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Yiddish Language and Culture in All Its Moods
St. Martin's Press
September 2005
320 pages ISBN: 0312307411 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
As the main spoken language of the Jews for more than a
thousand years, Yiddish has had plenty to lament, plenty to
conceal. Its phrases, idioms, and expressions paint a
comprehensive picture of the mind-set that enabled the Jews
of Europe to survive a millennium of unrelenting
persecution: they never stopped kvetching---about God,
gentiles, children, food, and everything (and anything)
else. They even learned how to smile through their
kvetching and express satisfaction in the form of complaint. In Born to Kvetch, Michael Wex looks at the ingredients
that went into this buffet of disenchantment and examines
how they were mixed together to produce an almost limitless
supply of striking idioms and withering curses (which get a
chapter all to themselves). Born to Kvetch includes a
wealth of material that’s never appeared in English before.
You’ll find information on the Yiddish relationship to
food, nature, divinity, and humanity. There’s even a
chapter about sex. This is no bobe mayse (cock-and-bull story) from a khokhem
be-layle (idiot, literally a "sage at night" when no one’s
looking), but a serious yet fun and funny look at a
language that both shaped and was shaped by those who spoke
it. From tukhes to goy, meshugener to kvetch, Yiddish words
have permeated and transformed English as well. Through the idioms, phrases, metaphors, and fascinating
history of this kvetch-full tongue, Michael Wex gives us a
moving and inspiring portrait of a people, and a language,
in exile.
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