Google Goes Yiddish

Jewish World Review ^ | Feb. 10, 2004 | Steve Lipman

[nickcarraway]

If you're a traditionalist, you probably don't. "In the shtetl," where Eastern European Jews' language of preference developed, "there weren't such things," says Miriam Hoffman, professor of Yiddish and Yiddish literature at Columbia University. No computers, no Internet, no on-line features that perused databases.

[Xenalyte]

Its at www.jewgle.com

Funniest thing I've seen today, and I've seen lots of funny shiznit today.

[ChicagoHebrew]

Why do you teach your children bastardized German? I have no wish to honor the Germans by speaking their language. Teach your grandchildren Hebrew instead.

[ChicagoHebrew]

donde aprendes Ladino? eres sephardi de Greece o Turkey? Soy Sephardi, pero entiendo solamente espanol moderno.

[Simcha7]

"I would have to change my name to either MacIsaac or McGoldrick."

WHAT?

NO...McDonald...at least he'd be Glatt Kosher!

[Yaelle]

I am even more impressed by those FReepers that seem to be able to speak it fluently! I only know a few words!

[Yaelle]

You have a point but my ancestors were in Germany a long time. A lot of their "culture" as German Jews was German culture. One reason why my grandfather did not leave Germany sooner was that he did not believe the worst could happen -- they were so ensconced in German life. So I do treasure the ways or things my grandparents loved, even while hating the leaders and society that tortured them. They loved their own parents/histories until they died and one can't deny the German parts thereof. That in no way appeases the murderering Nazis.

[nutmeg]

ping

[MarkL]

Oh boy. Oh BOY! The weekend's coming! The TROLLS are coming! Mods...think of the fun you could have, translating a whole bunch of insults to them in ... well, take you pick which language!

Well, Yiddish is great for insulting people, but the problem is that many of them don't really translate well to english.

My favorite insult (a curse, really), is "May your head grow in the ground like a turnip" (or onion... I've heard it both ways). Well, it really loses something in translation, but it's great in Yiddish!

Mark

[Brad’s Gramma]

COOL!

I'll go translate that one, right now...

A turnip. HOW FUNNY!!!!

[Brad’s Gramma]

Mai wachsen Ihr Kopf im Boden wie einer Rübe



Now THAT didn't work!!! That's German...the only way I could do it. German is NOT Yiddish.

HELP!!!!!

[ChicagoHebrew]

To me, the Holocaust proved that no matter what they thought, us Jews could never be Germans. So why speak bastardized German?

Btw, correct me if I'm wrong, but if your ancestors were German, are you sure they spoke Yiddish? It was my understanding that German Jews spoke German, not Yiddish (just as decendants of Sephardim who fled to New World Spanish colonies today speak Spanish and not Ladino). I thought Yiddish was only spoken by Eastern European Jews, and to some extent, French Jews. Am I wrong?

[Alouette]

Why do you teach your children bastardized German?

Yiddish and German both stem from the same linguistic root. Yiddish is not a "bastard" version of German any more than Ladino is a "bastard" version of Spanish.

BTW my grandchildren also speak English, Hebrew, and Russian, as well as Yiddish. What languages do your grandchildren speak?

[ChicagoHebrew]

I'm 25, I don't even have children yet.

[Cacique]

ping

[NYC GOP Chick]

Oy vey!

[Yaelle]

The Swiss would not like to hear you say that a dialect of German is "bastardized"!

You are correct; my grandparents et al did not speak Yiddish. They did indeed speak German. Obviously Yiddish must have come from Jews living in German-speaking land, making do with that language but writing it in Hebrew script. And the composite different pronunciations and some actual Hebrew thrwown in. If you were in Germany long enough, I suppose you just spoke German.

[Polybius]

donde aprendes Ladino?

Aprendi la lingua djudeo-espanyol en Ladinokomunita

eres sephardi de Greece o Turkey? Soy Sephardi, pero entiendo solamente espanol moderno.

No soy vos korelijionario. No soy sefardi o eshkenazim o marrano ni soy de Turkia o Gresia. Soy katolico kon toda mi desendensia siendo espanyola por medio de Kuba. :-)

Pero tengo interes en la istoria de Espanya antigua y vosotros sefardis son parte de nuestra istoria.

Here is a Ladino technicality you can impress your parents with:

The Castillian word for God is Dios derived from the Latin Deus. The Ladino word for God, however, is Dio. Note that there is no "s" at the end.

Now, both the Latin "Deus" and the Castillian "Dios" are singular words. The Castillian plural for "gods" is "dioses" and the "s" in "Dios" is merely a historical remnant of the original Latin singular for God. Latin plurals end in "i".

However, the Sefardi dropped the "s" to ensure that there was no misunderstanding whatsoever that "God" was singular and not plural.

General purpose trivia: In both Castillian and Ladino, a country's name is capitalized but the appellation for an individual or a language or a religion is not. Thus, a citizen of "Canada" is a "canadiense" who speaks "ingles" and maybe also "frances" and may be a "protestante", or maybe a "catolico" or maybe a "judio".

[ChicagoHebrew]

It was my understanding, though I might be wrong, that Yiddish evolved as Ashkenazi Jews (literally, German Jews) starting moving east after the 11th & 12th centuries. As they left Frano-Germany, they moved into rather secluded communities in Hungary, Czech, Poland, Romania and Russia. They kept speaking their "native" German, mixed in with a smattering of Hebrew from prayers and Slavic from the surrounding culture.