Language Converter Yiddish

Rendering a reborn tongue

Veteran Israeli filmmaker Nurit Aviv's evocative, many-layered documentary "Traduire" ("Translating" ), about translators of Hebrew, is the third in her cinematic trilogy about the language. She does not portray Hebrew as an abstract or academic entity, but rather as something palpable; as matter that is worked and undergoes intriguing transformations into other tongues, and that takes part in - and is influenced by - other cultures. Thus, Hebrew as a connecting, creative force.

In the first of Aviv's three films about the language, "Mesafa Lesafa" ("From One Language to Another," 2004 ), Israeli writers born into other first languages discuss writing their life's work in their adopted mother tongue, Hebrew; the second, "Langue Sacree, Langue Parlee" ("Sacred Language, Spoken Language," 2008 ), is about Hebrew as a spoken language sprung from a sacred one.

In the latest film, which is to be screened this weekend at the Jerusalem Film Festival , talking and reciting provide the sound track. After all, what can we possibly look at in a movie about translation? Translators, of course. They are shown at their desks, and so the film may be described as belonging to the talking-heads genre. This could have been an unimaginative choice of format; it is potentially dull. However, "Traduire," like a really good poem, also contains an image - in this case, a window - that is repeated with variations and becomes a metaphor with a chain of myriad associations, much as translation itself causes such a chain to develop in the host but also the source culture.

Before each translator is revealed standing against a wall in a corner of the room in which he or she works, we see through the window (if the office has one ) such sights as the sea in Brest, France, the rooftops of the San Simon neighborhood in Jerusalem and Berkeley in California, and so on. While we look at them and out of their windows, the translators tell the stories of their discoveries of Hebrew, and discuss the works they chose to translate into their mother tongues: the fiction of David Grossman, Ronit Matalon and S.Y. Agnon; the poetry of Dahlia Ravikovitch, Lea Goldberg, Solomon Ibn Gabirol and Yehuda Amichai; the plays of Hanoch Levin; midrash. We see the translators, but learn about them only in connection to their relationship to the Hebrew language; they are visible, but despite the fact that we see them at home or in their offices, they remain fairly anonymous, the way translators often are, for many reasons.

Language Translator Yiddish | Language Translator For Travelers

Yiddish-an oft-considered "gutter" language-is an unlikely survivor of the ages much like the Jews themselves. Its survival has been an incredible journey especially considering how often Jews have tried to kill it themselves. Underlying Neal Karlen's unique brashly entertaining yet thoroughly researched telling of the language's story is the notion that Yiddish is a mirror of Jewish history thought and practice-for better and worse. Karlen charts the beginning of Yiddish as a minor dialect in medieval Europe that helped peasant Jews live safely apart from the marauders of the First Crusades. Incorporating a large measure of antique German dialects Yiddish also included little scraps of French Italian ancient Hebrew Aramaic the Slavic and Romance languages and a dozen other tongues native to the places where Jews were briefly given shelter. One may speak a dozen languages all of them Yiddish. By 1939 Yiddish flourished as the lingua franca of 13 million Jews. After the Holocaust whatever remained of Yiddish its worldview and vibrant culture was almost stamped out-by Jews themselves. Yiddish was an old-world embarrassment for Americans anxious to assimilate. In Israel young proud Zionists suppressed Yiddish as the symbol of the weak and frightened ghetto-bound Jew-and invented modern Hebrew. Today a new generation has zealously sought to explore the language and to embrace its soul. This renaissance has spread to millions of non-Jews who now know the subtle difference between a shlemiel and a shlimazel ; hundreds of Yiddish words dot the most recent editions of the Oxford English Dictionary. The Story of Yiddish is a delightful tale of a people their place in the world and the fascinating language that held them together. Category: Talking bilingual dictionary expandable to include over 50 language combinations. Language pair: English - Yiddish; Yiddish - English; English - English Speech: English and Yiddish for the Dictionary; English and Yiddish for the PhraseBook Number of words: over 35,000Size: 6.6 x 3.9 x 0.9 in. Weight: 11 oz. Battery Type: Li-Polymer rechargeable battery (3.7V, 1400mAh), included. Speech Recognition Enabled! The ECTACO Partner Dictionary and Travel Audio PhraseBook EY800 is a powerful translating handheld that features the sacred speech of the mame-loshn (n. 'mother tongue?).

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