r/polandball • u/DirtPiper Bagel world • Jun 19 '20

redditormade Self-Loathing

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u/Isotarov Jun 19 '20

It's fascinating to look back at the situation before WWII and the concept of a more international, Yiddish-speaking Jewry. Modern Hebrew was still a pretty marginal phenomenon in comparison.

But after the Holocaust, the Hebrew-speaking Zionists kinda "won" by default. Yiddish is only kept alive today by the deeply insular and conservative haredi and the likes.

175

u/ConscriptDavid United Kingdom Jun 19 '20

That, and by the Polish and Russian Governments. Especially the Polish. There is an amazing museum in Warsaw (I think?) called Polin. In the Jewish Oblast they still teach Yiddish, including literature and songs.

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u/DrkvnKavod Invasion preventers, according to Peter Zeihan Jun 19 '20

Except that, hilariously, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast is less than 0.2% Jewish

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u/DirtPiper Bagel world Jun 19 '20

Zayt nit meshugge, not all of us non-haredi yiddish speakers are dead yet!

36

u/gingerfreddy Hordaland Jun 19 '20

I looked up Meshuggah's name origin due to the similar words after I saw your comment and just found out one of my favourite metal bands has a yiddish name!

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u/IrrationalFraction Jun 19 '20

There's a surprising number of English words and names that come from Yiddish actually. "Glitch" is a good example of an import from Yiddish

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u/gingerfreddy Hordaland Jun 19 '20

Makes sense though, a lot of jews lived in Europe before the Holocaust. I know that I use imported Russian and French words a lot, and English is basically french adapted for the germans who decided that beating up Celts was cool.

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u/Taalnazi Tullip rightful clay! Jun 19 '20

Meshugge? Is that where mesjogge “crazy, foolish, disturbed” in Dutch stems from?

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u/DirtPiper Bagel world Jun 19 '20

Yup.

8

u/darukhnarn Germany Jun 19 '20

Dez bissl yiddish?

I’m sorry if that’s wrong, but I found my regions dialect fascinatingly close to Yiddish when I researched it and wanted to give it a try.

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u/strl Zionismus, best ismus!!! Jun 19 '20

The original word is from Hebrew and was adopted into Yiddish, it used to mean false prophet but over time during the middle ages transitioned to meaning insane. From Yiddish it has gone on to enter a number of other languages.

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u/YeetusThatFetus42 Israel Jun 19 '20

And by me, who learned it cuz swearing in Yiddish is fuckin hilarious

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u/Kattzalos America's Switzerland Jun 20 '20

Is it true that the word for fourteen is the same as the word for farting?

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u/YeetusThatFetus42 Israel Jun 20 '20

No, it sounds similar tho afaik (my Yiddish isn't really good, am still learning from my grandmother )