The Machzor of Worms

  

 

Simhah ben Yehudah ha-Sofer, completed 28 Teveth 5033 (20 December 1272 Julian) - Mahzor Worms (Israel Ms. Heb. 4°781 

This stunning page of a festival prayerbook, found in the Machzor of Worms, is the oldest example of an identifiable yiddish sentence.   The rhyming couplet  is cleverly nestled inside the Hebrew title in red ink.   

גוּט טַק אִים בְּטַגְֿא שְ וַיר דִּיש מַחֲזֹור אִין בֵּיתֿ הַכְּנֶסֶתֿ טְרַגְֿא 

Gut taq im betage se vaer dis makhazor in beis-hakneses trage. 

Let a good day dawn for him who would carry this prayer book to the synagogue.

This little note is directed to someone who recited the books Hebrew benedictions but did not speak Hebrew day to day. The sentence reaches out to the next machzor owner or carrier. Positive, upbeat, practical, and deeply rooted in Jewish history. That's Yiddish. 

 

 Here is a link to the National Library of Israel's page devoted to the Worms Machzor.

---

Gefilte Fish Divide

 Proverb: Beser gefilte fish eyder gefilte tsores (Better stuffed fish than stuffed troubles).

 

I would certainly rather have gefilte fish as opposed to stuffed troubles but the essential question is if that fish should be sweet or savory?

 

 The answer to this question depended historically on where you lived. This hotly contested divide created the very Jewish geographic feature known as "the gefilte fish line." 

 

 

The Polish marketplace was flooded with sugar in 1801 as the world's very  first sugar beet factory opened in Kunern, Silesia (now  Konary, Poland).  The fleshy tap root of the sugar beet is rich in sucrose. After the sweet stuff is sapped from the root, the pulp can be used to feed livestock. This wave of cheap and readily available sugar meant that many Polish dishes were liberally sprinkled with - including gefilte fish. 

 

 

Here is a link to the Foward's cooking show in Yiddish with English subtitles. They are making gefilte fish!

Here is a link to David Esheth's diddy Gefilte Fish.

Dialect Chart

  

Vowel (Hebrew script)	Northern Yiddish (Litvish)	Southern Yiddish (Poylish, Galitzish)	Comparison
אָ‎	o [ɔ]	u [u]	דאָס, זאָגן‎ = dos , zogn = dus, zugn (that, to say)
אֻ, וּ‎	u [ʊ]	i [i]	קוגל‎ = kugel = kigel (baked casserole - typically noodle or potato)
ײַ‎	ai [aj]	ah [aː]	זײַן‎ = zayn = zahn (tooth)
אֵ, ײ‎	ey [ɛɪ]	ay [aj]	קלײן, צװײ‎ = kleyn, tzvey = klayn, tzvay
ױ, וֹ‎	ey [ɛɪ]	oy [oj]	ברױט‎ = breyt = broyt (bread)
ע‎	e [ɛ]	ey [ej]	שטעטל‎ = shtetl = shteytl (Note: Unstressed /e/ [ə] does not change) (small town)

Gut vs Git

 Regional dialect differences can mostly be found in the way vowels are pronounced. 

Click here for the  uproariously funny song I'm a Litvak and She's a Galitz.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yiddish has three main dialects. These constitute Northeastern or Lithuanian Yiddish (traditionally spoken in what is now Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Northern Ukraine, and Russia). Central or Polish Yiddish (spoken chiefly in what is now Poland), and Southeastern or Ukrainian Yiddish (spoken in Eastern Ukraine-and Romania).  

                       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dialects of Eastern Yiddish and the North–South Divide.

In this course we will be focusing on Standard Yiddish. As in other linguistic communities, there is a fairly uniform type of language accepted and written wherever Yiddish is used. The Old and Middle Yiddish periods had literary standards of their own, based substantially on Western Yiddish. As now in use, the standard forms of Yiddish were essentially fixed by the classical writers of the 19th century. Essentially an academic project to create a common ground among a variety of dialects and not identical with any of them, Standard Yiddish provides a uniform basis from which to teach the language.

College Yiddish, the first textbook to teach Standard Yiddish, was written by Uriel Weinreich and published by YIVO in 1949.

 

Yiddish Word of the Day - Greetings and Counter Greetings

 

 Click here to view Rukhl Schaechter, of the newspaper Forverts, teach us all about the revival of Yiddish speech traditions.

---

Dialogue 1

 Click here for the audio files provided by Lily Kahn

 

 

---

Upping the Ante

 You can find the article here.

Links to an external site.

Schmuel Gelbart explains why Yiddish speakers wish each other a good year (gut yor) every day of the year!

Gut-Morgn and Other Greetings

  

Greetings can offer recognition, affection, respect, and sometimes—⁠a blessing. In Yiddish, if you’re greeted in the morning with גוט־מאָרגן (gut-morgn), you might respond by wishing that person גוט־יאָר! (gut-yor) —⁠a good year. Don’t just have a good morning, you’re saying, have a good year!

Greeting: גוט־מאָרגן!‏ Gut-morgn!

Response: גוט־יאָר!‏ Gut-yor!

There are greetings in Yiddish for various occasions. If you see someone that you haven’t seen in a while, you might say “שלום־עליכם!‏” (sholem-aleykhem). This phrase comes from Hebrew and literally means “peace be upon you”. It has its own reply, as well:

Greeting: שלום־עליכם!‏ Sholem-aleykhem!

Response: עליכם־שלום!‏ Aleykhem-sholem!

You may have even heard this phrase before. Solomon Rabinovitsh, a Yiddish writer in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, chose this classic Yiddish greeting as his pen name, and has been known the world over as “Sholem Aleichem” ever since.

Here are some other greetings. "Gut-yor" can be used as a response to them, too!

In the evening	גוטן־אָװנט! Gutn-ovnt!
On the Sabbath	גוט־שבת! Gut-shabes!
On a holiday	גוט־יום־טובֿ! Gut-yontev!

 

 

---