Survey: How much Yiddlish do you use?

[nancylebov]

Quoted from weirdjews:

You are invited to participate in an interesting and entertaining survey about language. Essentially, we're asking about the spread of Yiddish (and some Hebrew) among English speakers in North America. We're turning to both Jews and non-Jews to answer questions like these: Who uses Yiddish words like "shmooze" and "daven" and phrases like "Money, shmoney"? Why do some people say "temple" while others say "shul"? Who prefers biblical names for their babies? Your responses will help us answer these and other questions, and you might learn something about yourself in the process. Please set aside 15-20 minutes, and click on this link to participate:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=9eQwWyblG_2b8ixLqbt6QFhg_3d_3d

Please forward this request to your friends and family. We are hoping to get thousands of responses from people of all religions, ages, and regions of the United States and Canada. If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail Prof. Sarah Bunin Benor <sbenor@huc.edu> or Prof. Steven M. Cohen <steve34nyc@aol.com>.

papersky, do you have the link handy for that discussion of pesach vs. passover vs. family holiday? I bet they'd be fascinated.

I didn't like *any* of the sets of children's names. Probably just as well that I don't have kids.

Comments

[papersky.livejournal.com]

http://papersky.livejournal.com/336249.html

http://papersky.livejournal.com/336484.html

I don't have time to do the survey right now -- and anyway it's a US survey, but there are the links.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much, but neither of them are the discussion I remember about what you'd call that holiday to non-Jews.

They said "North American", so that presumably includes Canada. On the other hand, you may not have been there long enough to be quite what they're thinking of.

[19-crows.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed the survey, thanks. I don't know if my answers will help - I grew up in Southern California and have heard Yiddish all my life, and my parents named me Elizabeth because it's a Bible name. But we were Methodists.

[firecat]

Thanks for passing it along. I didn't like the kids' names either.

[starmalachite.livejournal.com]

When I took the quiz, I mentioned in my comments that the Pennsylvania Dutch my grandparents spoke was in some ways (I've since learned) more similar to Yiddish than to standard modern German.