LINGUIST List 4.594

Mon 02 Aug 1993

FYI: Just for Fun: Yiddish/Hebrew Pun

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1. Ronald Fein, Re: 4.584 Just for fun: Research, Yiddish

Message 1: Re: 4.584 Just for fun: Research, Yiddish

> yiddish is in fact /est/, not /ist/. there was also a 'french' line in yiddish
> that i can neither remember nor reconstruct but it started out with something
> like _avu tut dir vey..._ 'where does it hurt you?...' does this ring a bell
> for anyone?
>

There is an Israeli joke (along these lines, but punning on Hebrew and
Yiddish) about a recent Yiddish-speaking immigrant who tries to board a Tel
Aviv bus which has no seats left.

The bus driver says "Slicha, ein makom" [slixa eyn makom].
The immigrant responds, "Zeh tov, yesh li ein tukhes." [zEh tov yes^ li ayn
tUxIs]

Forgiving any errors I might have made with the Hebrew or the IPA, the
bus driver says (in perfect Hebrew) "There's no room." (ein = "there is no"
 in Hebrew.)

The immigrant's response plays on German/Yiddish ein (= "one"), and means
(in a Hebrew-Yiddish mixture) "That's good, I have one butt."