]

Post by Kate
And just to add to the fun, I once Googled on 'Dorfl' and it came up as the
name of a nice little village in SE Austria. Which means they called their
little village 'little village'.

The phrase, "Little Village" is very famous in Blues lore because of a
contretemps between Sonny Boy Williamson and the studio people during
one of his sessions:

http://www.bluesforpeace.com/lyrics/little-village.htm

-Farkle
--
-How many pingles could a pingleblobber blob if a pingleblobber . .