[Membroj] Yiddish pastiche re Zamenhof

[Ralph Dumain]

As it turns out, there are quite a number of references to Zamenhof 
and Yiddish on the web, in google books and elsewhere.

There are several communications on the subject in:

Mendele: Forum for Yiddish Literature and Yiddish Language
http://mendele.commons.yale.edu/

In the archive, links given to individual pieces don't work, but this 
link to a zip file does:

<http://shakti.trincoll.edu/%7Emendele/vol06/vol06.zip>Volume 06.zip 
(zip format)

Some of the comments on Zamenhof are written in Yiddish, others in 
English.  Here I'll just deliver one tidbit.

A comic poem:

         Hista bokhe le Zamenhofe
         Meyks mi lakhe on a sofe.
         Donerveter!  Sacremento!
         Eto sfoso Esperanto!

In vol. 6.084, we find this post from Sholem Yafe:
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 1996 01:05:50 -0400
From: lakejaffe at aol.com
Subject: Zamenhof and Yiddish
Mention of Zamenhof reminds me of a bit of comic verse my father used 
to enjoy quoting.  If I remember correctly, it goes like this . . .
I'm sure some of you linguists can help identify the languages 
represented in this kashe and botshvene. (I think my dad got it from Der
Groyser Kundes.)
A response came in vol. 6.085:
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 1996 11:42:34 -0500
From: rturkel at cas.org
Subject: Zamenhof and Yiddish
I think the base language here is Hebrew or Yiddish.  I can't make 
sense of it all, but the end of the first line is le-Zamenhof (to 
Zamenhof); "bokhe" is probably Yiddish "bokher" (young man), from the 
Hebrew "bakhur."   Perhaps the whole line is Yiddish - heyst a bokher 
Zamenhof. Then, "makes me lakhn un a sof (Yiddish: laugh endlessly)." 
"Donnerwetter" in German means "thunderstorm," and is a mild curse; 
"Sacramento" is the capital of California, and looks to be there 
purely for the rhyme.  The first word in the last line is Russian for 
"this," and the next word is surely Hebrew sof-sof (in the end).
The entire doggerel seems to be a play on the fact that Esperanto is 
composed of elements of many different, unrelated languages.
Hope this helps.
Rick Turkel
Another response came in vol. 6.087:
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 1996 15:59:31 +0200
From: stefan.balzter at musik.uni-giessen.de
Subject: Zamenhoff and Yiddish / comic poem
Rick Turkel assumed in issue 6.085 that the word "Sacremento" might 
be there just for the rhyme. Yet since the first word of the line 
obviously is taken from the German language ("Donnerwetter"), I'd 
suggest to explain the second one likewise: In German (mostly 
Bavarian), "Sakrament" is not only the word for an ecclesiastical 
sacrament, but also a mild curse or a yell of astonishment or 
surprise - just like the Donnerwetter.

Stefan Balzter
I still don't know who wrote this piece of doggerel, but it's a 
valuable piece of trivia nonetheless.
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