Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods
Sign in to keep track of books you’ve read and want to read.
A delightful excursion through the Yiddish language, the culture it defines and serves, and the fine art of complaint
Throughout history, Jews around the world have had plenty of reasons to lament. And for a thousand years, they've had the perfect language for it. Rich in color, expressiveness, and complexity, Yiddish has proven incredibly useful and durable. Its wonderful phrases and idioms impeccably reflect the mind-set that has enabled the Jews of Europe to survive a millennium of unrelenting persecution . . . and enables them to kvetchabout it!
Read more
Michael Wex—professor, scholar, translator, novelist, and performer—takes a serious yet unceasingly fun and funny look at this remarkable kvetch-full tongue that has both shaped and has been shaped by those who speak it. Featuring chapters on curse words, food, sex, and even death, he allows his lively wit and scholarship to roam freely from Sholem Aleichem to Chaucer to Elvis.
Perhaps only a khokhem be-layle(a fool, literally a "sage at night," when there's no one around to see) would care to pass up this endearing and enriching treasure trove of linguistics, sociology, history, and folklore—an intriguing appreciation of a unique and enduring language and an equally fascinating culture.
Liked Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods? Here’s where I’d start.
These suit anyone who liked Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.
-
The Joys of Yiddish Shares language, Jewish, nonfiction -
The Rebbe's Army: Inside the World of Chabad-Lubavitch Shares nonfiction, judaism, Jewish -
Boychiks in the Hood: Travels in the Hasidic Underground Shares Jewish, nonfiction, judaism -
The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated Shares nonfiction, Jewish, language
“People who read Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods tend to reach for these next.”
-
Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers: An Intimate Journey Among Hasidic Girls
-
World of Our Fathers: The Journey of the East European Jews to America and the Life They Found and Made
-
The Art of Blessing the Day: Poems with a Jewish Theme
-
Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books
