Subject: [OT]Yiddish (was RE: [lojban] Re: i want my brain cells back!)

From: "A.W.T." <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2001 18:03:22 -0000

--- In lojban@y..., Edward Cherlin <edward.cherlin.sy.67@a...> wrote:

> I'm helping Al Grand with his Yiddish translations of Gilbert and Sullivan.
> He wrote them out in the Latin alphabet, and I'm putting them into "Idish
> oyses", that is, Yiddish written in the Hebrew alphabet. See Isaac Asimov's
> review at http://www.ibiblio.org/yiddish/DYG/asimov.htm. (Asimov grew up
> speaking Yiddish in New York.) He ends, "Enjoy! Of course, you have to
> understand Yiddish -- but doesn't everyone?"

In earlier times, Yiddish was the lingua franca in Eastern Europe, e.g. on the "Gymnasium" (high school) in Chernovic, the 
students on the school yard would talk in Yiddish to each other, no matter if they were Jewish, Ukrainian, Romanian or German.
I've been quite illiterate in that language. Now again and again am enjoying people's most knowledgeable contributions in Mendele 
list in the archived files from a por yorn tsurik. nit a groyse shtik tsayt tsurik hob ikh ongehoybn ersht tsu leyenen yidish (oykh 
in hebreyishe oysyes), visndik itzt, az di mame-loshn iz nokh nisht oysgeshtorbn ober tomed nokh zeyer lebndik. ken ikh yidish 
fun mayne kinder- un yugnt-tsayt in daytshland ven hobn mit undz gelebt in di yorn nokhn tsvaytn velt-milkhome gute, libe 
mentshn, vos zey hobn geredt yidish, un zeyere kinder zeynen geven mayne shpil-khaveyrim - s'iz a shod, az men ken haynttsutog 
nisht mer hern keyn yidish vort in undzer shtat (afile oykh di yidn redn nisht mer di mame-loshn).

Would you do me a favour un zeyt ir azoy gut tsu efsher leyenen korektur fun mayn veb-bletl, vu ikh hob geton a pruv tsu 
iberzetsn a shtikl proze fun der estraykhishn shrayber frants verfl in farsheydene shprakhn.

http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de/WERFEL.RXML

Forgive my mistakes and daytshmerizms - un a dank af faroys! .i ki'ecai mi'e .aulun.