1) Go to Google Translator

2) Set English > Yiddish

3) Translate “AIDS”

4) Copy the answer

5) Paste it back in to be translated into English

6) Set Yiddish > English and translate.

7) Panic

via @MandyPandy32 and blameitonthevoices.com

And now the science bit…

It so happens I researched a Ph.D in Yiddish, so I’m here to tell you Google has misunderstood the small line (the vowel sound “a”) under the character on the far right (which is clearly where Google now positions itself). That little line doesn’t exist in the word for “Jew”. Foolish Google.

Google Lies is a post from: David Schneider's website

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That said…

This is a video of me performing a Yiddish version of “New York, New York” last summer at Regent’s Park. I was hosting a klezmer concert, doing bits of stand-up in between. There were actually probably about 4000 people there at the time and they were laughing a lot (honest!) but what’s so eloquent about this video is that it’s basically a bloke in dodgy clothes, singing (badly) in a park, while other people ignore him – surely anyone’s definition of a nutter.

The real star of the video is the elderly Jewish man you first see at about 35 seconds in and who really comes into his own at about 1 min 20. Every performer has this inner voice who constantly says “you’re no good”, “you’re not funny” etc. At least now I know what mine looks like (Morrie from Ilford whose prostate’s still playing up).

Please bear in mind, directors, casting directors, Simon Cowell, that I had a sore throat (to use the X-factor “I’m in the Bottom Two” excuse). I can sing, there was a lot of laughter, and… oh to hell with it, lets hear it for:… The Elderly Jewish Man!

With “thanks” to Alf  Buechler for the video and to @MandyPandy32 for the Xfactor comparison…

PS The Memorial Service for David Schneider’s career will be held on Monday week.

Everyone’s a critic is a post from: David Schneider's website

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No idea what was happening here but it must have involved an insect. Or an antisemite.

I’ve always been fascinated by Yiddish. Though it wasn’t my mame-loshn (“mother tongue” — the name Yiddish speakers give to Yiddish), it was my Mama’s loshn. As a kid she used to do things like stand over me when I was eating and say: “Shlof gikher, ikh badarf dos kishn” (“Sleep quicker, I need the pillow”).

I didn’t actually learn the language till I was at Oxford — so technically I speak Oxford Yiddish or, if you prefer, the Queen’s Yiddish — and I’ve loved it ever since. But as every Yiddishist will tell you there are certain prejudices and kvetches that constantly crop up when discussing this language which one 18th-century scholar felt should really be called Hebreo-barbarish. So here, for Hebreo-barbarish lovers everywhere, are my attempts at crushing the Top 5 Yiddish kvetches.

Kvetch 1: It’s just a bastardised German.
About 1,000 years old, Yiddish is approximately 70 per cent Germanic, 20 per cent Hebrew/Aramaic and 10 per cent Slavonic, served with a cheeky seasoning of Romance elements (bentshn, to bless, comes from the Latin benedicere; cholent from the medieval French for “hot”, as in the modern chaud). So yes, Yiddish is, to use the Yiddish term, a mish-mash. But then so are many languages; so is English. In fact you could say of Yiddish and English that one of them is a crazy if expressive bastardised German with a highly irregular grammar, and the other one is Yiddish.

Kvetch 2: It’s not a language, it’s a dialect.
It’s easy to identify a language when it’s tied to a country. In fact, some clever linguist with time on his hands once said that a language is a dialect with an army and navy. But it’s part of the miracle of Yiddish that there has never been a “Yiddishland” yet at its peak the language was spoken by 11 million people from New York to Krakow to Cape Town, and they were all capable of understanding each other. Surely that qualifies as a language.

Kvetch 3: Yiddish is sorely lacking in vocabulary.
Granted, there are certain areas where Yiddish vocabulary is a bit shvakh (weak), areas where Jews had less involvement or interest such as warfare or DIY (I jest about the latter, though the Yiddish for “Allen key” escapes me just now). But it’s important to remember that linguistic truism about Eskimos having 40 different words for snow. Your average Eskimo might well laugh at English for its impoverished frozen rainwater lexicon. And there are other areas where Yiddish vocabulary is particularly rich compared to English or (and I’m guessing here) Eskimo: words for “God” or “fool”, where each Yiddish word denotes something slightly different. Thus, the shlemil is the one who spills some soup, the shlimazl has soup spilt onto him, and the nar just laughs instead of getting a J-cloth.

Kvetch 4: It’s nothing but swear words and curses.
It’s true Yiddish is incredibly rich in colourful expressions and curses. I’d share some of my favourites but that wouldn’t do my side of the argument much good. But it’s also a language in which you can express every possible shade of love, tenderness, humour, political commitment, religious fervour, passion, philosophy, science, sex. It also has a rich literature — not just Bashevis Singer or The Dybbuk or Sholem Aleichem’s Tevye. There’s a wealth of world-class poetry, drama, novels and short stories just waiting to find a wider audience — Ash, Leivick, Bergelson, Peretz. So it’s not just curses. And if you don’t believe me, zoln dir ale tseyn aroysfaln nor eyner zol blaybn – oyf tsonveytik (may all your teeth fall out except one — and from that may you always have toothache).

Kvetch 5: It has no future.
Yiddish is still evolving. Many speakers exchange blitspostn on dos internets (emails on the internet), chat on their tselkes (mobile phones) and even use shmekldekers (condoms — from shmekl, the affectionate diminutive of shmuk, and dekn, to cover). Maybe the battle to keep secular Yiddish alive has indeed been lost. But there are an estimated half-a-million native speakers of Yiddish of child-bearing age in the strictly-Orthodox community who are bringing their children up in Yiddish. Within 50 or so years the language could once again be the mame-loshn for millions. The future of Yiddish is safe in their hands.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, here’s a bonus kvetch… Why, when you write Yiddish in English letters, do you use that strange spelling?

I’m following the spellings of YIVO, the Yiddish Scientific Institute — a sort of Academie Française with a beard and payes. Writing ikh instead of Ich, or blitspostn instead of Blitzposten reflects the way the language is pronounced and stresses the fact that Yiddish isn’t just German-gone-meshuge (meshuggah?). You can find out more in my Radio 4 documentary My Yiddishe Mother-Tongue which goes out on October 15 at 11.30am. Now, what’s the Yiddish for “shameless self-advertising”?

This article first appeared in the Jewish Chronicle.

Top 5 Yiddish kvetches is a post from: David Schneider's website

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Not really a video this, but a couple of extracts from a documentary I did for Radio 4 about my mother’s parents – a Yiddish playwright and actress – and my general obsession with the language and culture of Yiddish.

First extract is where I take my mother back to the site of the Grand Palais Yiddish theatre in the East End of London where my grandmother was an actress and my grandfather a playwright.

The second is part of an interview about Yiddish with former head of ITV Michael Grade, sharing a couple of his favourite insults.

Want a bit more Yiddish? Well, here’s a link to an article I wrote for the Jewish Chronicle…

Yiddish kvetches

And, whilst we’re at it, here’s a nice review from the Guardian that I’m posting  here so my family can kvell, which means glow with pride. In a Jewish way…

The Guardian: My Yiddishe Mother-tongue

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