The Adventures of L-Plate Bubbe: Homework (Jews do it backwards)

So, I have come to the conclusion that these gurus and so-called lifestyle experts who recommend learning a language in old age to keep the brain active, haven't actually tried it. As soon as a new piece of vocabulary arrives, one learned earlier disappears.

In nautical terms, we are Week 5: Still At Sea.

Luckily there are only three main tenses in Yiddish: present, past, and future, although I have discovered a fourth one, which creeps over me whenever I am faced with another piece of dialogue featuring Rokhel and Dovid, the Janet and John of my Yiddish primer.

For those who have never seen Yiddish on the page, it reads right to left, which meant initially I found myself writing the English translation back to front. Don't know what part of my brain that came from.

Then there is the vexed question of the vowels. In Hebrew, which I learned from age 7, and have now forgotten entirely, the vowels are lavish, plentiful and sit under the consonants like good helpful little soldiers. In Yiddish, they lurk in unaccustomed places or are absent without leave and you are just expected to know they are there. Even though they clearly aren't. 

The rest of the class marches on. I straggle behind them, laboriously spelling out the words letter by letter in a strangled whisper and hoping that the very sociable cat that belongs to one of the younger students will make an unexpected appearance on her screen, so we can all be distracted and I can catch up, albeit briefly.

For our current homework (Yiddish: heimarbet) we have been asked  to write about our family. The rest of the class, shiny-eyed and keen, have requested complicated lists of words like 'step grandchild', 'adopted daughter', 'same-sex couple' etc. My offering consists of four short sentences:

I have a husband. 

I have a daughter. 

She has 2 children. 

My parents are dead.

time in better get will it but

The Adventures of L-Plate Bubbe: Screentime

The last time I studied a language, I was 12 years old. I wore a pleated navy skirt, shirt and tie, and sat in a room with 28 other girls. Back then, the biggest problem was always where to sit. The swotty teacher-pleasers positioned themselves at the front, where they could show off their ability and get their hands in the air a micro-second before everyone else had processed the question.

The back row was reserved for the slackers and troublemakers, who passed the time creating their own charisma-free environment while contributing as little as possible to the class. I was the only Jewish girl in a school of 800, at a time where teachers could nickname you 'it', or refer to 'people like you' without being accused of antisemitism.

Therefore, my modus operandi was to maintain as low a profile as I could, which was why I always lurked in the middle of the fourth row, head down, studiously avoiding any eye-contact or engagement.

Beginners' Yiddish is not like this at all.

The first difference is that there is nowhere to lurk. The class consist of 7 students and teacher. We are all visible all the time. It is disconcerting to see oneself on screen, peering confusedly into the ether, as if I have developed an alter ego. The alter ego hasn't a clue what is going on. 

The other students are way ahead of me, some having done previous courses. If you have ever read 'The Education of Hyman Kaplan' by Leo Rosten, I am Mrs Moskovitch. I need a pre-Beginners' Yiddish course.

But this is lesson one, so it is too early to give up, even though I am reminded of all the differentiated worksheets I used to produce as a teacher for what were euphemistically referred to as the 'learning challenged', which is now me. 

I have learned two phrases, however: min nomen ist Carol (my name is Carol) and ich hob zer leeb ketzen, (I really like cats). On this basis, the cat thinks I have made a promising start.

The Adventures of L-Plate Bubbe : 'My Yiddish Notebook'

Before embarking upon any new enterprise, it is always good to do some pre-prep. This is especially true when one is about to begin learning a new language. 

Thus, while waiting for my Yiddish classes (Absolute Beginners) to start, I have decided to prepare myself for the challenges ahead by plunging straight in and acquiring some stationery. 

Yiddish is a polyglot language. Much of it derives from Hebrew and Aramaic, but there are also borrowings from German, French and Italian. Having established itself in Europe with the migration of Jews in the 10th century, the language did a bit more borrowing from various Slavic and Romance languages.

However, the Holocaust, when 6 million Jews were wiped out, almost marked the 'death' of Yiddish, as nearly all the main speakers were killed. To make matters worse, after World War Two, Yiddish as a spoken language by was banned by Stalin. So it looked for a while as though Yiddish would morph into another dead language.

But it lives.

What I particularly like about Yiddish is that it is the language of the home, spoken, taught and passed down by women. It exists in the female space. Hebrew is the language of the Torah, the Talmud, the Cheder ~ traditionally male spaces. Yiddish belongs to us women, to the kitchen, the table, the family gathered to eat and share.

With that it mind, I have chosen a notebook that contains all the colours of the rainbow, as Yiddish contains all the linguistic borrowings. And two pink pens. Because.

As for the title of this piece? There is a lovely Yiddish word ~ Schmaltz. It means (amongst other things) something very sentimental. When I was growing up, my parents possessed a scratchy 78rpm record of Sophie Tucker singing My Yiddishe Momme. 

If you copy the link you can listen to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=triCX77tl8s