Tag Archives: glossary

What is the most Yiddish word?

Posted on July 14, 2011 by

Now, this is a good question. A gute frage indeed. We asked our shmoos-lerer (teacher in conversation) what in her opinion is the most Yiddish word. We could literally hear the wheels spinning in her head, before she finally exclaimed: … Continue reading →

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How sneaking fears may be connected to grammar

Posted on July 9, 2011 by

I have a sneaking fear that I made a serious mistake. In the very title of this blog. Oy gevalt! It is possibly not supposed to be “di goldene medine” but rather “der goldener medine”. This brings back to me … Continue reading →

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Baby, sweet baby

Posted on July 7, 2011 by

Yiddish is a mishmash of all different kinds of influences, most prominent German and Hebrew. With certain Slavic components. Mixed together, subtracted and extracted into something quite on its own. Let’s take the word “sweet”. חנעוודיק. Cheynevdik. CHEYN-ev-dik. Stress on … Continue reading →

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A proper Yiddish course is stuffed with proverbs!

Posted on June 28, 2011 by

There are lots of great proverbs in Yiddish. I will obviously, as far as I manage to keep this blog alive, present a representative selection of them. Since we today spoke about pets – here are a few over this … Continue reading →

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On beavers and other pets

Posted on June 28, 2011 by

So today we had a class on pets. We got a list of the most common pets. This may be America, but all were still puzzled by the fact that Beaver was included in the list. I’ll come back to … Continue reading →

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Opgetziterte namen un andere namen

Posted on June 24, 2011 by

Worrisome names and other names. When I started travelling to Israel I suddenly realized that certain cultures put very much significance into meaning of names. The meaning of my Norwegian name (female warrior) was for instance a source of great … Continue reading →

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Sholem aleychem!

Posted on June 22, 2011 by

This beautiful greeting means “peace be upon you”. A familiar greeting from other languages too. In Hebrew we say “Shalom alechem”. At least in theory. In Arabic the phrase goes “assalaam aleikum”. The answer is the reverse: “Aleychem sholem”. In every … Continue reading →

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