<$BlogRSDURL$>

Sunday, May 21, 2006

Some facts about Yiddish

Among words English borrowed from Yiddish are "shtick," "klutz," "schmooze" and "schmaltzy."

To speak "Yiddish" literally means to speak "Jewish"; "yid" means "Jew" in Yiddish.

Prominent Yiddish-speakers from the 20th century include big band leader Benny Goodman, and novelists Isaac Bashevis Singer and Saul Bellow.

After the founding of Israel in 1948, its leaders chose Hebrew over Yiddish as the new Jewish state's national language; many leaders argued that Yiddish was tainted by its association with the Holocaust and repression of Jews in Europe.

High birth rates among Hasidic Jews suggest the ranks of the Yiddish-speaking orthodox, already at over 250,000 in the United States, could boom to several million by the end of the century. But Hasidics shun the secular world, including Yiddish literature, theater and music.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--dyingyiddish-glan0520may20,0,6370938.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork

Comments:
Anyone know how/why Sefardit pronounciation was chosen for Hebrew in Israel and not Ashkenazis?

 

once it was all the same for everyone but a yeminite bit into a hot pepper that was in his falafel and burned his tongue and thats how it all started.

 

Because Sephardis are better and will always be better :)

 

Post a Comment

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

Google
Chaptzem! Blog

-