DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

Comprehensive English-Yiddish Dictionary

Revised and Expanded

Paul Glasser editor Gitl Schaechter-Viswanath editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Indiana University Press

Published:28th Sep '21

Should be back in stock very soon

Comprehensive English-Yiddish Dictionary cover

This second edition of the award-winning Comprehensive English-Yiddish Dictionary offerseven more entries for anyone working with Yiddish on a personal or professional level.

Based on the work of the late Dr. Mordkhe Schaechter, a noted linguist and Executive Director of the League for Yiddish, the dictionary emphasizes Yiddish as a living language that is spoken in many places around the world.

Featuring 85,000 entries, this second edition has been thoroughly revised and expanded with approximately 1000 new words and phrases and is sure to become a critical resource for Yiddish scholars and speakers for years to come.

"After the Declaration of Independence came Noah Webster's dictionaries, that proclaimed the independence of American English usage and spelling. After the mass Jewish immigration to America came the great lexicographers, who made America the most capacious home that the Yiddish language has ever known: Alexander Harkavy (1863-1939), Nahum Stutchkoff (1893-1965), Uriel Weinreich (1926-1967), Yudel Mark (1897-1995), and Mordkhe Schaechter (1927-2007). Other American languages should be so lucky. But none were so bold as the team of Gitl Schaechter-Viswanath and Paul Glasser, may they live and prosper, who turned Yiddish into any match for American English. Where English has only "furious," Yiddish has tsekokht, oyfgekokht, ongetsundn, oyser zikh, tsorndik, vild, mole-kaas, mole-retsikhe and mole-kheyme, to capture every possible nuance of displeasure. Where English has "flash drive," Yiddish has shlisldisk, which is so much more musical. You can cuddle up with a tselke far more easily than with a "cell phone." The Comprehensive English-Yiddish Dictionary is American Jewry's Declaration of Equal Rights."—David G. Roskies - Sol & Evelyn Henkind Professor of Yiddish Literature and Culture, Jewish Theological Seminary

"In my view, this magnificent dictionary is the most important contribution to the field of Yiddish Studies in the 21st century. It is indispensable for any student or scholar of Yiddish and will remain so for future generations. I always have it on my desk"—Mikhail Krutikov - Professor of Slavic and Judaic Studies, University of Michigan

ISBN: 9780253058843

Dimensions: 279mm x 216mm x 53mm

Weight: 2204g

864 pages

second edition