Moshe Sherizen on Yiddish

This is the actual fluency podcast, helping you become a better language learner by providing motivating weekly inspiration, as well as top tips and tricks from expert guests. And now, your host, Kris Broholm. We're back, and on the show today, I'm happy to have Moshe Shareson, who is the author of the Easy-Measy Guide to Yiddish, which you can find on Amazon. And uh, Moshe, why don't we just get into it and tell your story of how you got into teaching other people Yiddish and what's your background with this.

Okay, great question. Um, Kris, it's awesome, awesome to be here. I am so excited. And you know, we better make sure that we cut this thing down to, you know, not longer than three hours because I know, you know, once you get two language lovers talking, we can just go on forever. So at like the three-hour point, just give me a little elbow, poke me or something.

Right.

Um, so I'll tell you, I am I uh, I'm 32 years old, and I grew up in Detroit, Michigan, in the USA. And then I went to Hebrew school from age like, you know, four to uh, 10th grade. And, you know, it was like a Jewish day school, the first half of the morning was Judaic studies, studying the the Torah, the Bible, um, and Jewish law. And the second half of the day was secular studies. So it was very difficult as a kid, you know, having a dual curriculum. And and I had a very hard time with the second language. You know, the studies were were not in Hebrew, but, you know, studying the Bible, you know, the Old Testament in in the Hebrew language was very difficult for me at a young age. And it seemed like the other kids just got it, and I didn't get it. And it was so hard, and I, you know, like about third grade, I just decided to shut off. I was like, okay, this is not for me. This, you know, I, you know, I'll do well in secular studies, and I did, you know, I was in math and history, and science, whatever we had, you know, whatever science we had in third grade, um, I did very well. So I didn't have a learning disability, I was tested for disability, but I just couldn't get the Hebrew thing. I could not get the Hebrew.

Yeah.

So I remember being called to the office. You know, Moshe, we think that you might do better in a different school, you know. I was like, no, this is okay, now I'll be okay here. One of, no, we really think you should go to a different school.

Right.

That was so 10th grade, I found some other school, and a little, a little, uh, Jewish high school, called a Yeshiva. That's the word for, uh, Jewish high school, Yeshiva. And this is 10th grade, and I was like, oh my God, this is enough, enough is enough. I got to get out of high school. So with the blessing of my parents, at the ripe age of 16, I dropped, I think you call it, I dropped out of high school. Um, and my parents were so, so supportive, and so, so amazing. And they realized, like, this wasn't for me. And even, you know, even the secular studies, I started to really hate, uh, math and algebra, like, who needs this stuff? And I'll be honest with you.

True.

Who needs this stuff? I don't know if my kids are going to listen to this, but like my son came home with homework last night, with the common denominator. This is fractions, fractions. My wife says to me, you know, Moshe, can you help Israel with the homework? It's just the common denominator. I was like, oh my gosh, I am the denominator. I was like, no. So, you know, I did not like formal education. I wanted to just go start life. So at the age of uh, 16, I left high school. And very quickly, I got a, not a GED, I did finish correspondence. Um, and for between the age of 16 and 18, I wasn't a bum, I wasn't like, you know, partying and doing bad things. I had some friends, I had some good times, but I actually, um, was looking for a job.

Wow.

So that was like a really cool, really cool thing for me. Um, have someone believe in me. And say that, you know, we're breaking the rules for you. So I ended up teaching in Jewish day school here in Detroit for like two years, and then at age of 18, I decided to sort of, you know, revisit my roots and find my place in Judaism, and I decided to book an El Al flight to Israel. So I went to Israel for a gap year, okay? And that gap year turned into a gap decade.

Wow.

Yeah. So I I was in the city of Jerusalem, uh, as you say in in in Jerusalem, or as the Israelis say in English, Jerusalem, or Yerushalayim, or in Arabic, Quds. Um, I was in Jerusalem in a school there. And I had a great time, and with English, you can get by basically anywhere in the world. English, for those of you listening to this podcast, you probably understand English, and you should feel cool for that. I know a lot of you guys want to learn other languages, but if you speak English, you're really cool, because you could get get around with English anywhere.

Mm-hm.

And if you really want to experience life to its fullest, I believe, and this is true, you got to experience through the language of that society.

For sure. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I was just uh, thinking about an article I wrote about why you should learn Danish, because people are saying, well, every Dane speaks great English. Why should I learn the Danish language? And and I think one of the biggest reasons is just the connections you can make and then the opportunities you get, which are a lot deeper than just the shallow communication, because language is not just communication, it's also building relationships.

No, for sure, right? Like you and I as language lovers, you know, speak we both, you know, you speak bunch of languages. Like you know, when you speak to someone in his own language, it goes right to his heart.

Yeah.

It just just the connection just opens right there. The walls just break down.

Yeah, you don't even need to do it well. It's just the just the kind of gesture that you're trying is a huge difference.

Right. So, in the neighborhood I lived in, the main, it's called Mea Shearim. Um, it's a very old what they call, very right-wing Orthodox community. That's where I was in Yeshiva, in uh, the post-graduate, post-high school, even though I didn't go to high school. Post-high school, um, uh, whatever you call it, higher education, post-high school Yeshiva. Um, so they the main language was these right-wing Jews was Yiddish. And I figured, okay, I got to learn some Yiddish. So I went to the bookstore and found no books teaching Yiddish. Hmm, okay. Why is that? We'll talk about that later.

Yeah, is it a table or?

Exactly. Tish means a table. So there's a certain kind of party. You might want to Google it, I don't know. You look on YouTube. Um, it is amazing. I'm telling you, like I said, Kris, you have like a like a beeper for the three-hour point. Beep, beep, beep. Okay, that means you got two minutes to go. It is amazing to see that the way the way other cultures have a good time. The way they get together, it is amazing. You know, you see the African, the Indians, the Jews, the Americans. The Americans not so exciting, just go to raving, you know, that's not so exciting. That's not so exciting. But it's amazing to see the way other cultures have a good time and get together.

Yeah.

So it's sort of like a this is like our own personal word, you know, what's up? What's up, Jew? But like, if you say that to me, right? It's the same thing with black people. You know, if I would say, hey, what's up, something, you know? They, what? You know? If you say, hey, what's up, Jew boy? Kris, what did you call me? But in Yiddish you say, Vas macht a Yid? That's how you say, what's what's up, you know, like Jew brother?

Yeah, that's very useful.

Yeah. So like in Yiddish, the way you say it is, Vi azoy zogt men sidewalk oyf Yiddish? And you probably understand some of that, right?

Yeah, sure.

Right. So Vi azoy zogt men sidewalk oyf Yiddish? And I think the word is Trottoir, even though no one says it, which is really comes from French, I think.

Right. Like stepping something or something. Yeah.

And then I I was and then when I would say, you know, Vi azoy zogt men uh, iPhone oyf Yiddish? They would say, no, Vi azoy, you know, I say I would say, Kenst du mir lernen a naye vort oyf Yiddish? They would say, Vos vilts du visn?

No.

I said, that always works. You know, I'm sure people ask you, you know, can you teach me a word in English? What do you want to know, right?

Yeah. Exactly.

It's like there's like I I know a bunch of words in English.

Yeah, can't just randomly pick one for you.

Yeah, it's like like I I'm a musician, and sometimes like I'll be playing something, people say, okay, play a song. What song? We take requests, yeah.

We'll need to know. Exactly.

So, so that's how it started, and that really was the big point of my, you know, my learning, that's how I succeeded really was, and this is the message for language learners, and this is still how I do it with other languages. It's don't have a huge goal, I want to learn, I want to be fluent in language. That might be nice to have that goal somewhere floating around, in your backpack, somewhere in the back burner, but have a goal, I want to have a really small success. The way to succeed in language learning is get really, really good at having small successes. Yeah. And then do it again.

Totally agree with that. And it's so That's that's huge.

That's that's huge, especially like, like I said, like my background not being an educational, academic fella, right? Like, that's exactly what I needed.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's how I got it.

Fascinating. Uh I of course uh the topic of the day is Yiddish, but I I feel like we just need to close out uh the Hebrew as well, because you said that you were you were quite useless back in the in the day, um, what happened with that? Did you ever go back and sort of uh improve that, uh your knowledge or understanding of it, or what what happened there?

Of Hebrew?

Yeah.

Yeah, so I'll tell you, so like I said, like I went for a gap year, just to spend a year after post high school.

Right.

Quote unquote.

A gap decade.

Yeah. So, the I want to continue the Yiddish story, I mean, the Yiddish story is still going on now, you know, 14, 15 years later. But just to continue the Yiddish story to drop further. So I was learning all these words, like as you know, Kris, like it's not enough to just know a bunch of words. You have to actually at some time bring it together with grammar. Um, so I went to the store, and like I said, there's no no books, no no Yiddish books over there. But I went home one day for for Passover one year. That year, my first year in Israel, I went home for Passover. And my father, of blessed memory, he had I was looking through his books, he had this old book called from 1939, called Der Yiddisher Lehrer. It was like this old yellow-paged book. It was about 70 pages. These grammar tables. Like and these these lessons that made were like were so important, like the the bear picks up the bucket. Like, when was the last time you saw a bear picking up a bucket?

Never.

Is that important to me? So I got I but I was excited about it. I was like, wow, this is amazing. So I got this book. And it actually did help me, because I actually had a ton of grammar, uh, a ton of vocabulary, I was able to look at the grammar, and it sort of like fit into place. And like, I'm sure you know, and you've heard from other language learners, and you know from yourself, like, once you have a ton of words, then and you have exposure to the language, once you start learning grammar, it's actually kind of cool. It's like, oh, that's why they're saying it. Yeah. And that's why you say, Vas machst du? and Vas macht ihr? Yeah, okay. Ich lern and du lernst. Ja, ich versteh. Du verstehst. You know, I understand. That's it all sort of fits into place. So that was exciting for me. But that was about it. That was the only dictionary there, and then there was this huge, I went on Amazon, in the early days of Amazon, and there was this big old textbook from 19, a little more modern, from like 1959. But also, it was like the standard textbook, like the first lesson, like this huge paragraph, like, are you joking? That you think I can read this and understand it? And it was like this academic sprach that no one speaks. Like, it made me meshugge just, you know, looking at this thing. So, there was no book. Um, so I had to sort of just pick up the grammar on my own with this little old school, little der Yiddisher Lehrer. Um, and that's how I learned grammar. And then later on down the road, I ended up writing the Easy-Measy Guide to Yiddish, which just became became a huge success.

Exactly.

In in Detroit, you have Mexicantown, where like you don't really hear English, you know? And there's there's a place in Michigan called Dearborn, it's actually five minutes from my house, like it's totally, totally, like it's only Muslims, not not Chaldeans, Muslims from from the Middle East, and all you hear there is Arabic. So there are places like that in Israel, where there's a place called Beit Shemesh, some of you may have heard of, um, and like the language of the street over there is is English. There are places in Jerusalem, where the language of the street is English, so there's so many Anglos in there.

Perfect.

Yeah. So that's how I got into Hebrew, and that's the story of the Yiddish. And the story the story goes on, but you know, and after writing my, actually, before I wrote the book, I started Yiddishacademy.com. Yiddishacademy.com, which I think if you Google learn Yiddish online, I think we're number one, which is pretty cool.

That's awesome. Well, looking at get back into into the future the now, I guess uh in a second. I just wanted to uh go back a little bit and and uh talk about the culture a little bit, because as a as an ignorant outsider and and foreigner, sometimes we can get these ideas in our heads about something like uh a language culture. But how would you describe the I mean, there are a lot of American listeners of the podcast, I'm sure. If we take if we start from there, then then we can uh yeah, go from there. But how how is the kind of how is it being a Yiddish speaker in America? Do do you know and and and what kind of attitudes do you see in the communities? Is is there a a big difference, or is there are they quite integrated? I don't know if that's the right word, but you know, are they do they live from themselves, or is it just a part of any other city or can you share some cultural ideas about it, for people who have no idea like myself, like I I don't think there are many Yiddish speakers in Denmark, if if any.

Well, you'll have to move there one day, then I'll be the first one. Oh, yeah. So, that's a that is a loaded, loaded question. And a great question. So, just to back up about uh about maybe like, you know, 2,000 years. Um, the Jews, wherever they went, they always had their own language. The Jews are a very close-knit community. Um, very close-knit community. Uh, Jews take care of each other, and even Jews from around the world like will reach out to Jews who they don't know for help. We're very, I'm not trying to I'm not trying to, you know, get any converts over here. As a matter of fact, Judaism, we do not we do not we do not look for converts, we don't go knock on your doors. We're here to save you. Like being a Jew is not hard and uh, you know, history has shown that the world does not love us so much, you know, we've been thrown out of a few countries. Um, so yeah, I'm not trying to get any uh, any volunteers to join me over here.

Mm-hm.

Okay? You know, mixed in. And you might ask, what were they mixing in? Like, sugar, salt? I'll tell you what they I'll tell you what they mixed in a second. This is a big secret. And you on the podcast get to hear all about it. Um, this is just so cool what I'm going to tell you.

Mm, no.

It's okay. He was one of the the the great Jewish philosophers. He was a famous doctor. Um, he wrote many works on early medicine and and uh, Jewish law. But Maimonides, all of his works, besides one, were written in in Judeo-Arabic, okay? What is Judeo-Arabic? Judeo-Arabic was the spoken Arabic, but mixed in with uh, this other stuff, which I'll tell you about in a minute. The secret sauce.

Yiddish.

Yiddish, that's right. So, what I'm telling you is that wherever the Jews went, they mixed in some of their own stuff and made their own language. Sometimes that language turned into a a formal language with grammar, and maybe there might even be some sort of authority on the language. Um, but many times the language sort of just, you know, like I I'm of the opinion that every language is a living language, um, and it's and the people who in charge who who own the language, are those that speak it. The people who own the language are not the people in the university who write the textbook. No, that's not how you say it, it says it like this. No, you know who says, you know who decides? The people who speak the language. They have the right to decide. Um, yeah. Catch my drift?

Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's uh it's the old uh question of is there such a thing as correct language when it in fact, it's changing all the time. So that also puts pressure on learners, because if the people who speak it natively don't speak as it says in the textbook, then can you really fault a learner for not speaking quote-unquote correctly? And of course, some languages develop faster than others, but it's it's difficult to produce a book or materials that are going to last for a long time, because the language just develops and and changes, so yeah, I see that for sure as well.

Right. So, um, so I'm telling you about these languages, you know, Judeo-Aramaic, Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-German, which is, you know, some call it Yiddish Judeo-German. Um, and there's even now in the US, there is a sort of there's a language called Yishivish. So you might ask me, am I a polyglot? And I'm I might answer you, I'm not sure.

Hmm.

But I definitely, you know, I've knowledge, um, I'm fluent in like, you know, four languages. You know, I don't speak, I'm I'm definitely polyliterate, that's for sure. But one language I speak fluently is a language called Yishivish. Is it a language? Is it a, is it a pigeon, is it a jargon? What is it? So what is it first? Yishivish is a language, it's a dialect of I don't know, I don't know what it is. It's it's English spoken in the US, and and the UK, um, by Orthodox Jews, primarily men, uh, speak Yishivish. And it's a language of the, like people who've gone to higher, um, Jewish academies, you know, for higher education. So it's like a very unique language that people pick up in when they're studying, um, a higher level of Jewish education.

Huh.

It is very cool.

That's very interesting. I've never heard of that before.

It's it's very, it is amazing, like that we're seeing this, you know, the Jews have only been in the US for such a short period of time. I mean, like, there are Jews who've been here for 200 years, but if you you ask anyone in the US, you know, where you're from? So, you know, I'm from the US, you where are your parents? Oh, also US. Your grandparents? Oh, Germany. You know, they came after the Holocaust, they survived the war, or they didn't survive, you know, whatever it was. But like, I I'm unique when I say that all of my grandparents were born in the US.

Right.

And my family came here, you know, about 100 years ago from Russia, either being persecuted, or just they they were somehow able to flee Russia. Um, like I said, we we've had a tough time, you know.

Yeah, I know. Yeah.

Yeah. And for sure. So the so we've been here for such a short period of time, and we've already developed. I I can't say the whole it's like a very, very, very small percentage of the Jewish people in the US. I would say maybe, um, as little as 1% of the Jewish people in the US. I don't know how many people are here. But, but there are communities of, let's say, you know, 30, 40,000 people, maybe in, you know, Brooklyn and in Lakewood, New Jersey, and maybe the, you know, another 40,000 in in Jerusalem, and maybe another 50,000 in Britain. These and, you know, maybe 10,000 in Australia. These packets of Anglos, you know, Orthodox Jews, who speak this Yishivish. So it's just amazing that, you know, whether whether it's Australia, the UK, all these Jews who are speaking English, have been doing it for probably around 100 years, not more than that, right?

Right.

And there's already some sort of, you know, jargon that they've built up. Um, and it's it's very, it's just like so interesting. There's so many examples.

It's very interesting.

And um, in in like, for example, in Yiddish, well, the word, what's the word for in German for book? Buch, right?

Yeah, Buch.

Buch. So, the word we have the word Buch. And uh, um, the word for if it's if it's like so in Yiddish we'll say, you know, Ich hob geschrieben a Buch, right? Ich hob geschrieben a Buch. I wrote a book. Right? So, I wrote a book. But if I'm referring to a book of Judaism, like a prayer book, I will not say Buch. I will say Sefer, which is the Hebrew word for book.

Huh.

Get this? Um, if I'm talking about, um, this is amazing. And if I'm talking, so like if if it's a word that has a religious significance, I might use, I might use a a um, a Hebrew word for it.

Uh-huh, that's interesting.

Um, hold on a second. My cleaning lady's just walking in. She's a wonderful, wonderful lady. Hola, Safira, como estas, amiga mia?

Okay. No, molestas, no molestas. No molestas, siempre. Okay. Nunca. Okay. So, the um, this is I love languages, okay? So uh, the so if a word has a religious significance, then it might take on a different word. So like word for for glass, give me a glass of water, gib mir a Glas Wasser. You you understand that, right?

Yeah.

Right. However, if it's a, um, if if the cup I'm talking about is a cup used for a religious service, sometimes we have a special cup of wine on Saturday, then I'm not going to use the word Glas, because this is a cup that's has a religious significance, I'll use the word Becher. I don't know where the word Becher comes from.

Uh, I think it exists as well, actually. But it's, yeah, but it's used about the paper cups, you know, like uh the college red and blue cups.

Interesting. Yeah.

Related to beaker, I guess, somehow, but uh yeah, well, in Danish it's Bæger.

B-Ä-G-E-R. So.

Cool. Definitely understand that too.

Right. And for words like, um, like let's say you tell me something outlandish. I'm like, like, Kris, what are you talking about? Are you crazy, right? So I and I'm not going to say it to you because you're a nice guy, we're buddy. I would never say that to you. That's disrespectful. But in Yiddish, you might say him, hekhetaysi. And hekhetaysi, I I I I could say, you know, in Yiddish, you know, Vas meynt du? What do you mean? Or I but I could say, bistu meshugge? Right? Are you meshugge? Meshugge means crazy. It's a very it's a it's actually the word is actually in in the uh the Oxford Dictionary, there's like many Yiddish words that have snuck their way into English too.

Yeah, I've heard some of them, yeah.

Yeah. So, Bistu meshugge? Meshugge is a Hebrew word for crazy. And it's it's it's it means like a person has gone mad, and the word is in the in the in the Prophets, they use the word. So in Yiddish, we'll use that word.

Right.

Bistu meshugge? Um, and sometimes we'll use the word meshugge meshuggefart. Which means like dead crazy. Right? Yeah, that's quite next level. Yeah. But what's interesting, the word meshuggefart, fart is is Yiddish or German also, for dead. I'm not sure in German. But, so it's like you take a Hebrew word and put it together with a German word. So you have a compound word with from two different languages.

Right.

Now, listen to this. Now, some people in the US, who speak Yishivish, they might say, hekhe freaking taysi. So it's just amazing. That's like, you wouldn't that's not a very respectable uh, way to, you know, say like, what are you, what the heck are you talking about? You know, Vas redest du? Narrischkeit. You're speaking uh, Narrischkeit. Um, which is like, narr is the Hebrew word for fool, or or childish, and keit is actually a German suffix.

Right.

So that's.

It's fascinating.

Yeah. It always reminds me of the uh, um, the Amish, uh, what do they call it, uh, they speak, they they also call it Dutch. They might call it Deutsch, but I'm not sure if they mean Dutch or Deutsch Deutsch, but it it it's similar in in that they have this, for instance, Pennsylvania Dutch, which is basically like, you know, it sounds like some amalgamation of Dutch, uh, German and and lots of English. So, I I think I thought it was it it it's a similar linguistic phenomenon, I'm sure and it it fascinates me a lot. Actually, I almost wanted to learn it, but then I was like, yeah, what am I going to use that for, you know? Reality set in. Um,

I don't know, I don't know if you get any how much people on your podcast either. I don't know if they'll be interested in that.

No, I probably have to like write print out the transcript and then send it by mail to them, but uh no, not not a huge market for the actual fluency podcast as as far as I know, but but it just reminded me so much of it uh like um they would say something like uh, I don't know, Schwarze machine. So saying, Schwarze is from German, and then machine is from English. Um, or Russian, even I guess, could be is the same word. But just interesting to uh to see how if that assimilation almost happens, where you you take the best of both worlds, or the the cool things in both worlds.

Right, and it also would be that when you say that word sorry, it drives the point home clearer than the.

Yeah, yeah, in in Danish you would say, uh.

Expresses the point better.

Yeah, in in in in Danish, you would say the similar as in German, what do they say, um, I forgot how's how do you say sorry?

Um, Entschuldigt.

Yes, exactly. Yes. So that's the same in Danish. And I just think that sorry just, uh, hits it harder, but I don't think that the Danish um, assimilation has been studied. And of course, it's also a a more recent thing, but it just shows you the power of the globalized community we live in, I suppose, and and the the the shifts that that happen, but watch this space, maybe that'll be my PhD dissertation in 50 years or something when I'm done being out of the academic world.

I think the point that you're saying is very important and that, you know, in terms of, you know, who who who who owns the language, but the people who speak the language, you know, they they whether they own it or not, or whether, you know, some some professors with bow ties like it or not, they will the people will choose the way they want to express something.

Exactly.

And um, and even in Israel, and you see this in every culture, if there's a word that expresses it better, then then they'll they'll they'll take that they'll take that word. Like you have a lot of like, you know, dirty words, um, or slang for different expressions, that you'll find in from English, like a lot of four-letter words are used in other countries.

Right.

And and you know, the whole the whole the whole the four-letter words, it's a whole, that's a podcast of its own. It's amazing, like who says this is a bad word? And why do people use them, you know? I mean, the answer is, because like it's just amazing. You know, I could just say one word, and that expresses exactly how I feel, you know?

Yeah, and and do you think also there's something to the idea that uh loan words have less emotional meaning? Like, for instance, if a if an English-speaking American, if you went up and said the F-word to him or her, he would be quite taken aback, because that's very that's strong language, right? But if you're in if you're in Denmark, for instance, I'm not kidding, like prime-time television, 7:30 PM, the host of the TV show says it, and it's not censored.

Are you serious?

I am 100% serious.

That's so funny. That's so funny.

And and it's and it's just like, you know, I don't know, I don't know. Hey everyone, how that are you doing? Yeah, it's like and then I think about myself and I'm like, hmm, it is actually easier for me to swear in English than it is in in Danish. So there must be some.

Hey, Kris, keep keep this clean. My kids are going to listen to this, okay? Yeah. I'm American, okay?

Yeah. Yeah, it's fair. Yeah. Well, I I think the show should be clear anyways. I I once uh had an idea that swearing would enhance certain points, but then I got a few emails saying that uh they thought they brought it down instead. So I'm kind of conforming. But if you talk to me in real life, I swear I'll I I will put in a swear word once in a while if if it's not being recorded and there are no kids around.

You should have a podcast about, you know, um, insults and four-letter words in different cultures, that would be cool.

Right.

But so what I'm getting with this uh, where I got with this little tangent about the four-letter words, and sometimes too, like one word, which really means something else, like, you know, there's different words, like different four-letter words we have, that really mean different things. But if you just pull it out at the right time, it just gets the point across. Like you could say something off, you know? I could just say, get lost, I could say blank off, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

So in Hebrew, um, there are words like, there are some Arabic words that sort of got mixed in. And even the modern Hebrew also, is very, very different than the the biblical Hebrew. It's sort of like it's the same thing as all these Jewish languages, 80%. It's actually just different there. It's like 80% biblical Hebrew, and 20%, you know, Arabic, French, Russian, German, um, like a bunch of cool stuff in there. And actually, in my Easy-Measy Guide to uh, Hebrew, I have some like lists of words in the back of, you know, the Arabic influence, the English influence, and the Yiddish influence on Hebrew.

Mm-hm.

Do you do you say that in in Denmark?

No, I don't think so.

But I mean, you know what a bummer is, right?

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Like like, yeah. So like in Hebrew, there might be a way to say it, but they say, eizeh basa. And basa is Arabic, for like, this situation stinks, right?

Right.

Like, and you know, why do they say it in Arabic? They say it in Hebrew. You know, they answer, you know, we could use it in Hebrew, but just the way the Arabs say it, like basa explains the situation. You say that one word and it's crystal clear what's going on. This stinks. Oh my gosh, this could not be worse. Eizeh basa, you know?

Well, it's a wonderful word, isn't it? Where you can, like if you have some situation that you need to describe, which communication is, I've learned in my, I think it was, what was it? Linguistics 101, that I took a half a semester of. Where where we were told that, you know, the the point of language is really to convert complex thought into, well, convey complex thought, which isn't really that conveyable. So, anytime that a human person can, well, that's the most of the people we have data from, but anytime a person can, um, can use something in they're aware of exists, and they know the other person is aware of it, that that conveys that thought clearer, then they will use it.

No.

So yeah, that's super interesting. And uh, I'm glad to feature languages like Yiddish on the podcast to kind of show the world that it's not just people learning Spanish and French all the time. You know, that's that's part of it too, but also to kind of give the spotlight of the week, or month to show that there are other opportunities.

Yeah. It's also good if you want to work there's there's there is one industry that if you want to really rock that industry, like work in industry, you got to speak Yiddish. Actually kind of cool. If you want to work in in like like the real upper-class diamond industry in the United States.

Wow.

Yeah. I mean, in in Manhattan.

In Manhattan.

Golden Schwartz, whatever it's called.

Whatever it's called.

Cutters that diamond. Yeah. No, if you if you want to work in Manhattan, in the diamond district, you really should know Yiddish.

All right. Maybe we can get some good deals somewhere also.

Yeah, yeah. If you can uh if you can do the haggling in in Yiddish. Exactly. But anyway, Moshe, I've had a a great time uh hearing about new things. And and I think that you kept it quite uh, you know, you you you told that in in the form of a story instead of just reciting facts. And what I would say to people who want more information, you know, this static information, you can go on to Wikipedia and read. I don't think that's super interesting to sit in and and listen to for too long, you know, so I I appreciate that you took that kind of personal angle and and related it to to what the society is today and and and what's what's happened instead of just saying, well, there are two million speakers and there are 197,000 in the US. And I don't know if these numbers are correct or anything, but you know what I mean, it's like if you want facts, you can go on to Wikipedia, and if you want stories, you can come to the Actual Fluency Podcast. So, so thank you for.

If you really want to know what it's really about, from Guy. Yeah.

Oh yeah, of course. If you want to know how it really is, then, you know, convert and and learn Hebrew and Yiddish, and go to Israel, I guess. But that that that's quite a commitment, I would say. Yeah. Anyway, it's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Thank you, Kris.

Thank you so much. Yeah, bye-bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to the actual fluency podcast.