Customer Reviews:
 Zeier giit far inyunim fin der alter Yiidishkajt May 11, 2006
bukhtan (Chicago, Illinois, USA)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
[I have in front of me my copy from the 1988 photostat produced by YIVO and Schocken in 1928. The books appear to be the same.]
This re-impression of the great Yiddish-English-Hebrew dictionary by Alexander Harkavy restores to print the principle lexicon usable and useful for those interested in classic Yiddish literature, from Mendele Moicher Sforim up to the time of its compilation. The young (by the usual standards in these things) Yiddish scholar David Katz wrote an excellent introduction, in Yiddish and English, and there is a valuable bibliography, for those with the inclination and resources to use it.
Drawbacks:
1)Because of the great variation in noun gender among the Yiddish dialects (even leaving aside the neuter-less Litvak speech), Harkavy found it appropriate, after the first few pages of Alef, to abandon marking nouns for gender. Remember, Yiddish was never a state language, except in the old USSR (nebbich), and so never was subject to Academies, schoolmarms, and other hypercorrectarians.
2)The print is small and somewhat blurred. Adjust your spectacles or get a magnifying glass.
A more specific problem, and greater, is the haphazard nature of the Hebrew vowel points under those vocabulary items deriving from Loshn-Koidesh. Sometimes they're visible, sometimes not. I'd recommend keeping a Hebrew dictionary on hand for cases of doubt, preferably an old one. I like to use a Founding-of-the-State era Alcalay for this purpose
3)There is little or no grammatical information, unless Harkavy found a particular instance especially interesting, usually for historical or etymological reasons. Remember, this dictionary is intended solely for American Jews for whom Yiddish was the mame-loshn. They needed no instruction in how to use these words.
4)Those familiar with modern Israeli Hebrew may find the Hebrew definitions quaint.
Aside from its great utility in parsing the classic writers of the unparalleled Yiddish literature in its heyday, Harkavy gives us, in his notes and the very definitions, some considerable insight into early 20th Century Jewish-American life. I can't imagine that enthusiasts of Yiddishkkajt won't find this book as amusing as it is useful.
A must for reading and translating Yiddish. March 23, 2006
Jeffrey P. Koerber (Chicago, Illinois USA)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
If you are a student of Yiddish and need another dictionary besides Weinreich for reading and translation work, this is the dictionary to buy.
|
