RE: Yiddish terms

[Paul M. Gifford <PGIFFORD...>]

Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky <reyzl (at) flash(dot)net> said:
> 
> 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.  
> 
Maybe so, but the -ash ending is used in Romanian:  flueras(h), 
"[fipple] flute player"; trimbitzash, "trumpeter"; and Hungarian,
primas, "first violin,"; kontras; cimbalmos; etc.  Bendery is close 
to the Romanian-speaking area and perhaps it was a term in that area.

Paul Gifford