Lomir redn Yiddish

Sideblog of @salvadorbonaparte for all things yiddish

[yiddish-shmues]

שלום עליכם

Welcome to yiddish-shmues, a sideblog of @salvadorbonaparte

My name is Mack, I'm a PhD student in German Studies, and I'm learning Yiddish. This blog is designed to share language learning resources, vocabulary and grammar notes and anything connected to Yiddish culture and history.

I will occasionally share posts about other Jewish languages like Hebrew, Ladino, Haketia, Kivruli, Judeo Arabic etc.

I'm a Yiddish learner and using a virtual keyboard so please inform me of any mistakes, including spelling. I'm also a conversion student*, so my language learning journey often connects to my jewish journey.

[challahbeloved]

[ourladyofomega]

Hebrew / Yiddish eye chart.

[rainwindandstars]

Sending lots of love to the Jewish community today, especially the Australian Jewish community. I love you, I stand with you, I grieve with you.

[salvadorbonaparte]

Ah yes, my favourite Jewish holiday, hkunch, thank you national television of Switzerland

[hillsofspices]

absolutely obsessed with this

[yiddish-shmues]

the problem with being a (currently tragically inactive for weird reasons) conversion student living abroad is that I want to integrate myself into the local community and get excited about Hanukkah but unfortunately I'm very homesick and in December that translates to "I want to celebrate Christmas with my family :("

[yiddish-shmues]

two of my loved ones are very sick and I last saw my family in August and won't see them again before next June (if they're still alive then) and this is the first time I'm spending my entire winter alone (all my friends are also either abroad or visiting their families) and I'm busy writing essays the entire winter.

So at the moment I just want nothing more than to curl up at home and watch bad Christmas movies with my mum and spend time at a Christmas market drinking mulled wine.

My mum is sending me pictures of an advent calendar every morning. I'm listening to the weird family Christmas playlist (which includes non-christmas songs I smuggled on there). And I don't believe in Christmas and I want to start living a Jewish life but this was my childhood and it's what I miss right now in this time of homesickness. And it feels really weird.

[yiddish-shmues]

the problem with being a (currently tragically inactive for weird reasons) conversion student living abroad is that I want to integrate myself into the local community and get excited about Hanukkah but unfortunately I'm very homesick and in December that translates to "I want to celebrate Christmas with my family :("

[yiddish-shmues]

sometimes I feel like for many tumblr users Yiddish is exclusively a "cool language with fun curses and leftist political songs" instead of a language with a long history and a diverse body of speakers in different countries with various social, political, cultural, religious and economic backgrounds and opinions.

[tequeguava]

Genuine question for L2 Yiddish speakers and learners — considering how wide of a range geographically Yiddish has been historically spoken in, is there a certain dialect that tends to dominate L2 learning resources? Like did one specific country or community's dialect of Yiddish end up being what most people learn if they don't speak Yiddish natively?

I feel like with Judeo-Spanish, Turkish Ladino is the dialect that's kinda taken over most learning resources rather than Balkan Ladino, North African Haketia, etc.

[yiddish-shmues]

Yes! The dialect that is considered standardized (although one could argue about that based on your theoretical framework of standardization) is often called YIVO Yiddish and based on the Lithuanian dialect. That's what's found in most textbooks.

The majority of native speakers come from Hasidic (and similar) backgrounds nowadays who use a different dialect.

Duolingo interestingly went with a mix of the two (staying closer to YIVO grammar and Hasidic pronunciation) and I wonder if that is going to catch on.

I know very little about the state of modern Ladino so this is really interesting!

[hillsofspices]

assorted ephemera from the center for jewish history’s american soviet jewry movement collection (sources: x x x x)

[yiddish-shmues]

despite being primarily interested in Yiddish (and a bit in Ladino) I do also have an interest in Hebrew and I'm starting to genuinely consider applying for a summer or winter ulpan scholarship (not this year though)

[bialerwochenblat]

Haha, so cute. The Phantom of the Opera translated into Yiddish as Der dibuk in der opere – The Dybbuk in the Opera.

Dos naje lebn, April 25, 1926, Białystok

[yiddishknights]

Some very cool news for those of us who have taken the OSRJL's course in Old Yiddish: starting in Hilary term 2026, they're offering a new course in Advanced Old Yiddish.

[teaboot]

Gotta appreciate how goddang on point Yiddish was with developing the verbage. “Mazel tov”. “Schlep”. “Kvetching”. It feels good in the mouth. Accurate. Organic. Kiki and Boba of concepts

[teaboot]

I believe that if I’d never heard the word before in my life and someone pointed to some sleazy rapscallion rubbing elbows with persons of influence and said that they were “schmoozing” I would just innately know what they meant

[official-linguistics-post]

official linguistics post

[basil-lemonade]

it's definitely, uh, kind of Something that a word that has perfectly neutral connotations of "socializing" when jewish people use it somehow mysteriously has taken on connotations of "sleazy rapscallion angling for influence" when nonjews use it. uncomfortable every time i notice this with folks who aren't jewish 💀

[jewishaesthetics]

Chanukah foods from around the world

[yiddish-shmues]

[salvadorbonaparte]

my global yiddish lit course included a video from a 1980s yiddish musical??? Which I now obviously have to hunt down and watch. It seems very. unhinged.

[salvadorbonaparte]

I think I found it lol

[yiddish-shmues]

I had to watch a documentary about Yiddish in Israel for a class and they interviewed Yaakov Bodo and I immediately went wait that's the yeshiva student from the disco musical I watched a while ago.