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Yiddish ( ייִדיש, יידיש or אידיש, yidish or idish, pronounced [ˈ (j)ɪdɪʃ], lit. 'Jewish'; ייִדיש-טײַטש, historically also Yidish-Taytsh, lit. 'Judeo-German') [9] is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews.
- ≤600,000 (2021)
- Central, Eastern, and Western Europe
Schlep — To carry or travel with difficulty, as in “We shlepped here all the way from New Jersey.”. Schmooze (shmooze)— Chat, make small talk, converse about nothing in particular. Schmuck (shmuck)—A jerk, or a self-made fool, but this word literally means penis. Shande (shanda, shonda)— A scandal, embarrassment.
Yiddish is the language of the Ashkenazim, central and eastern European Jews and their descendants. Written in the Hebrew alphabet, it became one of the world’s most widespread languages, appearing in most countries with a Jewish population by the 19th century. Along with Hebrew and Aramaic, it is one of the three major literary languages of ...
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Lauren Le Vine
- Alterkaker. An old fart.
- Bupkis. Nothing (figurative) Extra credit: In Yiddish, bupkis comes from the word for goat turd. The usual Yiddish word for nothing is gornisht.
- Chutzpah. Supreme self-confidence. Extra credit: Keep in mind that chutzpah is a breath-taking audacity (something that is not valued in Yiddish culture, but is highly praised in the United States).
- Klutz. In English, klutz has come to mean accident-prone. Extra credit: However, in Yiddish the “clumsy” sense of klutz comes from its primary meaning of wooden beam, which was extended to refer to really awkward questions (klutz kashes), the kind of questions that stop a conversation like a wooden beam in the middle of the road.
- baleboste. A good homemaker, a woman who’s in charge of her home and will make sure you remember it.
- bissel. Or bisl – a little bit.
- bubbe. Or bobe. It means Grandmother, and bobeshi is the more affectionate form. Bubele is a similarly affectionate word, though it isn’t in Yiddish dictionaries.
- bupkes. Not a word for polite company. Bubkes or bobkes may be related to the Polish word for “beans”, but it really means “goat droppings” or “horse droppings.”
The first record of a printed Yiddish sentence is a blessing found in the Worms Mahzor (Vórmser mákhzer) from 1272. Beginning in the 14th century Yiddish was commonly used for epic poems such as the Shmuel-bukh, which reworks the biblical story of the prophet Samuel into a European knightly romance.
YIDDISH LANGUAGE, language used by Ashkenazi Jews for the past 1,000 years. Developed as an intricate fusion of several unpredictably modified stocks, the language was gradually molded to serve a wide range of communicative needs. As the society which used it achieved one of the highest levels of cultural autonomy in Jewish history, the Yiddish ...
