Also, the hard accentuation of the "g" sound as in words like ringing, and singing. They come out like ring-ging-g and sing-ging-g.






I suspect that this is a result of substituting English words for the Germanic words (Yiddish is a dialect of German) while keeping Germanic pronunciation of the alphabet, and the Germanic gramatical structure. ("W" is pronounced as "V", and "V" is pronounced as a combination of "V" and "F".

So you will find statements like, "Throw the cow over the fence, some hay." Or, "Bring Mama home in a bag, some bread."




Mountains, shmountains, I should care about mountains?

My own belief, is that people came to the U.S. as adults, and while struggling to earn a living, never learned English properly. They spoke the "old language" at home and used what English they knew only in public or at work. Their children grew up speaking Yiddish at home as their parents did, but improved their English at school. Culturally, they possibly kept many of the mispronunciations and much of the gramatical structure out of respect for their parents.

Ennyway, That's how Ah see it.

Ken V.

Oy!

Dang it!! Thought I had "Nu" figured out as "Well". Guess I was close anyway. Hmmm....wonder if Abe is one of the Knights Who Say "Nu" ?? (Yeah, a take on Monty Python there. Couldn't help myself.)

Haha, nice Monty crack there...

Kenji...Abe says "Nu" in every Jack book, I think. Otherwise I wouldn't have noticed it.

In "The Tomb" when Abe first appears:
Abe: "What's eating up your guderim?" (by the way, what's that mean?)
Jack: "Saw Gia today."
Abe: "Nu?"

I figured "Nu" means different things depending on context and how it's said...on the cadence, I might just have to rewatch Ocean's 11...

Just because I'm so excited about this, I have to say it: I just got Hosts and Haunted Air in the mail today. Now I can reread them whenever I want!!! Wohoo

Oy!

Oy! Is right. My mother grew up speaking Slovak at home. Another thing I didn't mention is that when people go far from home, they tend to cluster together. It's comforting to be among people with the same language and culture when living in a foreign country.

This does not, however, help them learn the language any better. But as long as they can communicate enough to get along . . . .


Ken V.

Haha, nice Monty crack there...

Kenji...Abe says "Nu" in every Jack book, I think. Otherwise I wouldn't have noticed it.

In "The Tomb" when Abe first appears:
Abe: "What's eating up your guderim?" (by the way, what's that mean?)
Jack: "Saw Gia today."
Abe: "Nu?"

I figured "Nu" means different things depending on context and how it's said...on the cadence, I might just have to rewatch Ocean's 11...

Just because I'm so excited about this, I have to say it: I just got Hosts and Haunted Air in the mail today. Now I can reread them whenever I want!!! Wohoo

In "The Tomb" when Abe first appears:
Abe: "What's eating up your guderim?" (by the way, what's that mean?)
Jack: "Saw Gia today."
Abe: "Nu"

I checked these conversation,and next is Japanese translation.

Abe:「何かあったのか？」Nanika,attanoka?
Jack:「今日、ジーアに会ったんだ」Kyo,Gia ni attanda.
Abe:「それで？」Sorede?

Hmmm....Ok, I understood. "Nu" is Japanese "Sorede".
Well, any languages are very interesting.

[/QUOTE]Abe:「それで？」Sorede?[/FONT]

Hmmm....Ok, I understood. "Nu" is Japanese "Sorede".
Well, any languages are very interesting. [/QUOTE]

Out of curiosity, Kenji, what would "Sorede" translate to in English? :confused:

It never fails to amuse me that I can read parts of written Japanese 今日 (today)...hehe. Chinese anyone?

Just curious, what's "Jack" in the Japanese translation? It would be 杰克 in Chinese.

Oy! Is right. My mother grew up speaking Slovak at home. Another thing I didn't mention is that when people go far from home, they tend to cluster together. It's comforting to be among people with the same language and culture when living in a foreign country.

This does not, however, help them learn the language any better. But as long as they can communicate enough to get along . . . .


Ken V.

This string of posts brought to my mind a joke I was told while I was working in Israel. Now remember that Israel is mostly an immigrant country with people moving there from all over the world. So there are tons of languages spoken there as peoples primary languages. But you can always count on people being able to speak Hebrew and have some ability with English....anyway, the joke goes as follows:

What do you call a person who speaks three languages?

Tri-lingual.

What do you call a person who speaks two languages?

Bi-lingual.

What do you call a person who speaks one language?

American.



My folks were originally from Scotland. They spoke English but with all kinds of Scottishisms thrown in, so I grew up wondering why no one else understood these things..

Abe:「それで？」Sorede?[/FONT]

Hmmm....Ok, I understood. "Nu" is Japanese "Sorede".
Well, any languages are very interesting. [/QUOTE]

Out of curiosity, Kenji, what would "Sorede" translate to in English? :confused:[/QUOTE]



Sorede translate to in English? Well, it's meaning, "...And?" or "So?".

It never fails to amuse me that I can read parts of written Japanese 今日 (today)...hehe. Chinese anyone?

Just curious, what's "Jack" in the Japanese translation? It would be 杰克 in Chinese.

杰克? oh, that's interesting!

Jack in the Japanese translation...? Japanese name is　ジャック. And also, Repairman Jack is 始末屋ジャック(shimatusya Jack).