What languages do Jewish people speak?

Are you Ashamed to Admit that you thought Jewish people only spoke Hebrew, Yiddish & Ladino? Are you obsessed with Duolingo? Have you always wanted to know a judeo-arabic word for ‘hot and bothered’ ? then this episode is for you! 

Special thanks to Elana Benjamin and the folks at JBOD. 

You can watch this episode on YouTube

This episode was filmed and edited by Alleyway Productions 

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The vocalist in the theme song is Sara Yael @iamsarayael

Transcript

Cold Open And Duolingo Obsession

SPEAKER_00 0:00

A shame to ask, ashamed to admit, got dewy, dewy questions. This is it, this is it. Why is wicked simple or unsure how to ask? We'll open up the books, the ark will open up your cynical heart. No such a thing as a dumb question. Okay, that's mostly true. Tammy and Shoshana are here for you. Ashamed to admit.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Ashamed to ask. It's everything you didn't get in Jewish Studies class.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Hello, welcome to Ashamed to Admit, presented by the Jewish Independent. The Jin Dependence. I'm Tammy Sussman. I'm Shoshana Gottlieb Becker.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

Shoshana? Yeah. Gotly Becker. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

How's your Duolingo going?

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Ah, I I meant to prepare this and like remember it.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

Didn't do that. Okay. I'm going to pull it up for you right now. Alright. So I used to like start Duolingo as a marker of like a life event. So when I had a trip coming up, I would start it. And then one time I started it, I was like, okay, I'm going to go to school in Jerusalem, start doing Hebrew, and then I just like never stopped. 2159 days.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

That's how long you've been. That's your streak? So you have not missed a day. Is that what you're telling me?

SPEAKER_02 1:22

Look, you can use like freezes on Duolingo. So I have not used a freeze since April last year. Last year, like the calendar year of 2025, I used three streaks. Like, sorry, three freezes. Yeah. My goal for this year, three or less. I'm running hot.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Are you telling me that on your wedding day you still made time to do duolingo? First thing I did.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

First thing I did. I wake up, I do Duolingo. Is that like your morning prayers? Wake up, open my phone, check my notifications, wordle. Alright. Duolingo. Yeah. Three of the LinkedIn games that they have on their app. That's my morning routine routine.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

I love how every so often I'll get fed something like the morning routine of the most high functioning, high income earning games.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

It's me like this, scrolling, like doing my games, and then Skywakes up.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Why did you why did you choose Hebrew and not Yiddish?

SPEAKER_02 2:20

I did Yiddish when it came out. Okay, so the thing with this is this is everyone's mistake with Duolingo. Don't stick to one language. You can do like any language that can it counts towards your streak, right? Oh so I started with Hebrew because I was gonna go live in Jerusalem, so I'm like, that makes sense. And also I started back when Yiddish didn't exist on Duolingo. That's fairly new in the past couple like three, four years. I switched to Yiddish when it came on the app. I did that for ages. I've done Spanish. I've done like Gaelic Irish. I've done just for funsies. Just for funsies. Okay. Like when I get bored, I move on. Alright. I've done Mandarin. You can learn how to play chess on Duolingo. I've done chess. I've done basic mathematics to work on my arithmetic. I've done music.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

This is not an ad for Duolingo. Oh, it should be.

SPEAKER_02 3:09

Pay me. I'm your biggest fan and your biggest advocate in this space. Um, you can learn how to read music. So for a long time, there was one summer, all I did was music Duolingo, and I got really good at like reading music, and I could play the little piano that appears on the screen.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

Shoshana,

Jewish Ethno-Languages And Why They Exist

SPEAKER_01 3:24

I asked you this question merely as a segue into our episode, which is about Jewish ethno languages.

SPEAKER_02 3:31

And this is you should have known, you should have known my passion for Duolingo. And that that's where this would lead. Okay. I'm very I have a Duolingo um group chat. Uh oh. We have a family, so we we we pay for the subscription. I've been paying for Duolingo for like three years. Alright. I'm I'm big into Duo.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

I had no idea. I just thought this was gonna get us talking about Ivrit.

SPEAKER_02 3:54

I just come up with a really good shirt idea.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Do you want to share?

SPEAKER_02 3:57

Duolingo Al with a yamaka and it says Duolingo.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

It's very good.

SPEAKER_02 4:03

Yeah, I'm gonna do that when I get home. Do it. Okay. If I do that by the time this airs, will you put it in the show notes for my red bubble?

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 4:12

Well then you also think you'll be able to.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

I don't think I'm allowed to. I think you have to you have to tick a box on YouTube if you're yeah. Shoshana. Yeah, so happy to be here with you today. Thanks. Our producer, AJ, who is an ally and not a popped his sonny's on, even though we're inside. Yeah. It's been a long day. AJ didn't know what Yiddish was. I said to you before, I said I need to have a schluff.

SPEAKER_03 4:42

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

And you said, Oh, we're talking about schtupping.

SPEAKER_02 4:45

And then that's that's a very different sentence. I need You don't want to get those mixed up. You'll be in some trouble.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Say, I need a stup. I was talking about stupping. Okay. Then I was talking about schluffing, and then AJ asked me if those words, like what those words meant, where did they come from? And I said they're Yiddish. Do you think Tammy had made them up?

SPEAKER_02 5:10

You're like, wow, she's a genius. She comes up with good words.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Okay, so let's say this podcast has just come up in some Rando's algorithm and they have no idea what Yiddish is? What is it?

SPEAKER_02 5:23

Can I take a historical step back to explain Yiddish?

SPEAKER_01 5:27

Sure. Do you want to get going? Do you want me to hurry up? No, no, no. So what could you say to someone if you want them to hurry up in Judeo-Arabic?

SPEAKER_02 5:36

Like Yallah? Yes. Yeah, right. Yalla. So I don't think Yalla is Judeo-Arabic. I think that's just like stum Arabic. I've got so many rants for today, by the way. I'm so excited. Okay, let me start historically of what is Yiddish.

What Yiddish Is Made Of

SPEAKER_02 5:49

So when the Jews are like sort of leave the land of Israel after exile, right? We've done all of this history already. Like, how did the Jews get places? Go back and listen to that episode.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

That was our very first episode.

SPEAKER_02 5:59

Right, how did Jews get places, right? And so exiled from the land, the Romans took over, we didn't have sovereignty. Slowly people move away. And when you settle in new places, you like you have to speak to your neighbors, right? But then also when you're speaking to your neighbors and you're also talking about getting ready for Shabbas, that language is going to intermingle. So Yiddish is that, right? Yiddish is Germanic Jews who were living and working and talking in Germany. So they were speaking some kind of like, I guess, medieval German. But it's mixed with Hebrew and Hebrew lexicon. And so you can go to it was actually really I don't know, not like off-putting, but it was very unsettling to go to Germany and felt like like I almost understood a lot of things. You know? Because it's so similar to Yiddish. Do you speak Yiddish?

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Abyssal. Can you put a whole she's so proud of herself?

SPEAKER_02 6:58

I don't like so my grandparents, if they like my Jewish grandparents, if they spoke Yiddish, it wasn't around me because they l like grew up lived in a different country to where I grew up. So all the Yiddish I know I've picked up just from being in community and being in institutions where words like bissil get used. And you know, like it's it's it's a it's cultural.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

This like all that stuff. So I can't put a whole sentence together.

SPEAKER_02 7:25

When I was doing Duolingo, I could have. Okay. But like I'll use I'll pepper in words here and there. Right. Some of my favourite words are Yiddish words. Yeah, same. Some of my favourite pronunciations are Yiddish pronunciations. Shabbas. That's Yiddish.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Yep. Because if it wasn't Yiddish, you would just say shabbat.

SPEAKER_02 7:42

And that's Hebrew.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

Um, I say mummish instead of mamash. People hate that when they're Israeli. I say mummish, they're like, what the f what's mamash? The fuck was that? Mamash is like emphasis. It's almost like very, right? So if I'm like, that's mummish amazing, like that's so amazing, right? Like prop, like if I was British like it's proper, right?

SPEAKER_03 8:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

Like that's mamish amazing, that's proper amazing bruv, right? Right. But in Hebrew, it's actually from the Talmud, so it's like old Hebrew. Right. So in modern Hebrew, it's mamash, but it was in Yiddish because it's Talmudic, so it means that like they had that language already, mamish. Dafka's another one. Yes. Also an emphatic.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 8:22

Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Dafka, meaning it's very hard to explain Dafka. It's like you dafka can't explain it, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:28

Like you, it's like you just like Dufka.

SPEAKER_01 8:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:32

Um, I don't know, schmutz, spritz, schmatter, broigus. Broigus is a huge one. Yichus. We could have a whole episode on Broigus, which is a- I love that this has just turned into us saying word, like me saying words, and you'd be like, oh yeah. Yeah. Good word. Good play. Good word, bad word.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

I don't have oh no, I do have a game for this episode, but it's it's at the end. Okay. Um, all right, so that's Yiddish. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 8:59

What's also I will say there's also different kinds of Yiddish, right? Like Eastern and Western Yiddish is very different. What do you mean Eastern Western? So like Eastern European versus like Germanic.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

Ah.

SPEAKER_02 9:09

Like it's completely different. Like if you heard some forms of Yiddish, like I don't think you'd understand it. Like, like the the bless the Hebrew blessings sound different because of the accented like Yiddishism.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Was Yiddish created so that Jews could be secretive or talk in a way that they're I think it's just the natural progression of language.

SPEAKER_02 9:29

Okay. Right? It's creoles exist all over the world because you're like fusing the languages of culture. It makes sense to talk about Jewish things using Hebrew terms. It's the it like it's literally the same way that we use shtup in English, right? Like that's um, but there are different forms of Yiddish, like so chasidim will speak different Yiddish, let's say, to like the Yiddish academics and intellectuals. Uh-huh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Okay. So that's Yiddish, Eastern Europe. I'm ashamed to admit that up until very recently, I thought that there was Yiddish. I thought there was Ladino, which is the language uh historically spoken by Spanish.

SPEAKER_02 10:20

Well, it's the same thing that happened with like um German and Hebrew. It's just with Spanish and Hebrew. It's Ladino.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

So we'll get to Ladino. Yeah. But there are I I didn't know that there were Judeo-Arabic languages.

SPEAKER_02 10:36

Oh, there are so many Judeo languages. But also, I don't know historically how many people are speaking all those languages. And since doing the bit of research for this episode, I also wonder, I think there just used to be more languages in general anyway. Or maybe like more dialects. I think we've become such a globalized world, right? That and you see it in the Middle East, right? Levantine Arabic sounds really different to, let's say, I don't know, Syrian or Egyptian Arabic. Those dialects are so different, they're almost completely different languages. And so it makes sense that in a non-globalized world where everyone's existing in their pockets, smaller Creole languages emerge for the minority groups there. Whereas

Ladino, Judeo-Arabic And Dying Dialects

SPEAKER_02 11:24

nowadays, Jews just learn Hebrew. And that's yeah. And it's a lingua franca, even though it has been used as a lingua franca for a long time. But we can be speaking. A lingua franca is a language that you can use to communicate with someone who you won't understand. Almost like Latin was a lingua franca. English is a lingua franca, I'm pretty sure, right? That you all pilots have to speak English to understand each other. Oh. So I could be messing up the actual definition. But he like back in the day, Jews are traveling all over the sort of medieval or old world. You're Polish. For some reason, you have to travel to Egypt for work. You don't speak Arabic, but you go to your local shoal and you can use bits and pieces of liturgical Hebrew or even like Talmudic Aramaic or Mishnaic Hebrew, and you can piece together a conversation with the Jews in that town, right? We have this idea that Hebrew was extinct and then it came back in modern Hebrew and there was no in-between. In reality, Hebrew has been used to connect Jewish communities for like literally, I don't know, like 2,000 years or something. Even though it wasn't a dated, it wasn't a anyone's first language, but people had enough um literacy that they could have conversations with people who again lived in completely different countries, spoke completely different languages, but they had Hebrew as that united language. Whereas nowadays, when most of the world's Jews live either in America or in Israel, you don't need those smaller little languages. It's really it's sad that languages die out. But it's also kind of understandable.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:04

You know?

SPEAKER_01 13:05

Um Ladino is you, I think you asked a question, you didn't know how if people are still speaking.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

Ladino's people do still speak.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

Yep. I know there's the older generations too. Younger, not so much, is sadly a dying language.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

Yeah. Um, I know that there's a Hanukkah song called Ocho Kandalekas. That's a Ladino song. That's pretty much all I know. I'm sorry. I'm ashamed to admit I don't know much about Ladino.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Do you know the Avramavinul song? No. Avramavinal.

SPEAKER_02 13:34

No, I only know Ocho Kandalekas, Ocho Kandalek. Because Adina Manzel had a cover of it on her Christmas album.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Okay. Um, I know that my kids have family who live in Turkey and the elder generation. The older generation speak Ladino, yeah. Fascinating. Because they're not. And not like a Judeo-Arabic? No, because they're not they're not Arabic. They're not Arabic. They're from Spain. They're Savannah. Oh, interesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:03

But when did they move to Turkey?

SPEAKER_01 14:04

Spanish Inquisition.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

And they and they preserved Ladino up until that's crazy. But fascinating. Because I'm pretty sure like some Judeo-Arabic originates in Spain. Because prior to the Spanish Inquisition, it was a Muslim majority country, so they would be speaking Arabic.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

They're speaking Ladino.

SPEAKER_02 14:23

Fascinating. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

But they are concerned that the younger generations are no longer speaking.

SPEAKER_02 14:29

I think Yiddish is really lucky that it has such a complex political identity contemporarily, that it's sort of there's been a revival. It has. There's so much literature in Yiddish that kind of gets preserved. I don't know if Ladino's the same. Is it? You don't know.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

Lit are YouTube channels considered literature?

SPEAKER_02 14:50

I'm at more like old school. Like you've got so much, you know, um, written works.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

Yeah. No, I couldn't tell you. Interesting. Yeah. Fascinating. Tell me more about Judeo-Arabic. Because as you've said, there's regional differences. There's of you've you've mentioned the difference between Baghdadi and Egyptian versus you've written Andalusi versus Al-Aus.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

Well Andalusi is Spanish, it's Spanish Arabic. Like Al-Andalus was Spain, like Arabic Spain.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Okay, Muslim Spain. Versus Yemenite versus Tunisian.

SPEAKER_02 15:23

So, like I said before, all like there are regional differences in Arabic in all of those spaces, in Arabic stum, right? In regular Arabic. So of course there would be regional differences in Judeo-Arabic in those areas. So a Jew from Baghdad's gonna speak Arab Judeo-Arabic differently to a Jew in Tunisia. Makes sense, right? You've also got Judeo-Sicilian. I am not gonna lie, I'm not a linguist. I googled Jewish languages and I was so interested. I just put together a list. Like I don't know anything about these. I'm ashamed to admit. Like it's really hard to do research in depth on all of these languages because like barely anyone speaks them anymore. But it is really fascinating to know that where Jews lived in the world, there was probably a Judeo version of that language.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

It's interesting that it came up as Judeo-Sicilian and not Judeo-Italian.

SPEAKER_02 16:12

I think I again because I think Sicilian was distinct from Italian when Jews were living there a long time ago. Jews have been around for a really long time. They predate a lot of things, like nation states. Right? Like like the like Italy as a concept. Yes. That's a soundbite for you. Jews predate Italy as a concept.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

We came first. Judeo-Az Azerbaijani. Now.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

I am ashamed to admit I did not know Azerbaijan had its own language. Was a country.

SPEAKER_02 16:46

Oh, that's bad.

SPEAKER_01 16:47

Was a thing until 2016.

SPEAKER_02 16:50

What happened in 2016 that discovered Azerbaijan?

SPEAKER_01 16:54

I was in Istanbul, and then someone was talking about the Jews, the Jewish community of Azerbaijan, and I was like, what are these made-up words? At these like I thought they were speaking Ladino.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

Did you? I have two questions. What did geography look like in the school where you went and grew up in? Did you did you learn about countries?

SPEAKER_01 17:16

Not those ones. Right.

SPEAKER_02 17:17

And my second question to follow up was your family a quiz family? No. Like the Good Weekend quiz and things like that? No. I don't want to be rude, but like that is why you don't know things sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

I think so.

SPEAKER_02 17:31

Yeah, because you get ex when you're a quiz family, you get exposed to stuff.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

It's so true. Because I grew up with a bestie who came from a quiz family, and I remember being in high school, and her dad was talking about the Vatican, and I said, What's the Vatican? And he was so angry.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

Yeah, I would be too.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

But I went to the house.

SPEAKER_02 17:51

How old were you?

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Like 16. You were 16 and you didn't know what the Vatican was? No, we did Jewish studies at school. We didn't really we did studies at Vatican.

SPEAKER_02 18:00

I went to a Chabad school and I knew what the Vatican was. That's where they hold the menorah. Really? You don't know that? No. Oh my god. Yeah. Quick tangent? Quick tangent. Okay. The Romans destroyed the second temple. When they do that, they ransack and they take and they it's not particular to Jews in Israel, right? But whenever you go and conquer a place, you take their spoils and their riches. Yeah, their precious belongings. And you also take people to into slavery, all of that stuff. In Rome, there is an arch called the Arch of Titus. It depicts on it Jewish slaves bringing in spoils from the Bethamigdash, including the menorah. Like people carrying. Have you seen it? Like that imagery on the Arch of Titus? No? Okay. Maybe. Oh my god. Say that you're ashamed to admit this.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

She's so she's so disappointed in me.

SPEAKER_02 18:53

So the running joke is that, like, because you've got this historical depiction of the temple goods, including the like the original menorah being carried in to Rome and it's been stored in the Vatican, and like you know, you've got all like the catacombs underneath and the vaults, and the yeah. So everyone's like, oh, the Vatican's still got the menorah. So has been verified. No, because there's so many of those like vaults you're not allowed to go in. Like the general public can't go in there. Um, and so everyone's like, the menorah's in there. Historically, probably at some point Rome got like ransacked and it was melted down to users' gold or something like that. But everyone's running, it's been a running internet joke for like the past, I don't know, 15 years. Okay. Since I was on Tumblr, it's been a running joke that you know we'd always be like the Jews, we have to storm, like you know how to storm the Capitol, but it's we storm the Vatican and we take back the menorah. You've never heard this? Nah.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

No.

SPEAKER_02 19:50

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

My family were not a quiz family. When we had dinners together, which wasn't very often, my sister and I would just impersonate our teachers. We were an impersonation family, not a quiz family. Fascinating.

SPEAKER_02 20:03

I've never considered there being differences.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

Um, I think one of the coolest languages that I found, um, I think Yervanic is really called Judeo-Greek, because the Greek diaspora community, and also the Roman diaspora community. So for a really long time, the largest Jewish city in the world was Salonika, Thessaloniki in Greece. Um, and so it would make sense. It makes sense, it's right near, you know, Israel. And so when you're diasporaing, you go really close by. But the Roman Jewish community is so old that it dates back literally to like the second temple destruction. It it's its own thing. It's not Ashkenazi, it's not Sefari, it's its own distinct cultural Jewish group.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 20:54

And so it makes sense that there's all of these different Jewish Italian languages, but also Yervanic is Jewish Greek.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

You've got a few question marks, Judeo-Berber.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

Yeah, I just don't know what I'm assuming to it. I don't really know what Berber is.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Judeo Malayalam?

SPEAKER_02 21:08

Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

No idea.

SPEAKER_02 21:10

Also, we don't ever think about it, but there are Ethiopian languages that are Jewish languages because Ethiopian Jews speak different dialects and different languages as well. And there's also a written language called Geez. Yep. Or I think it might be a liturgical language, but then there are two other ones called Kwara and Kayla, and I'm like, that's a really good sibling name couplet.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

Say it again.

SPEAKER_02 21:34

Koala and Kayla. Or Kayla, I know like a thousand Kayla's.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

I I think koala's quite good.

SPEAKER_02 21:41

I think they're both great. Twin girls, Koala and Kayla, too similar.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

Can

Aramaic, Kaddish And Jewish English

SPEAKER_01 21:46

we talk about Aramaic?

SPEAKER_02 21:47

Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

Is it a spoken language or a purely a written language?

SPEAKER_02 21:52

Um, it's spoken. Again, there are so many different kinds of Aramaic. Aramaic is related. To Hebrew and Arabic, right? It's a Semitic language. Um, Aramaic, again, appears in different places in the Middle East. There's Persian Aramaic, all of these things. We are most familiar with I don't know if you would call it Judeo-Aramaic, but it's Talmudic Aramaic. The the Jerusalem, the sorry, the Babylonian Talmud, the main Talmud that we talk about, is written in Aramaic. So today, it I wouldn't call it a spoken language because people aren't conversing in it. It's not conversation, it's an academic language. It's right. I would it's like similar to Latin, right? You can study it and you can use it to understand text, but no one's it too Tammy. Like no one's like no one's having conversations in it.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

Having a yarn in Aramaic.

SPEAKER_02 22:47

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

Do you have to learn Aramaic in order to be a rabbi?

SPEAKER_02 22:51

You would learn it because it to be a rabbi, you have to know the Talmud. Uh-huh. So again, when you're you're not learning Aramaic like you would sit in a French class. You're learning Aramaic through the Talmud. Right. In order to understand the Talmud.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

But aren't a lot of prayers that we say in synagogues Aramaic? Kaddish is. Is it? Yeah. Yeskadalvi Yeskadash Shemerabah. Yeah. Um Aramaic. Kadddish for those who may not know is the prayer that uh the mourner's prayer. Or it's not quite tame.

SPEAKER_02 23:24

Okay. There's lots of different kinds of Kaddish. Alright. Um, it's just the sanctification prayer, but there is the most famous one is the mourner's kaddish because that's what most people will say at some point in their life. Yes. Um on Pesach, you know the song Halachma Anya?

SPEAKER_01 23:41

Halachma.

SPEAKER_02 23:42

So that's Aramaic. Pretty sure.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 23:46

Don't fact check me on that, but I'm pretty sure.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

Someone else can.

SPEAKER_02 23:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

If Shoshana is wrong, leave a comment in the comment section and forward this episode to five people with the capital. Shoshana is wrong. Um all right. That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 24:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

I've learned a lot. Yeah. Does Jewish English exist?

SPEAKER_02 24:12

I think so. In fact, I think a lot of people think so. Because we firstly we use a lot of Hebrew and Yiddish and English, but there are certain demographics for whom their English syntax is just like Yiddish and Hebrew syntax. Including yours. Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes when I speak funny, it's yeah. So the most famous examples that I can think of, the one that everyone knows and that everyone will quote is by sexual. No. Um I'm staying by them for Shabbas.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

Oh.

SPEAKER_03 24:49

Right.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

Instead of staying with them. Yeah, like I'm staying by them. Or like, I'll like, can I come by you and collect that? You know what I mean? Right. So that is, I'm pretty sure it's direct translation from Yiddish. Okay. Um, the other examples um are to make shabbas. I'm making shabbas for 10 guests. You make shabbas this week, I'll make shabbas. Like it's it's to prepare and host and you know, fulfill the ritual command. I'll make shabbas. Right. And then the the newest thing is that because we all live online now, including like really religious people, right? Have online, you know, spaces and personalities. Um, you'll find, like someone said to me the other day, uh, a fitness influencer who speaks Yiddish, and he's like, dos, like, thus klein the get fit, like protein shake. So it's like there are if you hear online, you'll hear like proper Creole. That's this mixture of Yiddish and English and Hebrew. But for the most part, I think Yiddish English is just, you know, like um how we infuse it in our everyday life.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

So can we include it's not the same thing, but intonation? Like I've noticed that when I'm listening to sermons by Ashkenazi rabbis, z, and then la la la la la la. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:17

Like it's 100%. It's the it's the way it's but then you can also extend it to butt mitts for speech cadence, right? That's also kind of uh a specific thing. That's true. Today we gather to celebrate my friend, like the like that Sing Songy. Yes. Um, but I think it's I think it's it's there's so much language that we've taken from Hebrew and and Yiddish. There's syntax, the way that we speak changes around. There's these direct translations. I also think the same thing happens to Hebrew, right? Hebrew is so because it's because modern Hebrew is so affected by immigrants, because so many people are coming in, a lot of it is is affected by Arabic because you had all of these Jews from Arab lands coming in, bringing Arabic with them and affecting the language in that way. And also, you know, the Arabs who lived in the land and everyone's working together, all of that stuff. Like it's so enmeshed, things like yella. But on the other hand, you have all of these English-speaking immigrants coming in and affecting it, and it's it makes for such interesting Hebrew language. So, my example, how do you think in modern Hebrew you say uh multiple cupcakes? Cupcake him. Cupcake sim. Amazing. One cupcakes, many cupcake sim. Like literally, like chipsim. You want the chips, chipsim. Like it's it's like the like the way that they pluralize, they pluralize like on top of the S. And then in the inverse, right? Um how would you how do you think if you were speaking English to someone, you would pluralize something like schtl? Shtetl's. That's English though. In in Yiddish, it's shtetlach. Really? Yeah. So you're Engl like you're English fying Hebrew like Yiddish and Hebrew words, shtetls, Torahs, but mitzvahs, right? Um, like literally.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:21

Like and then like all of those things, I think it's really interesting.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

That is interesting. And it's got it also got me thinking about modern Hebrew versus classical Hebrew. We should

Modern Hebrew Revival And New Words

SPEAKER_01 28:30

probably talk about that.

SPEAKER_02 28:31

There's lots of different kinds of like his because Hebrew has been around for a long time, there's lots of different kinds of it. So you've got biblical or classical Hebrew. Yeah. It's what the Torah is written in. Okay. You've got um Mishnahic Hebrew, what the Mishnah is written in, so it's slightly different again. Not super different, but there's quirks that are different here and there. You've got liturgical Hebrew, right? Again, it's it's using different kinds of language and more poetic structures. Right. Then you've got medieval Hebrew and how it would have been used as our friends Russian Rumbum are writing it. And again, not a spoken language, but it's being used in Shaws. It's being used again. Lingua franca. Mm-hmm. Lingua franca, great drag name.

unknown 29:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 29:09

And then And now you've got modern Hebrew.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

So you mentioned that some people thought there was just no Hebrew for a while and then suddenly it got revived. What do you mean?

SPEAKER_02 29:18

So um it's it's as Zionism becomes a political movement, the desire for a cohesive, like Hebrew culture, like capital H, the Hebrew people.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Uh-huh. Right?

SPEAKER_02 29:33

It's cultural Zionism, it's part of cultural Zionism.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 29:36

Um, and so you had mostly this guy, Elias Abenyhuda, what that like decided that he was going to speak in Hebrew and make it a language. And kind of Because people stopped speaking it. Well, again, people were speaking it when they had to speak it. Right. But you had these ardent early Zionists who are like, we we want Hebrew to be our spoken language. We are the Hebrew people who first language. Exactly. And so his kids were the first, I'm pretty sure, the first people whose like their first language was Hebrew in a very long time. He also invented all these words. I say invent. He was doing a lot of intense academic work, drawing from other Semitic languages, right? So taking things from the Talmud and the Tanakh and taking um things from Arabic because they are sister languages and things from Aramaic or Assyrian and other Near Eastern languages to reconstruct what words might be if Hebrew hadn't fallen off as a spoken language. Um and that's why we say cupcakes in today. I understand. But it's also why it's things words in Hebrew are changing all the time because they are influenced, because you know, it hasn't been that was in like the 1800s he was doing that. It hasn't been set language for certain things, and when you have new inventions come up, you need to have new words for that. Yeah, the you know TikTok?

SPEAKER_01 30:54

I've I'm aware of it.

SPEAKER_02 30:56

You know the for you page? Yes. What do you think for you the for you page is in Hebrew?

SPEAKER_01 31:00

For you.

SPEAKER_02 31:01

For you. For you. Like literally like pei, vav, reish, yudvav. For you.

SPEAKER_01 31:06

Amazing. Yeah, it's it's great. Do you know that you were concerned that you thought we wouldn't be able to talk about this topic for half an hour?

SPEAKER_02 31:14

Once you get me rant and I'm gone.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

It's fair, you did spend 10 minutes talking about Duolingo. Duolingo. Um do you think our listeners will be upset if we don't have a shame in the shuttle?

SPEAKER_02 31:28

Well, can we play the game instead of shame in the shuttle?

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. We're gonna play the game today.

SPEAKER_02 31:32

It's a good shame in the shuttle, though. We can save it for another time.

SPEAKER_01 31:35

We'll save Shame in the Shuttle. I think we can have a week off Shame in the Shuttle in the Shuttle. The game

Guess The Judeo-Language Game

SPEAKER_01 31:41

that we are playing today, um, I'm going to say a phrase, and you're going to guess which Judea language it is in. Okay. Okay. Como gallo? It means like a rooster, like someone who is overconfident, you could say.

SPEAKER_02 32:04

Ladino.

SPEAKER_01 32:04

Yeah. What made you think of that?

SPEAKER_02 32:06

Gallo as like I've done Spanish on Duolingo.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

There you go.

SPEAKER_02 32:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

For sure. Okay, next one. Yeah. Um meaning broken or like kaput.

SPEAKER_02 32:24

I'm gonna say Judeo-Arabic. Mostly for the the hum.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

That's what gave it away.

SPEAKER_02 32:31

Okay. I can sing happy birthday in Arabic. Did you know that? Go on. Sannahilwa Yajamil. Sannahilwa Yajamil. Okay, so I learned it from a bus driver.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

Not from Joelingo.

SPEAKER_02 32:46

A Druze bus driver.

SPEAKER_01 32:47

That's beautiful. Okay, what about an Abu Kulu, a know-it-all?

SPEAKER_02 32:53

Also uh some kind of Judeo-Arabic?

SPEAKER_01 32:55

Yeah. Iraqi Arabic? Okay. Um what about if someone has a cara de pepino? Cara de pepino.

SPEAKER_02 33:07

Did they cut off their penis?

SPEAKER_01 33:09

No, they have a face of a pickle. Oh, peppino. Like a sour expression. Judeo-Italian. No, it's Ladino. It's Ladino. Peppino means like cucumber as well. So it's literally the face of not just any pickle, like a pickled cucumber. Fascinating. So I also think it could be used as someone who's a dickhead.

SPEAKER_02 33:31

Nice, yeah, I like that.

SPEAKER_01 33:32

Yeah. Um, cara de pepino, sour face. Do you know anyone who has the face of a pickle?

SPEAKER_02 33:38

Many people whose names I can't say on this podcast.

SPEAKER_01 33:41

Do you think I do? No. Okay. Just checking. What if someone is jungly? Meaning they're an uncultured or wild person or just jungly? Yeah, they're jungly. Spell it for me. J-U-N-G-L-E-E. Jungly.

SPEAKER_02 34:03

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 34:05

It's Hindi.

SPEAKER_02 34:06

I wanted to say it. I wanted to say it like Judeo, like Urdu or something.

SPEAKER_01 34:09

No, but I think it's also used by Fascinating.

SPEAKER_02 34:13

Um like regular Hindi speakers.

SPEAKER_01 34:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:16

My favorite word in Hindi that I actually don't know if it's Hindi, I just know that my one Indian friend uses it is chuddies. And what does that mean? Uh underwear.

SPEAKER_01 34:24

Say it again.

SPEAKER_02 34:25

Chuddies. That's really cute. I always say, get your chuddies on.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Okay. This one I think we're we're going to spread and we're going to use because I'm not sure if there is an English or a Yiddish equivalent. You know how people are always saying I love Yiddish because there's just like you just don't have this word. Yeah, sometimes. Gabra. If you're so gabra, you're hot, you're overwhelmed, you're over it. You're just like, I'm so gabra. Flustered, over it, had enough.

SPEAKER_02 34:54

Judeo Arabic.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

Yeah, it's Iraqi Arabic. Yeah, I'll take that. I'll use that. Gabra. Do we do you know another word?

SPEAKER_02 35:01

Like that? Like flustered, like it's hot and bothered. Like hot and bothered is like the.

SPEAKER_01 35:06

Yeah, it's too much, but you're over it. Um I think I like this game. Yeah. Do you want one more?

SPEAKER_02 35:12

Yeah, one more.

SPEAKER_01 35:12

Alright. Min.

SPEAKER_02 35:14

Sorry. Minge. You were gonna say that.

SPEAKER_01 35:19

I was not gonna say that, but that would be known as British Judeo. Judeo British. Judeo English. English. Minge. Um no, Mijnoon or Mijnounah.

SPEAKER_02 35:30

Judeo Arabic.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

Yeah. Uh Iraqi Arabic, it means like silly, like silly goo, silly person. Mijnon is male, Mijnounah is female, Mijnounks is the non-binary. Can't verify that, just made that up.

SPEAKER_02 35:47

I

Hebrew Script, Credits And Yiddishisms

SPEAKER_02 35:48

will say that um something I love about Judeo languages is that often they were written using Hebrew script.

SPEAKER_03 35:54

Right?

SPEAKER_02 35:55

So like Yiddish is just a lot of it is more Germanic words using Hebrew script. Ladino is the same, it's always written with this Hebrew script. So I love my favorite thing is writing out English sentences in Hebrew lettering. And you also get so Skye's been teaching herself how to read Hebrew because she only ever had it as an oral language at home. So she speaks fluent Hebrew but doesn't read. Read it. But she's she's like she's taught herself really, really well. We go to Israel to visit her family like at the like September last year. She's like, I'm so excited. I think I'm at a place where I can like read menus at restaurants. I'm like, that's amazing. Okay, we sit down. She's like, what does that say? I'm like, oh, that says sushi crunch roll. She's like, what do you mean? I was like, special sushi roll. And they like write English words for like just in Hebrew letters.

SPEAKER_01 36:47

And so that's its own skill. Shoshana.

SPEAKER_02 36:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:49

How would you spell minch in Hebrew letters?

SPEAKER_02 36:52

Easy. Mem yud non gimel chupchik.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

What is chupchik? So it's gorgeous.

SPEAKER_02 37:02

You know what a chupchik is?

SPEAKER_01 37:03

Is it something that turns the sound, it changes the sound.

SPEAKER_02 37:06

So like a gimmel is a hard g, uh-huh. And there's no letter that has a j in it. So you add a chupchik, like a little apostrophe, and it makes it a j sound.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

Excellent. Yeah. Um, before we go, I I do need to acknowledge Alana Benjamin, who probably will not want to be acknowledged straight after I asked you how to spell Minge. Why? But should I I just want to thank Alana Benjamin. She gave you those. She is the Safadi Mizrahi community liaison at the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies. J Bod. Yep. And Alana and her team there, her her WhatsApp group, um helped you. Helped putting that list together.

SPEAKER_02 37:46

You know, I was wondering where you got all these from. I was like, either a single friend who you've been harassing for days.

SPEAKER_01 37:53

A single friend who just happens to know all these different phrases.

SPEAKER_02 37:56

I thought you had like a friend who, you know, like a single Judeo-Arabic speaker, or like questionable Googling. I'm glad it's come from a place of actual knowledge and I did not ask AL. Cultural meaning, yeah. Thank you, Alana. Wait, can I also say one last thing? Yes. 40 minutes in. Yes. Um, do you have the phenomenon? Because I assume you grew up with like Yiddishisms in your language. Are there any words that you ever thought were English that were actually Yiddish? Yes. Like what?

SPEAKER_01 38:26

I learned this embarrassingly.

SPEAKER_02 38:28

Yeah, I want to know a story.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

You think you'll probably know which one. I don't know. Stop. Oh, Pish. Pishing meaning AJ, can you guess? Yes. But did you know that because I said I need to pish? Yeah. Um, now my partner who is not Jewish says that.

SPEAKER_02 38:46

Pish and khaki.

SPEAKER_01 38:47

Not khaki.

SPEAKER_02 38:49

No, but people like like it's funny for me because it's like like real, like, really like from people. Will you say pishy and khaki because they'll use Yiddish and speak they speak half Yiddish, half English. And they'll be like, did you do a khaki? Did you do a pishy and a khaki? Makes me laugh every time. Um, I never knew that schmutter was and broigus. I said something about broigus once, and my boss looked at me like, like, what the f what's a broigus? And I had to I like the truth. I was like, whoa, am I speaking a different language? And I was speaking a different language.

SPEAKER_01 39:27

Broigus meaning a conflict or a grudge or a family beef.

SPEAKER_02 39:31

Beef, but broigus is beef.

SPEAKER_01 39:33

Yeah. And a schmata is something like a rag. But it's also used to describe clothes. Like if you work in fashion, you work. The schmatta industry.

SPEAKER_02 39:41

Well, I think it's because it's like it's it's unfinished clothing.

SPEAKER_01 39:44

Yes. Amazing. Schmatter. I'm sure there's more.

SPEAKER_02 39:48

So many.

SPEAKER_01 39:48

Yeah.

Reviews, Shares And Sign Off

SPEAKER_01 39:50

Yeah. That's it for today's show. If you've been watching or listening to A Shame to Admit with Shoshana Gottlieb Becker and me, Tammy Sussman.

SPEAKER_02 39:58

Uh, this episode was brought to you by the Jewish Independent. The Jewish Independent with Alleyway Productions. The vocalist in our theme song is Saria L, and there are more credits in our show notes.

SPEAKER_01 40:11

Hey, if you enjoyed this episode, here's what you need to do. You need to give us a positive review. The algorithm froths over positive reviews. Yeah. It helps other people find the show, and you also need to send this show to some people and say, I really love this. I think you'd like this too. Yeah. A link in your story on social media. Um, thanks, guys. See you next time. Bye.