RE: Yiddish terms

[Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky <reyzl...>]

Eve, 

Please permit me to make this small correction so that no one who 
has bothered to learn the words to this popular Yiddish song becomes 
confused.  There are two terms for drummer in Yiddish, 'paykler' and 
'poyker' (just as the instruments are called 'poyk' and the smaller 
'paykl'.   There is no Yiddish word as <<poykler>>.  

Second, in the Eli-Meylakh tune, the term used is 'paykler' not 
'poyker or poykler'.   The words are: "As di paykldike payklers 
hobn paykldik gepayklt...." (=When the drumming drummers drumily 
drummed....)  'Paykler' is without a doubt the more common variant 
of the two.  Maybe that's because Jews didn't have the big 'poyk' 
size drums of military brass bands.  A poyker is somehow the formal 
term, perhaps relegated to orchestras - not very common among Eastern 
European Jews till quite late.

You're the drummer, but I am just a Yiddish instructor....


Bill Barabash wrote:

>I was told that my surname "Barabash" means "drummer".  Maybe it's
>a regional thing;  my father's father grew up in the Bessarabian
>shtetl Benderi.

I think you got 'barabash' mixed up with 'baraban', which means a small
drum.   (The instrumentalist of that is called a 'barabantshik'.)  I 
don't speak Russian, but I have a copy of a Russian-Yiddish children's 
story and there is a poem about a 'barabash' with a picture of a large 
squash.  Can't find it now to confirm my memory.   Also don't have time 
to check this with a Slavicist.  Hope you will.  



Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky
YiddishNet list-owner




----------
From:  SICULAR (at) aol(dot)com[SMTP:SICULAR (at) aol(dot)com]
Sent:  Wednesday, March 11, 1998 4:18 AM
To:  World music from a Jewish slant.
Subject:  Re:  Yiddish terms

Yiddish for drummer is <<poykler>> (var. "paykler"), from the instrument
<<poyk>>.  As in the Rebbi Eli Meylekh lyric.

Eve Sicular
Metropolitan Klezmer