Yiddish has borrowed a significant part of its vocabulary from different Slavic languages, most notably from Polish and Russian. As far as varieties of the language are concerned, Yiddish has one thing in common with Slovenian: while no one speaks the “proper” language, even members of the same family may speak different varieties of it (anyone here having to deal with »krumči-« and »krumpli-relatives«?)
The most interesting nouns due to which Yiddish sounds quite like Slovenian are:
1. kretschme; Slovenian: krčma (inn, pub)
2. wetschere; Slovenian: večerja (dinner, supper)
3. kascha; Slovenian: kaša (a meal made of corn or cereals, mash)
Since Yiddish is basically a close relative of German, nouns will of course be marked for gender and have articles. All three nouns above are of feminine gender and therefore carry the article di. Masculine nouns are preceded by… surprise surprise: der. Neutral nouns can be recognized by a doß (all words here are transcribed the German way) preceding them.
One more thing needs to get mentioned: The alphabet is also used to represent numbers. Here are the first 12 of them:
|
Symbol |
Number |
|
א |
1 (ejnß) |
|
ב |
2 (zwej) |
|
ג |
3 (drai) |
|
ד |
4 (fir) |
|
ה |
5 (finf) |
|
ו |
6 (sex) |
|
ז |
7 (sibn) |
|
ח |
8 (acht) |
|
ט |
9 (nain) |
|
י |
10 (zen) |
|
יא |
11 (elf) |
|
יב |
12 (zwelf) |
March 26th, 2007 at 22:20
Robert: I did some linguistic research on Yiddish and what I found out was that speaking historically, it is a variety of German. Speaking in terms of modern linguistics (“synchronically”), it has some very relevant grammatical structures that are not the same in German (concretely: Verb-Object sequences), much of vocabulary that is not German and it is often considered an independent language nowadays.
I have to admit I don’t care. One of my friends comes from Međimurje and he calls me “Northern-Croatian” while I call him “Southern-Slovenian” and we speak a very similar dialect…
March 26th, 2007 at 22:13
Hallo Alcessa,
Yes, I read the wikipedia article (what else
): according to “In der Forschung bestehen unterschiedliche Einschätzungen, ob das Jiddische als eine gegenüber dem Deutschen eigenständige Sprache oder eher als eine Variante des Deutschen zu betrachten ist” – the only proper Yiddish is German. I may be an ignorant for linguitic subtleties, but this Yiddish-stuff resembles me highly to the question if Bosnian is a language of it’s own because of some Turkish influence… or either is Serbian a distinct language because of the usage of the ‘cirilica’.
PS: eins, zwei, drei, vier, fünf, sech, sieben, acht, neun, zehn, elf, zwölf
March 26th, 2007 at 22:40
Ist Österreichisch/Kärntnerisch also auch kein Deutsch?
“hai(n)t regnet ‘heute regnet es [Fehlen des Pronomens]‘, Nachahmung slowen. syntaktischer Muster”
“Klobasse ‘Selchwurst’ Kolatsche ‘eine Mehlspeise’”
pitam se, pitam
March 27th, 2007 at 07:51
Robert, I think there are people who can tell you that
March 27th, 2007 at 22:45
What also reminds me of Slovenian: באַווייבט and באַמאַנט (did I write this right?). Only the literal German (or Yiddish, for that matter) translation elucidates the, hmmm…how to put it…let’s say “Spießigkeit” of the Slovenian words.
March 28th, 2007 at 08:57
March 28th, 2007 at 09:26
Ahim: I sometimes think there is Spiessigkeit in Slovenian DUAL, too
March 28th, 2007 at 18:37
As a Slovenian poet said about dual (either Dane Zajc or Niko Grafenauer, I’m not sure): only in Slovenian two lovers going to bed don’t have to take a third person with them. So I don’t think it’s spiessig. It’s rather poetic…and clear. Hmmm…too clear…when you want a bit of ambiguity. But maybe this is already spiessig for you.
March 28th, 2007 at 20:37
Ahim: let me tell you about one of the situations I had in mind… Not all of them are spiessig, no.
A young girl, telling her friends demonstratively: Danes greva v kino. You know? Everyone knows her company must be a male, many of them know it can only be a boyfriend or whatever. And noone would feel invited to come along.
Or so.
But yes, I like “indetermination” in personal communication. Occasionally.
March 29th, 2007 at 00:10
So it strikes me….there must be important interrelations between language and national mentality… Ooooooh, the implications…
March 29th, 2007 at 14:02
Do drop by and tell us if you discover anything
March 29th, 2007 at 14:44
June 19th, 2007 at 06:43
Don´t you mean Medjimurje (and not Medjugorje) alcessa?
June 19th, 2007 at 08:54
AUTCH! Ja. Thanks.