Mastering Reflexive Verbs in Yiddish: A Step-By-Step Guide

[@KostyaT]

Great video! I think it should be noted for all of the Yiddish learners out there that in literary/classical/academic Yiddish, the reflexive pronoun is always "zikh", regardless of the grammatical person. "Ikh ayl zikh", "ir zorgt zikh", etc.. As far as I understand, the rules described in the video are specific to a couple of dialects, I think historically Poylish/Galitsianer/Hungarian, and today Hungarian Hasidish, which of course is the predominant dialect today. I'm not sure about the exact geography. Still important to know in order to communicate with modern Yiddish speakers! But not necessarily for reading literature.

[@multisingual1241]

Really? I did not know that. It sounds so strange to me the other way around. 🤪 thanks for letting me know and making a note for this for whoever sees it!

[@josephdavidlandau]

I have a question about Yiddish genders. I mostly just ignore them. I almost never think about the gender of a word and no one's ever mentioned anything or corrected me when I used the wrong one. In the duolingo course they're really important to know but I was just flipping through a book and it was like 90% di, 10% der, and it took me 7 pages to find 'דאָס האַרץ'. I understand how they're used in classic Yiddish but I would like to know what the current rules or flexibilities are with gender in modern-day yiddish. I've asked a number of people, first-language Yiddish speakers, and they have no idea. So this is my Yiddish grammar video request. Thank you!

[@KostyaT]

I think gender is mostly lost in modern Hasidish Yiddish, but traditionally it's pretty important. If you listen to recordings from older Jews from the same area as modern Hasidish Yiddish-speakers' families would be coming from, like from Eastern Hungary, Eastern Romania, and the Carpathians in Ukraine, you'd hear that they used genders just as speakers of other Southeastern dialects as well as modern literature. Litvish dialects had lost the neutral gender a long time ago, so they only traditionally had di and der. Modern heritage Yiddish speakers who are not Hasidic, including some of the secular Yiddishists involved in making Duolingo ("secular" here doesn't mean they learned it themselves, the "secular" Yiddishists involved in making Duolingo are native speakers - also they are not exactly secular, they are just not Hasidic) use genders. Literary/classical/standard Yiddish uses the three genders like in Southern dialects. Also Hasidim use genders as in classical Yiddish in formal writing. If you open a page of today's Der Yid, you will see that they use genders. How do the writers know the genders if they don't use them in daily life? They look them up in "Yiddishist" dictionaries (I'm not joking). It's not only about "der", "di", and "dos", but also about adjective endings, including when nouns are used with indefinite articles, and depends on the noun case (nominative/accusative/dative). So if you look more carefully and not just at "der", "di" and "dos", you'll see more variety.

[@LydlDrakhe]

I'll give you a little information ACCORDING TO WHAT I LEARNED, and I clarify it because dialectal Yiddish is not only VERY different from standard Yiddish, but because even the grammar is different, and my Yiddish is very far from resembling the standard. Still, if we talk about genders, maybe it will help you understand how the declensions vary in relation to them and the grammatical cases. Nominative case: Masculine singular is ''דער'' Feminine singular is ''די'' Neuter singular is ''דאָס'' Masculine, feminine and neuter plural is ''די''. Accusative case: Masculine singular is ''דען'' according to my dialect, in standard Yiddish it should be ''דעם'' Feminine singular is ''די'' Neuter singular is ''דאָס'' Masculine, feminine and neuter plural is ''די''. Genitive case: This grammatical case is practically extinct in modern Yiddish (I may be wrong, but it has really fallen into disuse if not disappeared), but you can still find examples of this, let's see, instead of writing ''דער זון פון דער מאמע'', in the genitive you would simply write ''מאמעס זון''. Masculine singular is ''דעס'' Feminine singular is ''דער'' Neuter singular is ''דעס'' Masculine, feminine and neuter plural is ''די'' or ''דער''. Dative case: Masculine singular is ''דעם'' Feminine singular is ''דער'' Neuter singular is ''דעם'' Masculine, feminine and neuter plural is ''די'' or ''דען''. In modern Yiddish you will always use ''די'' for all plurals regardless of case, but I was taught a grammatical difference that I suspect comes directly from German. Anyway, they already mentioned that in spoken Yiddish this issue is not of great importance, and I doubt that anyone would question you about using a gender in any way, but in dialectal Yiddish or in those instances where grammar takes on a great importance, you have to take into account that gender is always linked to the grammatical case of the sentence and this affects several things within it. I'll give you an example: in modern Yiddish you have this word for almost all possessives ''מײַן'' and it's not unusual to see someone say anything and end up using that word in the same way always, but in dialectal Yiddish you have ''מײַן\מײַנער\מײַנע\מײַנען\מײַנעם\מײַנעס\מײַנס'' for each gender and case, plus if you end a sentence with this possessive, you must also adapt it to the corresponding case: ''דער צימער איז מײַנער'' and if we follow the opinion of those who use the word ''צימער'' as a neuter, then it would be ''דאָס צימער איז מײַנס'' but in common Yiddish you could just write/say ''די\דער\דאס צימער איז מײַן'' because colloquially these things are not given importance.

[@lisovyj_diadko]

thank you for the video!

[@multisingual1241]

You’re very welcome

[@LydlDrakhe]

Lol, it seems that you and I speak a similar dialect of Yiddish, at least in pronunciation, but I always heard and learned to use ''zikh'' for the second person, for example ''di lernts zikh mayne shprakh'' and not ''dikh'', but like you I would say ''ikh lern mikh'' and not ''zikh'' as I notice some people say, and yet I notice that there are certain dialects that directly do not use either ''zikh'' or ''mikh/dikh'' as the case may be, they simply use the verb and that's it xD This is very interesting. !!!שכוייח

[@multisingual1241]

Very interesting to hear. Thanks for sharing! 😃

[@LydlDrakhe]

@@multisingual1241 Thank you for this videos!!!

[@abrahamsteinberg]

were is you yiddish accent from?

[@multisingual1241]

It’s a Hasidic accent