Yiddish is Delish

I live in Israel where they speak Hebrew, but my heart is Yiddish as I was raised in a Yiddish speaking home. It has been many years since I heard the beautiful language of my Diaspora! Reply

Geshmak is like the Dutch "smaak" which is taste, or sth that tastes good. "Smakken" is making noises while eating. Was the food good = heeft het gesmaakt? Shlep is related to "slepen",which means to drag, used just like in Yiddish. Bobe Zeyde is Slavic, just like nebech. Reply

Yiddish lessons Dear Rabbi Mendel Kaplan, YES, please teach me Yiddish. I only have "words" that I shtip into English phrases, but I can`t formulate a phrase in Yiddish. I would love to be able to pass along Yiddish to my 2 Daughters. They`re still very young, but we live in Chiba, Japan so I`m their only link. I wish I hadn`t always answered in English...I might have learned more. Ach, sol zeine kapora!! I hope many more people have sent you similar emails so that you will set-up a class teaching Yiddish. B"H Reply

Loved it! I love Yiddish, it's the sweetest language, so expresive!

Just in case anyone was curious, geshmack is a German, schmecken means to taste, geschmacken means tasted. So it's a really good example of a term that comes from German that doesn't have a particular meaning in German, but a totally different meaning in Yiddish.

Kvetsh came from Old High German, "quetschen" meant to squeeze. Ausquetschen is german for squeeze out, but it never means to complain, just squeeze.

The etymology of shmuts is from old high german, meaning dirt, but it's in German too. Actually German uses Dreck too :P

Anyone know about feygele? What about lehavdl? Reply

Answer for Rabbi Mendel I would say Ivrit, but I am not sure about the roots of the yiddish words mentioned above. These, may german words imported into yiddish but i have no way of knowing about the roots of these words if they are hebrew words imported into german. Reply

Question for Rabbi Mendel When you talk about Hebrew in your talk, are you refering to Lashon Kodesh or Ivrit? Reply

Yiddish words known in Germany Also misch-masch= mixed up, hasserei=rabits cage, quetschen=squissen, schmutzig=dirty, schlepen=dragging, gesund=healthy,
geschmack=taste, qwatch=non sense, zwievel=onion are common yiddish (maybe hebrew or german) words used in Berlin today. Reply