Sonntag, 16. September 2007

More Joys of Yiddish

It's been a long wait (mea culpa), but here we go now. Decide for yourself whether it's been worth the wait. Flattering comments are welcome.

  • dershtickenish - sticky / thick / bad air (in a room)
  • dorem-froi - woman from the south
  • drailing - triplet
  • dreiele - curlicue
  • dreml - nap
  • droisndik - outdoors
  • eilbert - olive
  • ekldik - disgusting, atrocious
  • erdglitsh - landslide
  • erdtsiternish - earthquake

Oh, BTW, I do feel compelled to comment on the word "eidel"; it's derived from the German "edel" (= noble, delicate) which is the adjective of "Adel" (= nobility). It is not synonymous to "shein" [Yiddish] / "schön" [German] (= beautiful) or "voil" [Yiddish] / "wohl (arch.) / nett" [German] (= nice). The word conotes high class (Class is not a facial cream; class is in a woman's way of conducting herself, not in her credit card bills.) paired with a delicate (as noblewomen did not usually do physical work or housework; they supervised ;) ) or at least in some way extraordinarily positive physical appearance (not necessarily beautiful, but attractive through distintctly delicate yet defined features).

1 Kommentar:

Miriam hat gesagt…

what a coincidence! I was just trying to figure out what the word "shein" meant.

(I was listening to a Chaim Israel CD with a yiddish song in it)