RE: Yiddish terms

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

OK, you have the -ash suffix.   Now, what does "barab" mean?
You can not assume that "barab" is the same as "baraban".   Language
doesn't work like that.  I now recognize your -ash as similar to the
Polish -atch.   I can tell you that the term for the drum player in 
Polish would be "barabanatch" and in Yiddish it is the extant 
"barabantshik".   


Let me suggest that you look in the Slavic, Hungarian, and Romanian 
dictionaries for all these linguistic elements.   Also look in the various
new naming encyclopedias and reference books.


Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky



----------
From:  Paul M. Gifford[SMTP:PGIFFORD (at) flint(dot)umich(dot)edu]
Sent:  Tuesday, March 31, 1998 7:36 AM
To:  World music from a Jewish slant.
Subject:  RE: Yiddish terms

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