Elana and Robin invite their friend and colleague, Julia Weekes, a self-proclaimed yiddishe kop, to help them figure out all the ways that Yiddish is different than Hebrew. (Hint: it’s more than 4!) Stay tuned to hear Julia’s favorite Yiddish words and see how many of them you already knew!
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Show Notes:
- JuliaWeekes
- Vocabulary
- Here are some words mentioned during this episode and their definitions:
- aleph bet: Hebrew alphabet
- alter kaker: Elderly person, old-timer
- Ashkenazi: Jews who are descended from Jews who lived in Central or Eastern Europe
- balabusta: good homemaker
- balagula: person of low standing
- big macher: big shot
- bobkes: nonsense, rubbish, nothing
- bubeleh: term of endearment (like sweetie, honey, or dear)
- chachke: a trinket or knick-knack
- chazir: pig
- chazirai: junk
- chutzpah: extreme self-confidence or audacity
- feh: interjection used to express disgust, contempt, or scorn
- gut: good morning
- gut Shabbos: good Sabbath
- gut yontif: good holiday
- Hasidic Jews: a sub-group within Haredi Judaism noted for its religious conservatism and social seclusion
- Holocaust: The Nazi campaign to use genocide to eliminate European Jews during World War II
- kashe: a tough, perplexing question
- kishkes: a person’s guts
- klotzkashe: a question that the questioner thinks is hard but that is in fact idiotic, possibly because the answer is right under their nose and possibly because there’s no conceivable answer at all
- kvell: feel happy and proud.
- kvetch: a person who complains a great deal.
- Ladino: The core vocabulary of Judaeo-Spanish (Ladino) is Old Spanish, and it has numerous elements from the other old Romance languages of the Iberian Peninsula: Old Aragonese, Astur-Leonese, Old Catalan, Galician-Portuguese, and Mozarabic. The language has been further enriched by Ottoman Turkish and Semitic vocabulary, such as Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic, spoken mainly by Sephardic minorities in more than 30 countries, with most speakers residing in Israel
- loshen koydesh: holy language
- mamaloshen: mother tongue
- maven: comes from the Yiddish meyvn, meaning “one who understands.” Often mavens are the people turned to as experts in a field.
- mechayeh: Derived from the Hebrew, chai, meaning life. Something delicious, delightful or enjoyable is mechayehdik.
- megillah: “scroll” in Hebrew
- mensch: a person of integrity and honor
- nu?: An exclamation of surprise, emphasis, doubt, etc.
- noodge: from Yiddish nudyen: to be tedious, boring
- nudnik: a pestering, nagging, or irritating person; a bore.
- oy gevalt: “oh, violence!” Used to express shock or amazement
- oy vey: “oh, my!” Used to express dismay or grief
- oy vey iz mir: “oh, woe is me!” Used to express dismay or grief
- plotz: to collapse or faint
- Punim: face
- Purim: a Jewish festival known for extravagant costumes, the exchangi
- Here are some words mentioned during this episode and their definitions: