Flip through theModern English - Yiddish / Yiddish - English Dictionary , published by Uriel Weinreich in 1968 , and you ’ll acknowledge it ’s missing batch of now - omnipresent word . You wo n’t find “ email ” or “ texting , ” of course , and sure not “ transgender . ” To update a historic tongue for modern speakers , The Times of Israelreportstwo lyric lovers have created a new translation resource for all thing Yiddish .
Gitl Schaechter - Viswanath and Dr. Paul Glasser team up up withIndiana University Pressand the League for Yiddish to publish theComprehensive English - YiddishDictionary . With 50,000 entries and 33,000 sub - entries , it ’s more than twice the distance of Weinreich ’s dictionary . Even more significantly , it ’s the first body of work in 50 years to breathe novel spirit into a language that experts consider to bearound 1100 year old .
Schaechter - Viswanath , a poet and editor program , and Glasser , a former James Dean of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research , kick in words to the dictionary , as did their Yiddish - speaking colleague . The two also relied heavy on notes compiled by Schaechter - Viswanath ’s father — take down Yiddish linguist Dr. Mordkhe Schaechter — and borrowed phrases from an old Yiddish thesaurus , European address books , and French and Russian - Yiddish dictionaries .
As for the dictionary ’s sword - new entries , the editors combined already live Yiddish words into compound countersign , or canonise unofficial words or slang used among Jews today . For example , email isblitspost , bust watch isshlingen epizodn — literally translated to “ wolf down episodes”—and somersault - flops isfingershikh , or fingerbreadth - shoes .
The 2010 nose count encounter that only 154,433 Americans still speak Yiddish at home . Still , the dictionary ’s initial sales look promising : 1200 copy were release in June , and have since sell out . Another 1000 are currently in the whole shebang .
For Schaechter - Viswanath , the work was a labor of love . “ I did it for my children , my grandson , my colleague in the Yiddish globe , and myself , ” she toldThe Times of Israel . “ Most of all , I did it for my father . ”
According toThe New York Times , the dictionary ’s debut will beofficially celebratedat the Center for Judaic story in Manhattan on November 13 . ( Fittingly , the event ’s keynote oral communication and a control panel word among the dictionary ’s editor program will be offer in both English and Yiddish . ) Tickets are free , and available online .
[ h / tThe Times of Israel ]
