8.4 /10 1 Votes
Originally published 1968 | 4.2/5 Goodreads | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Similar Hooray for Yiddish!, The Education of H * Y, The Education of Hyman, Born to Kvetch, Yiddish and English | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Joys of Yiddish is a book containing the lexicon of common words and phrases in the Yiddish language, primarily focusing on those words that had become known to speakers of American English due to the influence of American Ashkenazi Jews. It was originally published in 1968 and written by Leo Rosten.
The book distinguished itself by how it explained the meaning of the Yiddish words and phrases: almost every entry was illustrated by a joke. This made the book not only a useful reference, but also a treasured collection of Jewish humor.
As is inevitable with any book that references popular culture, it quickly became dated due to the dramatic changes that American culture (and Jewish-American culture) underwent over the next 30 years. Rosten published revised versions of the book with different titles: Hooray for Yiddish! (1982) and The Joys of Yinglish (1989). In 2001, a new edition of the original book was published. Titled The New Joys of Yiddish, it was revised by Lawrence Bush, with copious footnotes added to clarify passages that had become outdated. Some material was also rearranged.
Translations
This book has a German translation published by Deutsche Taschenbuch Verlag, 11. 2002 and 4. 2003 ISBN 3-423-24327-9: Jiddisch. Eine kleine Enzyklopädie, a French one published by Éditions Calmann-Lévy ISBN 2-7021-2262-0, Les Joies du Yiddish and a Czech one published by Academia in 1998, Jidiš pro radost, ISBN 80-200-0707-5, republished by Leda in 2013, ISBN 978-80-7335-333-9.