Tag Archives: dictionary of Hebraisms in Yiddish

Dictionaries for Intermediate & Advanced Readers of Yiddish Literature & Press



A SELECTION

2024


RECOMMENDED FOR PURCHASE

Solon Beinfeld and Harry Bochner (editors-in-chief), Comprehensive Yiddish-English Dictionary (Indiana University Press: Bloomington and Indianapolis 2013); [also: online version with registration]

French speaking users: Bernard Vaisbrot, Yitshok Niborski & Simon Neuberg,  Dictionnaire Yiddish-français (Medem: Paris 2002) 

Yiddish-English antecedents:

If unable to access Beinfeld-Bochner, the next resource for English speakers reading serious Yiddish literature is: Alexander Harkavy, Yiddish-English-Hebrew Dictionary (New York 1928 and numerous photomechanical editions, also hereintro to 1988 Yivo edition
Uriel Weinreich, English-Yiddish Yiddish-English Dictionary (New York 1968 and photomechanical editions; Yiddishists prefer to own a copy of the original hardcover)
Aaron Bergman, Student’s Dictionary (edited by Itche Goldberg, New York 1968)

FREE ONLINE

Prof. Raphael Finkel’s free online dictionary  

JNW: The Amsterdam Yiddish Dictionary (translations in Dutch, easily anglicized)

Alec Burko’s Yiddish dialect dictionary

Also:

The National Yiddish Book Center’s free digital search facility for Yiddish items in over 11,000 books.

Note: For rare, unknown, or irksome words and forms, this resource often provides rapid evidence of authenticity, author, time, place, context, volume and frequency of occurrence in published Yiddish, significantly supplementing extant dictionary resources. It is vital that this resource be complemented by an equally exhaustive digitized archive of Yiddish periodicals, which contain many vital lexical items generally absent from book-format literature.

_____

Older classics, for your pleasure (and many subtle and valuable insights):

Alexander Harkavy’s Yiddish-English-Hebrew Dictionary [PDF] (New York 1928 and numerous photomechanical editions, also hereintro to 1988 Yivo edition). 

Note: Harkavy’s is one of the rare dictionaries with a lingering soul and countless precious, inimitable details of language and their interpretation providing a view of modern Yiddish culture at its peak with truly balanced attention — and love for — its East European, North American, and international settings. It has not been rendered obsolete by the incorporation of most of the word-roots per se into later dictionaries (and his work mightily undercredited). Compiler’s views. See also the digitized text of Harkavy’s earlier bidirectional dictionary, esp. Yiddish-English.

Aaron Bergman, Student’s Dictionar[PDF] (edited by Itche Goldberg, New York 1968). 

Note: Bergman-Goldberg preserves and conveys the spirit of the American Yiddish school systems of the last century, and the bona fide spirit of the secular Yiddishist scene in North America. Itche Goldberg’s unique editorial genius continues to shine right through.


YIDDISH-YIDDISH

The four completed volumes of Yudl Mark & Judah A. Joffe, The Great Dictionary of the Yiddish Language (print edition still findable):

Volume I (N.Y. 1961)   [PDF]

Volume 2 (N.Y. 1966)    [PDF]

Volume 3 (N.Y. & Jerusalem 1971)   [PDF]

Volume 4 (N.Y. & Jerusalem 1980)   [PDF]

Online digital searchable version  of all four volumes of the Mark-Joffe Yiddish-Yiddish dictionary  by Prof. Raphael Finkel

Note: Yudl Mark completed the set of index cards through to the end of the Yiddish alphabet. Hopefully these will all very soon be scanned and put on line “as is” (scans of all the cards in their alphabetical order) on a stable and professional website without “improvement and revision” and with further developments down the road (including keying in for text digitization and capacity for rapid searching). In the absence of preserving by scanning and posting, there is a danger that this treasure will be lost forever.

———

Lexicon of Lithuanian Yiddish by Yeynesn Felendler (in progress)


THESAURUS

Nahum Stutchkoff (Nokhem Stutshkov), Oytser fun der yidisher shprakh [Thesaurus of the Yiddish Language] (NY 1950)  (print edition still findable)

Digitized and latinized free online searchable version


CONTEMPORARY HASIDIC YIDDISH

Mrs. B. Roth’s indispensable lexicon: Yidish verter oytser (Roth Publishers Inc: Monsey, New York 2009 and subsequent revised editions)

Yutta Rivke Shtein, Milon l’sfat yidish (2011 and subsequent editions)


SEMITIC (HEBREW & ARAMAIC) COMPONENT IN YIDDISH

Yisroel Shteynberg (Israel Steinberg, with the assistance of A. Roykhverger): Hebreízmen in Yidish  (Wroclaw 1949); Recommended for free download as PDF on your device and/or printout (print edition can be purchased from NYBC).

Note: Yisroel Shteynberg (1894-1970), native of Vonsove [Wąsowo], Poland (west of Poznan), poignantly dedicated his dictionary — destined to become the most important for the Semitic component in Yiddish for 21st century Yiddish students worldwide (primarily because of the thousands of full-phrase quotations from masters of modern Yiddish literature assembled over years of painstaking work) — to his father Avrom-Pinkhes, his children Zalmen and Rivke, and his Yiddish school pupils in Rutke ([Rutka], near Lomzhe [Łomża]), in Zaromb [Zareby Koscielne], in nearby Ostrov-Mazovyetsk [Ostrów Mazowiecka], and in Vasilkov ([Wasilków] near Bialystok), all of whom perished in the Holocaust. Author’s rights are asserted in Yiddish, Polish and English.

For advanced students also:

Yehoyesh and Ch. Spivak, Yidish vérterbukh (NY 1911)   [PDF]

Tsvi-Nisn Golomb, Mílim bilshóyni (Vilna 1910)   [PDF]

Sh. A. Soyfer, Verterbukh (Czernowitz 1920) [PDF]

Nehemiah Pereferkovitsh, Hebreízmen in Yidish (Riga 1929)   [PDF]

Nakhmen Krupin, Hantbukh fun hebreízmen in der yidisher shprakh (Buenos Aires 1957)  [PDF]


MORE LISTS OF DICTIONARIES

Hublshpener

Lexilogos

Online Yiddish Resources (Aheym)


Compiled by Dovid Katz for students in his intermediate and advanced Yiddish literature courses seeking a short, selective list. Various instructors’ selective recommendations for this purpose (reading Yiddish literature) will differ. See what works best for you! This purpose is distinct from the variety of English-Yiddish dictionaries (and many other tools) important for developing active abilities in speaking and writing Yiddish. See the compiler’s in-progress Yiddish Cultural Dictionary: An English-Yiddish Lexicon (free online, additions and corrections most welcome at: info@yiddishculturaldictionary.org); and Schaechter & Glasser’s Comprehensive English-Yiddish Dictionary. For those interested in the history of Yiddish dictionaries and lexicography, there are a number of surveys, including the compiler’s. For surveys of modern Yiddish dictionaries please see the splendid published works of Professor Wolf Moskovich over the last half century.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Dictionaries for Intermediate & Advanced Readers of Yiddish Literature & Press