vuisminebitz Triglot Groupie United States Joined 6574 days ago 86 posts - 108 votes Speaks: Yiddish, English*, Spanish Studies: Swahili
| Message 1 of 4 01 November 2007 at 9:36pm | IP Logged |
Thought I'd put this up for anyone whose interested in Germanics and or philology or just reading languages they don't speak, here's the Yiddish text from the earlier topic in the original, in transliteration and in translation.
Zhiguli Do you have a background in Yiddish or German? (I guess the Hebrew plus German and Russian would make it pretty comprehensible most of the time.) Try to post something in Yiddish, if you want PM me and I'll send you a lot of stuff. I'm going to make this accessible to everyone and put up the original, a transliteration and a translation. As I've mentioned this text has an unusually small amount of words of Hebrew and Slavic origin.
איז דאָ עמעצער װאָס קען ייִדיש? אױב איר קענט לײנען דאָס, פֿון װאַנען קומט איר און װי אַזױ האָט איר געלערנט מאַמע-לשון? איך קען אַ סך פֿיל װעבזײַטלעך אױף דער אינטערנעץ אױף דער ייִדישער שפּראַך און איך קען אַ סך פֿיל ביכער און ספֿרים פֿון װאָסער מען קען לערנען זיך דעם לשון אױפֿן ענגליש, דײַטש, העברעיִש, אונגאַרן, פֿראַנקרײַך, און אַפֿילו לאַטינע. דאָס איז זײַער שפּאַסיק בײַ מיר, צו לערנען אַ כּלל-חיה (לעבעדיקן) לשון פֿון אײנע װאָס איז טױט).
Here's the transliteration for anyone who is interested, I'm transliterating it as if it were English and not German. tz is said as one syllable like the double z in pizza, e is like the ey in hey, kh is like the khof in Hebrew and sort of like the Scottish loch but different, the a is a longer and broader a than in English, man is pronounced maan, okay here it is, if you know German you should understand a good amount (harder to understand spoken, I've tried talking to German speakers), if you know both Hebrew and German you should get 80 percent of this, if you know Russian and those two you'll get maybe 85 (many words of German origin are different as you'll see if you know German):
iz daw emetzer vos ken yidish? oyb ir kent layenen daws, fun vanen kumt ir un vi azoy hawt ir gelernt mame-loshn? ikh ken a sakh feel vebzeitzlekh oyf der internetz oyf der yidisher sprakh un ikh ken a sakh feel bikher un sferorim fun vawser men ken lernen zikh dem loshn oyfn english, hebreish, ungarn, frankraykish, un afile latine. Doz iz zayer sphasik by mir tsu lernen a klal-khayan loshn fun aine vaws iz toyt.
Translation: Is there anyone here who knows Yiddish. If you can read this, where do you come from and how have you learned Mame-Loshn (another name for Yiddish). I know of a lot of websites on the internet in Yiddish and I know of a lot of books and religious works from which one (men) can teach himself/learn the language in (through the medium of) English, Hebrew, Hungarian, French and even Latin (this is very funny to me, learning a living language from a dead one.)
Two words you probably didn't know: The verb to read is from the Latin, (leanen, like leer in Spanish).The verb redn is to speak, I don't think that ended up in there though. To say Do you speak Yiddish is "tsi redt ir yidish?", tsi is a word that indicates a yes-no question. ir is the second person formal. Daw means here (I know here means here in German because I've heard it in movies).
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vuisminebitz Triglot Groupie United States Joined 6574 days ago 86 posts - 108 votes Speaks: Yiddish, English*, Spanish Studies: Swahili
| Message 2 of 4 01 November 2007 at 9:39pm | IP Logged |
Here's the second post:
איך האָב געטראַכט אַז עס זענען דאָ אַ פּאָר אַנדערע מענטשן װאָס קענען ייִדיש? נישט אַ סך אָבער נאָר אַ פּאָר? צי בין איך דער אײנער
ikh hob getrakht az es zenen daw a pawr andere mentshn daw vos kenen yidish? nisht a sakh awber nawr a pawr. Tsi been ikh der ayner?
I had thought that there were a few other people here who know Yiddish. Not a lot but a few. Am I the only one?
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William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6272 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French
| Message 3 of 4 10 November 2007 at 4:40am | IP Logged |
I have sometimes heard Yiddish spoken in London and found it vaguely comprehensible through German. The Slavic element is not a problem for me, the Hebrew is, though.
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Conchita Bilingual Tetraglot Newbie Spain Joined 6178 days ago 9 posts - 9 votes Speaks: French*, Spanish*, English, German Studies: Italian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese
| Message 4 of 4 03 January 2008 at 5:00pm | IP Logged |
Only occasionally do I come across some Yiddish words or expressions, usually through Jewish American authors -- perhaps also in some films (like Mel Brooks'?). Interestingly, and thanks to my German, I often manage to figure out their meaning. It's like a quaint variety of German, in fact.
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