Customer Reviews

Modern English-Yiddish / Yiddish-English Dictionary (English and Yiddish Edition)

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4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
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1 star:		(4)

 

 

Uriel Weinreich was one of the top scholars of the Yiddish language, and to a lesser degree, of Yiddishkeit. He was nonetheless overshadowed by his father, the great Max Weinreich, who wrote a four volume history of the language (in Yiddish, with a one-volume English abridgement) and who started the massive Yiddish-Yiddish dictionary (under the aegis of Columbia University, I think) which is still "under construction".
There aren't many good Yiddish-English dictionaries out there. Uriel Weinreich's is one of the two I'm familiar with, the other being Alexander Harkavy's Yiddish-English-Hebrew Dictionary.
Weinreich gives good grammatical information in his entries, such as verb aspect and case of verb object, along with unpredictable forms such as the past participle. Both alphabets are very clear and distinct, and big enough to be readable for those past the bloom of youth. The English-Yiddish section is valuable for those using the book in Yiddish classes and for those who would like to speak, as well as read, Yiddish. Of course, it decreases the overall size of the dictionary, so a lot of the words you encounter won't show up in it.
The big drawback is the work's prescriptive nature, meaning that this is how Weinreich thought Yiddish should be spoken and written, not how it was spoken and written. Critics such as Solomon Birnbaum have even claimed that Weinreich made words up, if he didn't find them ready to hand. True, new words are formed or borrowed all the time, but that's the job of writers, subject specialists, members of subcultures, teenagers, and grannies, not lexicographers.
Further, if your goal is to read classic Yiddish literature (Perets, Sholom Aleichem, Yitskhak Manger etc.), this is not the book for you. I would recommend Harkavy's dictionary, if you can find it. He doesn't give the noun genders, there is little grammatical guidance and the print is hard to read, but the word you're looking for is likely to be there. And the book's very age (1920? or somewhere along there) is a plus, for this purpose. Of course, any serious student of Yiddish needs to keep good Polish, Hebrew and other dictionaries on hand, otherwise many words will remain a mystery, whatever Yiddish dictionary is used.

The main reason I purchased this dictionary is because it actually retains the original Yiddish orthography, that is, the Hebrew alphabet. Many other dictionaries I saw were transliterated.
Whenever I want/need to look up a Yiddish word, I find this dictionary has it. It is extremely thorough and up to date to the things that need to be expressed today. Many times, if I look up the major word in an English idiom, it lists the equivalent Yiddish idiom, which is very helpful for writing in Yiddish.

As a Yiddish student at Binghamton University (SUNY), I purchased a copy of Mr. Wenreich's dictionary to supplement my textbook and to learn more about the Yiddish language. It is very informative and has every expression imaginable in it in both English and Yiddish! Unfortunately, Mr. Weinreich lists many Yiddish words for each English word, without sufficient commentary on each word or phrase. It is sometimes hard to decide which word to use in the context of my sentence from the large list he gives. All in all, I would recommend this dictionary - it is the most complete English-Yiddish Yiddish-English dictionary I have seen. I do feel, however, that the more advanced Yiddish student or speaker could benefit more from this book than a beginner.

This dictionary is probably the best Yiddish dictionary so far. It is very useful for all English speakers, not only the natives - for two obvious reasons. One is the English language as a contemporary lingua franca. Another is that many languages don't have their Yiddish dictionary equivalents (e.g. my first language - Polish).
So, this dictionary is a superb, very useful tool for everyone who learns, teaches, works with or simply uses Yiddish.

Who ever wants to learn Yiddish, to write it, to read it, needs to have it! Teachers should have it "at their bed-sides"! I do recommend it as a must have! FRIDA (Grapa de) CIELAK Author of the Yiddish set of ARELE Workbooks. Founder of the International Yiddisher Briv-Fraynd Club (Pen-Pals, in Yiddish) Website: [....]

As a student at Binghamton University (SUNY), I would like to state that Scott Eckers is a tool. The dictionary is very informative and has every expression imaginable in it in both English and Yiddish! Unfortunately, Mr. Weinreich lists many Yiddish words for each English word, without sufficient commentary on each word or phrase. It is sometimes hard to decide which word to use in the context of my sentence from the large list he gives. All in all, I would recommend this dictionary - it is the most complete English-Yiddish Yiddish-English dictionary I have seen. I do feel, however, that the more advanced Yiddish student or speaker could benefit more from this book than a beginner.

I used to hear Yiddish during my childhood, but I am not a native Yiddish speaker. I hope that the dictionary could help me in my studies of the Jewry.
State of Yiddish lexicography in the territory of the former Soviet Union where I am living is very poor. There is only one Yiddish - Russian dictionary composed by S. Rokhkind and M. Shklyar published in Minsk in 1941. The Yiddish - Byelorussian dictionary by Samuil Plavnik and N. Rubinshtein published in 1932. Naturally, those two reference guides are rarities now. And there is only one Russian - Yiddish dictionary. (Some freaks are composing now Yiddish - Belarussian dictionary, but it is worth to question academic element in their work).
The researches conducted by Jewish divisions of Belarussian and Ukrainian Academies of sciences in 1920-1930s gave small result because of the Stalin's regime repressions and the outbreak of the World War II.
As it is known, the Nazis ruined the Yiddish world all over the Eastern Europe. The usage of Yiddish narrowed extremely in 1950-1980s in the Soviet Union. To cut the long story short, in Belarus we are now facing to the result that there is a very small range of persons who could understand Yiddish.
Professor Weinreich (1926-1967) was one of the great connoisseurs of Yiddish in the west. He had been preparing this dictionary since the late 1940s till his very death in 1967. The first edition of the dictionary by Professor Weinreich was published under the auspices of YIVO Institute in 1968. Uriel Weinreich is also the author of widely known textbook "College Yiddish" (NY, first edition in 1949) and a founder of "Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry".
The composer of the dictionary gave quite large Guidelines for use of the dictionary with a small grammar notes, as well as spelling and pronunciation keys of the unreformed Yiddish used in the West. (Yiddish used in the Soviet Union has some distinctions).
As I know, this dictionary is one of only two Yiddish - English dictionaries. The first one is Yiddish - English - Hebrew dictionary by Alexander Harkavy and the second one is the dictionary by Uriel Weinreich.
It seems to me that this reference book is rather useful. It gives entire information about a word. The dictionary contains more than 20000 entries.
Isaak Bashevis Singer said about the reference guide by Professor Uriel Weinreich: "I hope that all lovers of Yiddish and all those interested in our language will appreciate that Weinreich has done for them with competence and love".

For anyone who has decided to go back to their roots and learn the language of their grandparents, this book is a must!

Uriel Weinreich's Modern English-Yiddish Dictionary is a unique and superb resource. Highly recommended.

This book would be more meaniful for someone of Jewish faith. I really wanted something more like "Yiddish for Idiots."