What's Lobster in Yiddish?: Teaching Yiddish to Senior Citizens
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- Опубліковано 14 сер 2014
- Helen Kurzban, Brooklyn-born native Yiddish speaker and former administrator in the New York City public schools, describes how after retirement she volunteered to teach a variety of Yiddish-related courses to senior citizens.
To learn more about the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project, visit:
www.yiddishbookcenter.org/tell...
You are never too old to learn something. Thanks.
In Paul Adelson's English-Yiddish Encyclopedic Dictionary (1915) the word for "lobster" is given as "yam-rahk." "Hummer"or "hommer" is from the German which possibly derives from the French "homard." Even for traif, Yiddish offers variety. LOL
Interesting that, very reminiscent of Russian яма (jama) & рак (rak). I suppose that would make it a hole-crab which I rather like :)
Since "yam" can mean "sea" I take it to come from that. Remarkable, truly, and a funny name for lobster: "sea-crab" or such. Yiddish is a product largely of circumstance, sometimes tragedy, but it is overwhelmingly cosmopolitan and endlessly interesting.
I love this lady she's hysterical what a sense of humor!
I love how she says "call" and "store".
interesting how much the yiddish word for lobster (ruch) is similar to roach; roach being the family of bugs to which lobsters are genetically connected.
Yeah all Germanic languages
Lobsters are Crustaceans. Roaches (as in Cockroach) are Insects. They're both Arthropods.
Wow. As a non-Jewish, non-Yiddish familiar person you just blew my mind. Is it a German connection?
@@argonwheatbelly637 Sea roach?
@@haharmageddontv6581 : Maybe in the minds of those who coined the word.
What a fascinating lady! 🦐 is yummy anyway. It's full of minerals and nutrients. The word shrimp sounds a bit Yiddish, too. Or schrimp. The story around the lobster goes off on an interesting tangent.......
I love this lady's dialect of English. It has to be one of my favourite varieties of English, even though, as a linguist, I shouldn't really pick favourites!
But I wonder if anyone can tell me what she means by 'snow bird'? At 0:48 she says, "we were still snow birds". Thanks in advance :-)
I know it as a term for people from the Northeast of the U.S. who spend the winters in Florida or the south. In other words, they "fly south" to escape the snow.
christa whitney Thank you very much for the information! I am a little curious as to why this would be accepted by an organisation for their employee, especially in the United States, where I thought annual leave (maybe you call it 'vacation'?) was quite minimal.
Snowbirding sounds like something only rich people could afford. Do they own two homes - one in New England and one in the South, then? Does it have a reputation of being a well-off person's lifestyle?
It kinda reminds me, in a way, of the Golden Girls! With Sofia and Dorothy being from Brooklyn...!!!
cuimreach Good point. I failed to mention that it's mainly "observed" by people who are retired or semi-retired.
christa whitney That's really interesting information. Thanks :-)
I live in the south, Winter Haven, Florida. The folks who come down from the north were dubbed "snow birds" years ago. They come from Canada, New England, the Great Lakes area, the upper mid west, etc. In the summer time all you see here are Florida auto tags but in the winter there are tags from all over.
Shrimp is not Kosher, either. Whats next, bacon? Oy gevalt geshrigens!
Hi, can anyone out there help me translate a hand-written Yiddish letter from my grandfather into English? I can help you in exchange with English, French or Dutch!
People on reddit may help. There are various Jewish subs.
I've done a bit of research, and I can't find the word 'lobster' in Yiddish, either. I don't think that it exists!
The word lobster does exist in Yiddish, it's האמאר similar to the german"hummer" which means lobster
Harkavy's dictionary lists ראַק as the Yiddish word for Lobster, which is used in Russian for crawfish and sometimes lobster. "Rak" (рак) also means "cancer", in Russian and in Yiddish, so there may be some reluctance to use the word. But האָמאַר is correct as well, and is in fact the Polish word for lobster. (The French word as well - homard).
polish has Homar for lobster,russian has Омар, french homard and yiddish has האָמאַר. similar words are also used in almost every germanic and slavic language. The french word comes from german and the german word comes from old norse humarr. the word is possibly a cognate of latin cammarus which reminds me of spanish word camaron, shrimp in english. so I would say that this word is the proper one.
This lady was my principal in grammar school
homar is also Hungarian
Shes a regular riot!!
💧
Odd. I figure senior citizens would be teaching Yiddish to younglings.
Why would Jews bother about how to say lobster in Jiddish since lobster is not kosher anyway?
There have been and continue to be secular Jews who speak Yiddish; I don't personally eat lobster, but I know other Yiddish-speakers who do!
Reagan was a mensch!