Re: Need Yiddish Vocabulary for Music

[elliott <enr01...>]

I wrote this (chaleel) . Dictionary schmictionary, all that I know is that
since the 1940's, when I was a teenager, we called a recorder a chaleel.
        Ellllllllllllll  (the other elliott)


Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky wrote:

> Someone wrote:
> >try chaleel for recorder. the ch is like in chupa.
>
> Chaleel is Hebrew, not Yiddish.
>
> When you look at Mordkhe Tsanin's Hebrew-Yiddish Dictionary, you find the
> following definitions for the Hebrew term 'chalil':  fleyt, pastukh-fleyt
> (shepard's recorder/whistle), fayfiyol.
>
> We all know that a 'fleyt' is a flute, but the other two sound good for the
> recorder term people here are looking for.
>
> Neither Weinreich or Harkavy have a term for 'recorder'.
>
> My problems with defining recorder as 'fayfl' is that it is always used as
> the term for a whistle, all kinds of whistles, although some whistles are
> also called a 'fayf'.  The other problem with 'fayfl' for a recorder is
> that it does not differentiate itself from a 'fife', the small, high
> pitched wind instrument played with drums in military bands.
> Uriel Weinriech defines a fife as a 'dude' [Remember in Yiddish
> transliteration an 'e' is always pronounced as 'eh', not as in the English
> term dude ranch.].  We also have the Yiddish expression 'haltn zikh mit der
> dude' which means "to be left holding the bag.  This expression may suggest
> the old Yiddish term for bagpipes, which is a different instrument.  Paul
> Abelson's "English-Yiddish Encyclopedic Dictionary" (1924) defines bagpipes
> as a 'dudl-zak' or 'zak-fayf' (the latter being Harkavy's term too).   So
> now we may want to know what is a 'dudke'.
>
> In his 1908 "Complete English-Jewish Dictionary", Harkavy defines 'fife' as
> 'kver=fife' and 'fleytl' while in his 1928 "Yidish-English-Hebreyish
> Verterbukh", he defines 'fleyt' as 'flute' in English and 'chalil' in
> Hebrew.  However, he also has the following Yiddish terms:
>
> 'fayf'= fife in English and 'chalil' in Hebrew.
> 'fayfiyol'= flute in English and 'chalil' in Hebrew.
> 'fayfer'= whistler, piper in English and 'mekhalel bachalil' in Hebrew.
> 'fayfke'= blowpipe in English...
> 'dude'= pipe in English and 'chalil' in Hebrew.
> 'dudke'= pipe in English and 'chalil' in Hebrew.
>
> My home dictionary shows 5 different kinds of German recorders and none of
> these recorders look like the traditional plastic ones most kids get in
> school today or the wooden ones most people saw in Israel in the last 50
> years.
>
> It seems that there are so many different kinds of recorders, fifes, and
> whistles, that even the lexicographers couldn't tell them apart or how they
> were different.  This confusion may mean that they didn't bother to ask the
> experts.  It may also be the case that some of these instruments were used
> by the armies and not by Jews; or (2) that these instruments had limited
> use (geographic or functional) and there were not sufficient reason to for
> Jews to develop a terminology for them.
>
> We do know that:
> Sirene = siren, which should be the same as a ' liaremfayfl'
> Dampfayfl should mean a "steam whistle"  (Is there any other kind of
> instrument propelled by steam??)
>
> It would be nice to know precisely what any of the following are:
> fifak, verbl, tibye, flazsholet, hudok/gudok.
>
> No time for any more research.
>
> Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky
>
> ----------
> From:  Itzik Gottesman [SMTP:itzik (at) mail(dot)utexas(dot)edu]
> Sent:  Wednesday, March 22, 2000 10:49 AM
> To:  World music from a Jewish slant
> Subject:  Re: Need Yiddish Vocabulary for Music
>
> According to Stuchkov's entry under "muzik-instrumentn, shtim" group 286,
> pages 256-257, the following are listed under the "flute" category:
> "fleyt, fyol, shtolper [klezmer language], aktavfleyt, pifero, fayfyol,
> tibye, pikolo, flazsholet" . So piccolo is listed in this group.
>
>  A paragraph later he has another grouping " fayf, fayfl, fifak, verbl,
> dude, dudke, svistok, svistshun, visl [american], fabrikfayfl, hudok,
> gudok, liaremfayfl, sirene, dampfayfl, damffayfl etc"
>
> I thought Paula/Perl's suggestion of "fayfl" for recorder was a good one.
>
> As you see, Stuchkov includes some klezmer jargon. Other terms he lists:
> clarinet - vursht (as in sausage, salami)
> fiddle - varplye
> trumpet - tshaynik [yes, as in "hak mir nit in."]
> drum- tshekal
> drummer - tshekalnik
> klezmer - labroshnik
> cantor - zhokhalnik
>
> - Itzik
>
> -----------------------------------
> Dr. Itzik Nakhmen Gottesman
> Assistant Professor, Yiddish Language and Culture
> Department of Germanic Studies
> University of Texas at Austin
> EPS 3.102
> Austin, TX 78704-1190
> NEW PHONE NUMBER (512)232-6360 work
> (512)444-3990 home
>
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