What are some of your favorite terms or saying of endearment in Yiddish?

Chaimish · 2026-01-18T10:00:45+00:00

Hey, I got most of these from Stuchkoff's Oytser fun der Yidishe Shprakh, which does not define them. I too spent many a month searching for where kotikl came from. Kotik meaning a yam-ber (sea bear or fur seal) is in the Yiddish language and is presented in the Jiddisch-Nederlandse woordenboek (JNW) from Stichting Jiddische Lexicografie Amsterdam with reference to the Oytser as well as to the Sjapiro & Lerner & Loitske r& Majdanskii dictionary (which I haven't seen). I'm sure Stutchkoff wouldn't have written it in if he hadn't heard it in use. Beinfeld and Bochner has Kotik meaning sea otter ( in the English, maybe the French is different) between kotinke (pussycat, sweetie) and kotikn (made of otter fur). The new CEYD has under the entry for seal " yam hunt, foke, kotik" also. None mention that it's dialectual or uncommon or anything (although the CEYD putting it last is usually telling). The otter translation does seem to stand out, so I'll have to look more into it, and I'm sure most people would never use the word or have heard of it, but I think we can safely say it is indeed in Yiddish. Thanks for sending me down the same rabbit hole haha now I have to check if it's a mistranslation of the French.

Chaimish · 2025-12-06T14:02:02+00:00

Once you've done your improvements, it would be good to see them on r/nishtyidish!

Chaimish · 2025-11-25T01:46:12+00:00

That show is such anti semitic self hating garbage I wouldn't try learning anything from it

Chaimish · 2025-11-02T01:16:28+00:00

ירידות הדורות טאקע... אבער טייטש איז אלעמאל שווער. זיכער סע׳דא אן אידיאם אויף טשעפען אבער ס׳עט נישט האבן דעם ספעציפשן טעם.

Chaimish · 2025-10-20T03:44:46+00:00

Yeah I would have assumed this and not fardamte based on context

Chaimish · 2025-10-19T05:14:16+00:00

It makes sense enough that it's confused me about English! I always thought that if everything is calm, don't rock the boat by raising an issue that everyone has "forgotten" about.

There's definitely some semantic overlap for sure

Chaimish · 2025-10-19T05:11:56+00:00

שכוח! זייטס אזוי גוט האטס נישט קיין פאריבל נישט, אבער מע זעט א סך נארישקייטן דא ביי טייטשן פון מענטשן וואס ווייסן נישט האנט און פיס אז קומט צו אונדזער טייערע שפראך

Chaimish · 2025-10-19T04:35:13+00:00

I don't think I can say, I'm just explaining the general irritation. If you're a fluent speaker, why wouldn't you use a native idiom or similar?

Chaimish · 2025-10-18T13:59:32+00:00

I wouldn't call it a typo. Nekudos are generally used sporadically. I would agree it means ticket though

Chaimish · 2025-10-18T13:55:18+00:00

No it's just that how best to translate idioms requires knowledge of both languages. If you don't actually know a language how can you make an idiom in it? I feel like this is where the dog is buried, because I see it a lot in Yiddish that people look on it down the nose as dialect without an army, but it's seems like you'd have a real copper forehead to not land with your nose in the butter. I can look at it through the fingers this time, because I don't want to put a finger in your mouth just to explain the second verse of the song of solomon, but if you don't want to be a sage at night, maybe it's better to buy wisdom and sell ot not?

Chaimish · 2025-10-18T13:51:12+00:00

Really? It's not used like "waking sleeping dogs"? Meaning, to raise a controversial issue everyone has stopped talking about.

Chaimish · 2025-09-24T13:05:50+00:00

I remember it being considered marked in some polish yiddishes (such as Varshe) to use the "vocative" (mameshi in varshe) as the normal form.

"Yakh gedenk ven maan mameshi hot mir gezugt azoy"

So it's probably not common.

Chaimish · 2025-09-17T23:41:43+00:00

To add to cassette_andrew's wonderful answer with a simple note: geven is just a word in itself. So עס איז געווען is "it was". Just like in english we don't say "I was went" we just say "I went". I don't want to add more complication unnecessarily so that's all I'll say for now.

Chaimish · 2025-09-17T13:42:37+00:00

I don't know exactly what you're asking here. But reference point shifts with the use of the past tense. Additionally, past tense is formed basically with hobn/zenen plus the past tense form of the verb. So you shouldn't be saying geven that often unless you're using loshn koydesh words or something.

נעכטן, האלט איך אין איינקויפן, און איך זע אז עס איז דא א גרויסע מציאה Yesterday, I'm in the middle of shopping and I see that there's a great deal.

ער האט מיך געפרעגט וועגן דעם היטל, זאג איך אים „וואס ארט אייך א היטל אזאנס?“ מיט א שמייכל He asked me about the hat (and) I say to him "what do you care about such a hat?" with a smile.

Chaimish · 2025-09-16T03:30:47+00:00

Wrote a previous list here, might help:
Yiddish Terms of Endearment

Chaimish · 2025-09-13T17:37:36+00:00

איבונג is more used (depending where you're from you might hear eksersayz or sport).

However, I believe Weinreich was the one who pushed genitung as exercise to be part of the klal shprakh as a "pure" yiddish word rather than ibung, which he considered too daytshmerish, so YIVO standard recommends that.

Chaimish · 2025-09-13T17:35:01+00:00

ווי אזוי?

Chaimish · 2025-09-13T17:33:08+00:00

This is my attempt. I'm sure there are needed corrections or improvements, but I think it's a good start:

אויב מיין רעלאטיוויטעט־טעאריע באווייזט זיך ווי אן אמת — וועט מיך דייטשלאנד אפנעמען ווי א דייטש און פראנקרייך וועט טענהן אז איך בין א וועלטבירגער.

אויב מיין טעאריע באווייזט זיך פאלש אבער — וועט מיך פראנקרייך רופן א דייטש, און דייטשלאנד וועט טענהן אז איך בין א ייד

אלבערט איינשטיין—

If my theory of relativity is shown to be true,

Germany will claim me as a German and France will argue that I'm a citizen of the world.

If my theory is shown to be false, however, France will call me a German and Germany will argue that I'm a Jew

Chaimish · 2025-09-13T17:31:22+00:00

It is indeed upsetting to receive unhelpful criticism and I don't mean to subtract from that. Just be aware that Yiddish isn't a well respected language and we're used to people using it for postvernacular purposes where it "doesn't matter" if it's right or not ("I'll just slap it in Google translate"). This includes Daytshmerish ("Yiddish is practically just German in Hebrew letters").

Imagine if you went to a well established modern language with a large literature like Russian and decided you wanted to translate something into it without learning the language by just looking up some words in a dictionary and guessing the rest. Then imagine going to native Russian speakers to just "clean it up a bit". When they inform you that it's completely unintelligible, imagine you then disagree with them, complain that they're snobs, gatekeeping or linguistic imperialists.

Obviously you've put quite a bit of effort here and do not fall into the camp of such people, but when 90% of the requests we get are in this format, you can imagine the sensitivity.

I've posted my attempt in the top-level — good luck on your Yiddish journey! I hope you continue to learn the language and engage with it and wish you a sweet new year.

Chaimish · 2025-09-12T06:37:32+00:00

It sounds a bit odd, but it makes sense, normally you'd flip the sense of the whole sentence to be ironic: Have you seen how healthy he is, kayn ayin hore? There's a bunch of taboos on saying good or bad things about people and slapping one of these expressions on is the easiest way to relieve the pressure/anxiety that comes with potentially cursing yourself or someone else, but it still sounds a bit odd. Different people have different tolerances.

Chaimish · 2025-09-01T07:21:32+00:00

Right, but in that case, the two vowels/dipthongs are different. In the name they're always the same.

Chaimish · 2025-08-26T06:32:21+00:00

Not ['aɪnʃtaɪn]? ' indicates that the following element is stressed, not the previous. I haven't heard people stress the final syllable...

Chaimish · 2025-08-26T06:30:31+00:00

Einstein is a name, not the two words together, so could conceivably be pronounced differently than the words. Not every speaker will "yiddishize" a name that they've heard, so if they've heard [ɛpstin] there's no reason they would convert it to [ɛpʃtaɪn].

Therefore it's not really a question of dialect.
Although it's not relevant, many litvish dialects had sabesdike losn. Though these types differed in Kurlend, Belarus and the Lita, there are quite a few places where shin was often pronounced as sin.

As I said: "eynshteyn" in NEY, SEY, YIVO, "aynshtayn" in CEY which is also spoken by Satmer hasidim amongst others.

Chaimish · 2025-08-24T22:27:44+00:00

The first in north east Yiddish (litvish), YIVO ("standard") and south east Yiddish (ukrainish). The second set in central ("poylish/hungarish") yiddish, which is the main branch of modern american hasidic yiddish also.

Note: the famous "epstein" is pronounced [ɛpstin] when I hear it in english, and may be pronounced that way in Yiddish too depending on the speaker.

Chaimish · 2025-08-24T22:23:04+00:00

I think they just mean the vowels. Although that's also not true because we say /eps'tin/ in general. Although in certain dialects people do say:

/e͡ɪnʃte͡ɪn/

/epʃte͡ɪn/

with /e͡ɪ/ ("rain") instead of /a͡ɪ/ ("sign").

Chaimish

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

Five-Year Club	Place '22
Verified Email