Born to Kvetch
Chapter 8: Bupkes Means a Lot of Nothing
YIDDISH AND NATURE

Born to Kvetch extract:

When it came to day-to-day life the Jews knew no less than gentiles. Jews were cattle-dealers, horse-traders, stewards on noble estates. They had vast vocabularies relating to animal-parts and agriculture--Yiddish vocabularies that sometimes diverged considerably from the local non-Jewish language. Tailors, shoemakers and rabbis were treated by folk-healers who commonly prescribed herbal specifics—sgules, in Yiddish--that the patients (or their wives) were often expected to compound for themselves. This might not be the stuff of belles lettres, but that doesn’t make it any the less natural.

For a guide to the pronunciation and transliteration used on this website, click here.

To order the hardback, paperback, audio CD or 2008 calendar version of the book click on the links above