if you would just put me in this room and i had no idea where i am i would think im in geography class in germany with a teacher that speaks german with accent from somewhere eastern europe and for some reason speaks english too sometimes. i would never guess im sitting in a yiddish class, when you speak this slow, it sounds 100% german, i understand absolutely everything. even every country's name is the same: dänemark, weißrussland, tschechei, ungarn, deutschland, österreich, slowakei etc. etc. and also: what he is saying about the capital of slowakei being bratislava OR pressburg. we have that with a lot of eastern european cities that used to be german at some point in history. just like: kaliningrad (königsberg); wrocław (breslau); szczecin (stettin); brno (brünn); lwiw (lemberg) just from the top of my head but they had german names for virtually every city and village in poland/ukraine oh btw, the free hand drawing of europe was impressive!
Bratislava used to be in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, not Germany. But it had a German name, and it seems that Austrains tend to use the old German names for these places today, whereas Germans tend to use the modern slavic names. Also "Tschechei" for Czech Republic is considered politically uncorrect in German for some reason, you're supposed to use the name "Tschechien". Apparently this has not transpired into Yiddish.
This is really cool. I know a bit of German and Dutch (and English of course), and I can understand almost all of this. The teacher sounds like he is speaking a German dialect with a Russian or other Eastern European accent.
There is actually something unique to it (hoiptstadt, wos, groisse, versteyt sich, Daytschland etc). That's not just German with a Slavic accent tbh. That's white distinctively Yiddish...
Love Yiddish and the culture that goes with it! Pity there aren't that many Yiddish speakers left in the world, Hopefully the Yiddish speaking community will rejuvenate and continue to grow.
Not even Jewish as far as family memory knows but I'm learning Yiddish because it's a cool language. Same for Mongolian and Cherokee. I am Cajun. The internet has reminded us that we're all the same AND different and that those aren't mutually exclusive. Value in wisdom.
yeah this really took me by surprise. I know jews from all over the world, i've yet to meet a Swedish Jew. Not saying they aren't around, but even from my time spent in israel when I'd meet jews from Germany, Denmark, Russia, Italy, Ethiopia, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil... you name it... not even one from Sweden lol
@@youngkinghedwig there are 20 000 jews in Sweden, much less than in some other countries in the world, but still a significant amount of people. Also sweden, being a developed country with seemingly lower rates of antisemitism than other countries, gives little incentive for people to switch countries
Ah, I just listened again. I see what you mean. Well ironically, he said that Denmark was not a big deal for the Jews but that is not correct. Denmark had/has a Jewish community and has for a very long time. In addition, Denmark was one of the few countries with a pair of balls, that refused to rat out it's Jewish population to the Nazis during the war.
Helped by Duckwitz who got the information from Best about the planned deportation and warned the Danes, convinced the Swedish government to let the Jews in and the German Army and Navy commanders to be complicit.
איך בין דערשטוינט געווארען צו זעהן ווי א פרעמדע רעדט אזא גוטע אידיש!!! איצט זעה איך ווי מזלדיק איך בין אז אידיש איז מיין מאמע-לשון - ערשטע שפרייך..... I'm surprised to see a foreigner speak such good yiddish Now i see how lucky i am that yiddish is my mother-tongue - first language.......
@@Rolando_CuevaI wonder, obviously he speaks slowly and very articulate to be understood by his students, but could it also be an issue with him speaking "European" Yiddish? A lot of Yiddish videos on youtube are from American Yiddish speakers, and their accent is completely different (and hard to understand for a native German speaker, if I may say).
@@xaverlustig3581 I agree, I am a native German speaker and for me he almost sounds like he's speaking Standard German with an accent or speaks a kind of a dialect. He speaks much clearer than American Yiddish speakers....
IMHO the major omission is the Netherlands, with its capital Amsterdam, better known by Dutch Jews before the second World War as Mokum Alef, or the First City.
The Kaliningrad area is missing :-) . No Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland? Scandinavia is Europe, too! "Ikh bin fun Moskve, zer a groyse shtod, zer a shvere shtod". Ikh bin fun Disseldorf, zer a shoyne shtod. דוססעלדאָרף
sheikowi : yes . He speaks with a mixed gallitzianer/litvak sound. More Gallitzianer actually. But easily understandable by someone who was hearing the languages while growing up! “Another Mayse”! Had to laugh! I recall the Bubbe mayses that they thought the kids did not understand!
It is incredible how easy it is for me as a German to understand the Yiddish language and how they write almost the same pronounciation using their alphabet from right to left. Please preserve this language and culture. It is so sad what happend in the past and these actions of complete stupidity happened not even 100 years ago. I hope that people now learned where I live to respect "those who at the end are not very different" and it would be a great pleasure to welcome this culture again in their and our home country. Together we will make sure that these horrible things never happen again. God bless you.
True enough and Denmark is a terrific little country. But I think the intention was to learn a few country names in Yiddish rather than a geography lesson ;) A gutn tog, un gei in gezunterheyt :) Not sure how to say that in Danish ...
This is a lecture on Yiddish-speaking communities and these were non-existent in Croatia, Bosnia or Serbia. There was a small Ladino (Spanish) speaking community in Sarajevo but other than that all other Jews were fully assimilated urban people who spoke either German, during the Hapsburg period until 1918 or Croatian thereafter.
These are recordings from classes held live in 2011. You can see all of the Yiddish Book Center's current educational offerings here (modified this year because of the pandemic, of course): www.yiddishbookcenter.org/educational-programs
they forgot the whole Scandinavian peninsula! lol. in yiddish you call Sweden Shweyden, which you can write שוועדן if i am not mistaken (I have doubts on the ע). Norway is pronounced like "Norveygia" but this I don't know how to write, :-)
Yiddish is a super-difficult language, far more difficult than German, and I am not surprised that Yiddish speakers are among the most intelligent people in the World with huge IQ. Unfortunately I speak a bit German,ut I can understand only a small portion of a Yiddish conversation
Yes, difficult, also because of the various influences. I live in Holland and the Yiddish spoken here had almost no Slavic words. But it was older than ostyidish! E.g. to pray usually is 'davenen', but in Holland it was 'oren' (Latin: orare). But OK, we say 'nebish' as well.
Yiddish is not a super-difficult language and definitely isn't more difficult than German. I am a student of both languages and it is obvious that Yiddish is much closer to English syntactically and in some cases lexically than German. Also, IQ has nothing to do with mother tongues.
Jews are extremely bright and creative no matter which country or language community they hail from (Sephardi, Yiddish ..).. Yiddish is a simplified German with the schmeck i.e. taste of Judaism. Jews came upon an influential language and toyed with it, turning it around a bit so as to make it suit their needs and their witty mentality.
Bulgaria had many Sephardic Jews. The King of Bulgaria and the Prime Minster refused to turn them over to Hitler. Most Bulgarian Jews immigrated to Israel after the war.
if you would just put me in this room and i had no idea where i am i would think im in geography class in germany with a teacher that speaks german with accent from somewhere eastern europe and for some reason speaks english too sometimes.
i would never guess im sitting in a yiddish class, when you speak this slow, it sounds 100% german, i understand absolutely everything.
even every country's name is the same: dänemark, weißrussland, tschechei, ungarn, deutschland, österreich, slowakei etc. etc.
and also: what he is saying about the capital of slowakei being bratislava OR pressburg. we have that with a lot of eastern european cities that used to be german at some point in history. just like: kaliningrad (königsberg); wrocław (breslau); szczecin (stettin); brno (brünn); lwiw (lemberg) just from the top of my head but they had german names for virtually every city and village in poland/ukraine
oh btw, the free hand drawing of europe was impressive!
Bratislava used to be in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, not Germany. But it had a German name, and it seems that Austrains tend to use the old German names for these places today, whereas Germans tend to use the modern slavic names. Also "Tschechei" for Czech Republic is considered politically uncorrect in German for some reason, you're supposed to use the name "Tschechien". Apparently this has not transpired into Yiddish.
This is really cool. I know a bit of German and Dutch (and English of course), and I can understand almost all of this. The teacher sounds like he is speaking a German dialect with a Russian or other Eastern European accent.
that's exactly what yiddish is with a bit of hebrew thrown in here and there. super neat
Yiddish sounds like a German dialect because it was born in Germany !
There is actually something unique to it (hoiptstadt, wos, groisse, versteyt sich, Daytschland etc). That's not just German with a Slavic accent tbh. That's white distinctively Yiddish...
@@leonamay8776 Yes, these vowel shifts clearly distinguish Yiddish from German.
Love Yiddish and the culture that goes with it! Pity there aren't that many Yiddish speakers left in the world, Hopefully the Yiddish speaking community will rejuvenate and continue to grow.
Afaik, one of the fastest growing communities in america is hasidic jews, who usually speak yiddish.
.
Not even Jewish as far as family memory knows but I'm learning Yiddish because it's a cool language. Same for Mongolian and Cherokee. I am Cajun.
The internet has reminded us that we're all the same AND different and that those aren't mutually exclusive. Value in wisdom.
Incidentally, Yiddish is one of the official heritage languages of Sweden.
yeah this really took me by surprise. I know jews from all over the world, i've yet to meet a Swedish Jew. Not saying they aren't around, but even from my time spent in israel when I'd meet jews from Germany, Denmark, Russia, Italy, Ethiopia, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil... you name it... not even one from Sweden lol
@@youngkinghedwig there are 20 000 jews in Sweden, much less than in some other countries in the world, but still a significant amount of people. Also sweden, being a developed country with seemingly lower rates of antisemitism than other countries, gives little incentive for people to switch countries
Ah, I just listened again. I see what you mean. Well ironically, he said that Denmark was not a big deal for the Jews but that is not correct. Denmark had/has a Jewish community and has for a very long time. In addition, Denmark was one of the few countries with a pair of balls, that refused to rat out it's Jewish population to the Nazis during the war.
Helped by Duckwitz who got the information from Best about the planned deportation and warned the Danes, convinced the Swedish government to let the Jews in and the German Army and Navy commanders to be complicit.
I had a close friend when I lived in Israel who was from Copenhagen. Kid was an absolute mentsch.
Un takke punkt zelber zach mit Albania.
It had a very small Jewish population. That is what he meant.
Very enjoyable. I love to see the names of countries spelled out in different languages and writing systems!
Oy vey dize shlimazls hoben kayne anung vun geografi
He puts England beside Scotland. DOH! The person who drew the map clearly put "E" and "S".
איך בין דערשטוינט געווארען צו זעהן ווי א פרעמדע רעדט אזא גוטע אידיש!!!
איצט זעה איך ווי מזלדיק איך בין אז אידיש איז מיין מאמע-לשון - ערשטע שפרייך.....
I'm surprised to see a foreigner speak such good yiddish
Now i see how lucky i am that yiddish is my mother-tongue - first language.......
ער איז נישט קיין אויסלעןדער
A native German speaker would understand the majority of Yiddish; of course reading it he could not since it's in Hebrew letters
You understand because he speaks slowly.
@@Rolando_CuevaI wonder, obviously he speaks slowly and very articulate to be understood by his students, but could it also be an issue with him speaking "European" Yiddish? A lot of Yiddish videos on youtube are from American Yiddish speakers, and their accent is completely different (and hard to understand for a native German speaker, if I may say).
Really depends on the Yiddish speaker in my personal experience. Some include a lot more Slavic than others ime.
@@xaverlustig3581 I agree, I am a native German speaker and for me he almost sounds like he's speaking Standard German with an accent or speaks a kind of a dialect. He speaks much clearer than American Yiddish speakers....
I am german speaking swiss and understand everything he says...totally nice experience
Thank you.
So FUN thank you
My mother spoke Yiddish to my dad and he spoke German to her. Worked fine. Same background. More like "Low German"
IMHO the major omission is the Netherlands, with its capital Amsterdam, better known by Dutch Jews before the second World War as Mokum Alef, or the First City.
yuri du bist a groys lerer !!!!
The Kaliningrad area is missing :-) . No Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland? Scandinavia is Europe, too! "Ikh bin fun Moskve, zer a groyse shtod, zer a shvere shtod".
Ikh bin fun Disseldorf, zer a shoyne shtod. דוססעלדאָרף
Exactly!
Very nice. Perfect when you flip your Russian accent for a Yiddish one (Litvish preferred).
sheikowi : yes . He speaks with a mixed gallitzianer/litvak sound. More Gallitzianer actually. But easily understandable by someone who was hearing the languages while growing up!
“Another Mayse”! Had to laugh! I recall the Bubbe mayses that they thought the kids did not understand!
U have to learn how to Lisp if u speak words with a Litvicheh accent
It is incredible how easy it is for me as a German to understand the Yiddish language and how they write almost the same pronounciation using their alphabet from right to left. Please preserve this language and culture. It is so sad what happend in the past and these actions of complete stupidity happened not even 100 years ago. I hope that people now learned where I live to respect "those who at the end are not very different" and it would be a great pleasure to welcome this culture again in their and our home country. Together we will make sure that these horrible things never happen again. God bless you.
he left out memel! one of my favorites!!
otherwise very nice! :D
True enough and Denmark is a terrific little country. But I think the intention was to learn a few country names in Yiddish rather than a geography lesson ;)
A gutn tog, un gei in gezunterheyt :)
Not sure how to say that in Danish ...
Awesome
forgot the Benelux !!!
And the Belgium - Antwerpen, one of the Jewish world-capital
Norway, Sweden, Finland?
Wow, das ist wunderbar 😮 Ich möchte Fließend Jiddisch lernen.
Ganz interessantes Video. Danke!
Ich rede Hebräisch aber komme aus Brasilien
Ich verstehe 95% schöne sprache;)
+Иванский Поланский hoiptstodt! :D
Roman i dont understand ukrainian:) i'm german
Roman dear Friend i just understand it when its spoken not written try english than we can have a conversation:)
Which is actually a fairly common Ashkenazi surname.
Welcher Kontinent ist das? In keinem Fall Europa. Wo sind die Spitzenländer: Finnland, Schweden, Norwegen, Dänemark und Island?
and Finland.
You did avoid Serbia + all of the west balkans?
This is a lecture on Yiddish-speaking communities and these were non-existent in Croatia, Bosnia or Serbia. There was a small Ladino (Spanish) speaking community in Sarajevo but other than that all other Jews were fully assimilated urban people who spoke either German, during the Hapsburg period until 1918 or Croatian thereafter.
How can I join this class?
These are recordings from classes held live in 2011. You can see all of the Yiddish Book Center's current educational offerings here (modified this year because of the pandemic, of course): www.yiddishbookcenter.org/educational-programs
ok, there were actually no Jews, I think (Skand (only Denmakr maybe) und Findl,
and not much said about Denmark,
what is with Scandinavia
He only teaches country names which were important in the history of the Yiddish people.
@ Simo Bonev: It isn't. Get over it.
Forgot Shveyts (Switzerland).
Ich bin fin muskve, ah shvere shtat. Ha.
Yugoslavia???!
You forgot Sweden :(
they forgot the whole Scandinavian peninsula! lol.
in yiddish you call Sweden Shweyden, which you can write שוועדן if i am not mistaken (I have doubts on the ע). Norway is pronounced like "Norveygia" but this I don't know how to write, :-)
Yiddish is a super-difficult language, far more difficult than German, and I am not surprised that Yiddish speakers are among the most intelligent people in the World with huge IQ. Unfortunately I speak a bit German,ut I can understand only a small portion of a Yiddish conversation
Yes, difficult, also because of the various influences. I live in Holland and the Yiddish spoken here had almost no Slavic words. But it was older than ostyidish! E.g. to pray usually is 'davenen', but in Holland it was 'oren' (Latin: orare). But OK, we say 'nebish' as well.
Yiddish is not a super-difficult language and definitely isn't more difficult than German. I am a student of both languages and it is obvious that Yiddish is much closer to English syntactically and in some cases lexically than German. Also, IQ has nothing to do with mother tongues.
Yiddish is way easier than Modern German, we don't have all those crazy rules that exist in Hochdeutsch lol!
Jews are extremely bright and creative no matter which country or language community they hail from (Sephardi, Yiddish ..).. Yiddish is a simplified German with the schmeck i.e. taste of Judaism. Jews came upon an influential language and toyed with it, turning it around a bit so as to make it suit their needs and their witty mentality.
It’s not that hard. The issue is the lack of learning materials.
easier to read than Hebrew c:
No Lithuania, the center of Eastern Yiddish scholarship?!
i'm on pins and needles if he uses the correct name for white russia and the ukraine.
wow! right off the bat. he got ONE right! i'll take that.
Die Slowakei liegt "zwischen" Tschechien und Ungarn. Die Slowakei grenzt auch an Österreich !!!! Sonst ist alles in Ordnung :-)))
אין אלע ספָרים שרייבען וילנא און פולין. נישט פוילן אדער וילנע. וכו' וכו'.
א דאַנק - דאָס איז זײַער גוט!
Yiddish is almost intuitive in English.
England iz mein shtat.
@Harold Potsdamer You must be from Potsdam !
"Curka" is Croatian slang for a "girl", the standard version being a "cura"!
Bulgaria ist nicht so wichtig?! Moron!
No need for insults. He meant that from the point of view of the Ashkenazi Jews.
Bulgaria had many Sephardic Jews. The King of Bulgaria and the Prime Minster refused to turn them over to Hitler. Most Bulgarian Jews immigrated to Israel after the war.
Balearícs islands!!!!!