Re: Terkishe vs Terkisher

[Robert A. Rothstein <rar...>]

Helen Winkler wrote:

> Dear Bob,
> I just want to make sure I'm understanding all of this right:
> So, when we are using the  adjective  terkish to describe the musical genre,
> we use terkisher because "klezmer" is masculine and/or because "tants" is
> masculine?
> I have a cd that has a tune called terkisher freylekhs--I've  have been
> informed that "freylekhs is neuter."  Do you still use the "er" ending in
> this case?
>
> Helen

    Just to make things slightly more complicated:  neuter singular adjectives
in Yiddish have three forms, depending on whether the noun is definite or
indefinite, and whether the adjective is used in the predicate or not.
Weinreich's example:

    a gut kind/dos gute kind/dos kind iz gut/dos kind iz a guts.

Thus

    a terkish freylekhs/dos terkishe freylekhs/dos freylekhs iz terkish.

(I'll leave it to native speakers to say whether the expected "terkishs" in "dos
freylekhs iz a terkishs" is the actual form.)

In any case, "terkisher freylekhs" is either a mistake or perhaps the form used
by a Litvak whose dialect has only masculine and feminine gender and no neuter.

    One addition to my earlier posting: not all of the undeclined geographical
adjectives are from city or town names.  The adjective "amerikaner" proves that.

            Bob Rothstein

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