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This is Yiddish, which I was just reading about here, and this literally means "a dismal animal death on you" but actually communicates something like "you should spend the rest of your tiny life in a Colorado feedlot, then be herded off to some nonunion slaughterhouse to be turned, painfully, into fast-food burgers for one of the less prominent chains" (or simply, drop dead).
The NYT article is about a new book on the Yiddish language and culture by Michael Wex, a Yiddish translator, university teacher, novelist and stand-up comic (so can he do some stand up comedy in class or his students have to go see him in whatever place he's performing?). It sounds like an interesting language, especially that the author describes it as "a language in which you can't open your mouth without finding out that, no matter what you're saying, you're saying it wrong". I guess this relieves the pressure off the learning process.
Anyway, if you happen to be fed up with my interest in languages, I can help. You can simply say in Yiddish:
A: (frowning) HAK MIR NISHT KEN TSHAYNIK
which literally means: 'don't knock me a teakettle'
but you actually mean: 'you don't have to shut up completely, but I'd really appreciate it if you'd stop rattling on about the same damned thing all the time'
Hey, you don't have to shout.. :)
Mai
The NYT article is about a new book on the Yiddish language and culture by Michael Wex, a Yiddish translator, university teacher, novelist and stand-up comic (so can he do some stand up comedy in class or his students have to go see him in whatever place he's performing?). It sounds like an interesting language, especially that the author describes it as "a language in which you can't open your mouth without finding out that, no matter what you're saying, you're saying it wrong". I guess this relieves the pressure off the learning process.
Anyway, if you happen to be fed up with my interest in languages, I can help. You can simply say in Yiddish:
A: (frowning) HAK MIR NISHT KEN TSHAYNIK
which literally means: 'don't knock me a teakettle'
but you actually mean: 'you don't have to shut up completely, but I'd really appreciate it if you'd stop rattling on about the same damned thing all the time'
Hey, you don't have to shout.. :)
Mai
posted by Mai at 2:25 PM
3 Comments:
So, What & why is the Fuss about Yiddish nowadays? Dose it have any future? like Microsoft document in Yiddish? or ??? What is the roots of this Langauage any how.?
hey sharief, ok here is the thing about Yiddish: it's a language written in Hebrew script and spoken by Jewish people in many European countries, in Israel, and in some parts of North and South America. As far as I know, it's mainly derived from medieval German dialect, and includes many elements from Hebrew, Aramaic, and Slavonic languages.
the earliest quote in the OED about Yiddish is from 1875 which describes it as "corrupt German".
so this is the past, as for the future.. well it's not a national language anywhere but they say that about 4 million people around the world use it, and a google search on "yiddish" produces around 7 million hits, so..
Thanks Mai for that...
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