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There are some great sites listed below that will help you translate from English to various languages, including Eastern Europe's languages and also various languages to English. These are great sites to find out what a word or a line on an old paper or a photograph means. You now have an arsenal of great web sites to work with - some offer to do a small translation for free - while other sites charge a nominal fee. Good luck! To view a map showing language spread around Europe/Russia at the end of the century Russian was the language of the administration throughout the Empire at the late 19th century. Accented letters and other characters For a wider variety of accented letters, try http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/accents/codealt.html
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Translating - there are many translating services, some for free, available to help with your translating needs in most languages including
Spanish and Portuguese. One of these sites is Just in case you didn't think of it, contact a nearby university or college's foreign language department. They may offer to write letters and translate letters into English. A nominal fee is usually charged.
Dictionaries An index of on-line Dictionaries Dictionary. Com
Ergane - A free multi-lingual
dictionary program for Windows. It can not only be used as a
translation dictionary, but also as a tool for helping students to
memorize the words of foreign languages. Furthermore, it is
possible with this program to generate wordlists. Ergane is a
downloadable program and it's free
"Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary"-
Merriam-Webster/Online The Library of Congress Thesaurus - LOGOS: Multilingual E-Translation Portal - Multi-Lingual Dictionaries along with Translations between European languages and much more can be found at On-line Dictionaries/Thesaurus Over 208 Language Indices and Dictionaries OneLook dictionaries (several languages) - Refdesk.com - Spell Web - Your
Dictionary - This is an interesting web site that gives you a
dictionary on your computer; translates foreign languages; offers the
Word of the Day and "the Agora" where you can "speak" with other
Web-footed verbivores and professional linguists, including Dr.
Language, about any aspect of language, including current or past Words
of the Day. "Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods" - authored by Michael Wex "Handwriting" - a fascinating tutorial on Deciphering Old English Handwriting http://www.amberskyline.com/treasuremaps/oldhand.html "In Their Words - A Genealogist's Translation Guide to Polish, German, Latin and Documents" authored by William Hoffman and Jonathan Shea, is an excellent resource. Ordering information - the most direct way to get info on the books - is to go straight to this Website at "Latin Words" - a Latin word dictionary and grammar aid that translates for a beginning Latin student at
"The Ethnologue" - a catalogue of more than 6,700 languages spoken in 228 countries. The Ethnologue Name Index lists over 39,000 language names, dialect names, and alternate names. The Ethnologue Language Family Index organizes languages according to language families "The Story of Yiddish: How a Mish-Mosh of Languages Saved the Jews" - authored by Neal Karlen and published by William Morrow. "Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs" - authored by Paul Wexler, the Israeli linguist. The book, a 713 page hardcover is entitled "Two-tiered Relexification in Yiddish: Jews, Sorbs, Khazars and the Kiev-Polessian Dialect". Wexler claims that Yiddish was created when Judaized Sorbs first relexified their language to High German between the 9th and 12th centuries; by the 15th century, the descendants of the Judaized Khazars also allegedly relexified their Kiev-Polessian (northern Ukrainian and southern Belarusian) speed to Yiddish and German. Ethnologue
A database about languages of the world Free Translation Sites A very useful site to translate many languages Brent
Website Translation - the site offers a great deal of information
including a free translation service translating any page on the web
site into 8 languages. Just click on the "Translation" option and
then select the required language below and your previous page (and all
subsequent pages) will be translated into that language.
FreeTranslation http://www.free-translator.com/ Rules for Daitch-Mokotoff Soundex coding http://www.jewishgen.org/gedcom/faq/sndcomp.html#q3.1 Soundex
Check the following JewishGen site for doing your own calculation of D-M or Nara Soundex codes. Town Name Translations -
Translate - various languages
"Translation Guide to Nineteenth Century Polish Language Civil Registration Documents" (Birth, Marriage & Death Records) - authored by Judith Franzin - a book by the Jewish Genealogical Society. A good source for translating
Polish/Jewish acts in 19th. Century Polish-Language Civil-Registration Documents. It covers births, marriages and deaths with differences noted for pre-1826 and post 1826 documents. She has published a 2nd. edition. There is a Library of Congress Catalog Card (no.89-84516) and Your local library can probably get a copy on an inter-library loan so that you can decide for yourself whether you have enough need to purchase one for yourself or for your own JGS group. From a posting by Stan Finkelstein Travlang's Translating Dictionaries - Your Dictionary. com - General Language Just for the fun of it! Here's a weird one, a site that analyzes prose and guesses at the gender of the author. Strangely enough, it really works. I tried it with a bunch of documents , and it guessed correctly in every instance. If you have a document (works only in English, I believe) you might want to determine if a male or a female wrote it. Try it yourself right here - it's very believable. Afgan Language - there is no specific language. The country has two major languages -- Pashto and the local Persian dialect known as Dari. Baltic, Lithuanian, Latvian, Old Prussian* Languages - http://www.slavophilia.net/language.htm * indicates extinct languages Baltic & Slavic Languages - translating assistance from/to English from: Click2 Translate - a commercial service that offers help in translating foreign languages
Dictionary of Many Languages (Aussie, Brazilian Portuguese, Danish, Dutch, Finish and many more) - a Dictionary for Addict Spell Check made freely available to all users of Addictive Software's Addict Spell Check and Thesaurus - version 3 and higher DOROT Genealogy Center - located at Beth Ha'tefutsorth in Tel Aviv e-mail bhgnlgy@post.tau.ac.il DOROT Software East Slavic, Russian, Belorussian, Ukrainian - Free2Professional Translation - great site and easy to use Fontboard - multi-language support for Windows and includes Hebrew, Cyrillic and Yiddish Handwriting - deciphering Languages - Baltic and Slavic Languages Fonts, software and keyboard labels for multilingual computing including Cyrillic Jewish Language Research Website - wow, what a site! Here you will find:
Ladino Language - also known as Judeo-Spanish, dates back to the Language - Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, Grammar/Style and quotations - http://www.refdesk.com Language Guides - The Yamada WWW Language guides - a definitive guide to language resources on the World Wide Web. In the Guides, you will find pointers to: The Yamada Font Archive; links to the annotated list of language-related news groups and links to language related mailing lists. They contain information on 115 languages and there are 112 fonts for 40 languages - all offered by the University of Oregon at Languages of the World - links to language page sites - the ultimate source of authentic and reliable information about the Languages of the world on the net. The links in this directory will guide you to the official sites of the languages that you are looking for. Languages for use while traveling. Some quick and necessary words. Multilingo - a commercial translation site that offers translations in many languages. Rashi - the greatest Jewish commentator, Rashi, Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki, was an outstanding community leader and decisor who schooled his two daughters because he had no sons. A video, featuring Leonard Nimoy as the voice of Rashi and distributed by Destiny Films is available at Spelling - "Each program (and website) has whatever conventions its authors gave it. In Windows there is a 'Character Map' which will allow you to enter unusual characters in a document-that usually will allow your home genealogy program to take things like a u mit umlaut. But speaking as someone who has done that, I don't recommend it. I put the Bru(e)ckheimers who lived in Germany in my program with the umlauted u, and those in the US and elsewhere are entered as they spell their names-either with or without an e after the u. However, when I search for someone I have to search with and without the umlaut and with and without the e as the Find utility doesn't know about it. So, finally, I pulled out the umlauts and made notes in the appropriate people's files. P.S. The character map is found in the program list under Accessories/System Tools. Of course, it may need to be installed from the Windows CD. Translating AIM - a translating program can be downloaded from PC World's download site for free. It requires Windows 9.x. After choosing the languages that you wish to converse in, you click an arrow to determine what you're transferring from and to. The program supports English, French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish Babelfish Translator - a resource where you can immediately translate (up to 150 words) from
French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish to English and vice versus This site lets you translate up to 150 words from English (or translate from any of these languages to English) Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish. This tool is a handy resource for your research, enabling you to read text on foreign language sites, for example. Try typing a sentence of your own and translating to another language. Now copy and paste the translation into the main window and translate it back to English. I personally translated my 'Welcome' page into Spanish ... and it worked it seconds! Babylon - Babylon-Pro is a dictionary tool that instantly delivers a world of information to users’ fingertips. Babylon provides translation, conversion and relevant information about any word or value that you click on. With a single click online or offline, this tool allows users to access information from thousands of glossaries and dictionaries, convert currencies, measurements, and time zones, and--through a text-to-speech system--hear the proper pronunciations of words (you must download and install the Babylon 'Say-it' plug-in from the Babylon Web site to enable the speech capabilities). Babylon also translates to English, Spanish, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese, Hebrew, and Swedish. A free Demo web site is offered at Click2Translate - a fee-based site that will translate an entire page for a reasonable fee.  LingvoSoft Dictionary software English <-> Yiddish for Windows - 400,000 wordsWith this LingvoSoft smart dictionary software on your computer, you can easily switch between English and Yiddish, (an many other languages) for prompt translations of 400,000 words both ways! Download Free Trial now Free Translation - an easy-to-use site for rapid translations where you can get the 'gist' of foreign language text and web pages From Language to Language - this site offers a lot and includes Turkish, German, Russian, Spanish, French and Italian translating to English Genealogy.net Translation Service - at this site trans@genealogienetz.de you can request a translation be made in these supported languages at no charge: CZEch, ENGlish, DUTch, FREnch, GERman and POLish. The site requests that you use the three-letter abbreviation as indicated in bold face and your request should have a maximum length of 40 lines. The translations are done by a volunteer team, so before you use their services, I would suggest you read their instructions carefully which are spelled out in both German and English. And as with any request to help you in your research, please make sure you send a 'Thank You' note. A New Feature Site ... now search specific Languages (you name it, Google offers it and believe me, you will be amazed) or Countries at this Google site Lavrentiy Krupnak (Laurence Krupnak) offers his services in translating Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Slovak, Hungarian, Yiddish, German, etc. Translating is done on a fee basis. Information available at Lingo - multilingual solutions - at this site you can upload your document and get an instant price quote on a professional human translation. Memo Ware - even if you don't have a PDA ( Personal Digital Assistant - a general term used to encompass electronic organizers and handheld computers) you can use Memo Ware's document files on my personal computer. Once you have opened up this web site, you will have many choices - some of them can be also used with a PC or a MAC. You will be required to download the program you are interested in and you will find many translation programs including translating from Dutch to English Mendez iTranslator™ a commercial translating service. The site offers FREE on-line language translations and also offers a human translator service. Multi-Lingual Dictionaries along with Translations between European languages and much more can be found at Poltran - English to Polish and Polish to English free translation site Prompt Online - just click on image below
Russian Language - learn Russian words and meanings, Russian Dictionary, Russian Translations Rustran.com - you can enter a word or a sentence in Russian or in English and receive Systran - a professional human translation service Translating Services -
Genealogy.net offers to do translations for free at http://www.genealogienetz.de/gene/misc/translation.html The United
States Holocaust Museum translates hundreds of thousands of
documents yearly with content translated into Arabic, Chinese, Farsi,
French, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish and Urdu - with more
languages to be added in the near future. Just in case you didn't think of it, contact a nearby university or college's foreign language department. They may offer to write letters and translate letters into English. A nominal fee is usually charged. Schwabe - Oliver Weiss, offers his service to translate old German script via email schwabe@aol.com Translations/Translation Services: Russian Transliteration System http://clover.slavic.pitt.edu/~taies/lc.html Translator Web Guide UKRAINIAN-ENGLISH TRANSLITERATION TABLE Slavic Cataloging Manual Transliteration Tables - click on any link below
Web Translation Service for FREE. InterTran™ can translate single words, phrases, sentences and entire web pages between 767 language pairs You don't need a site to get most foreign characters on your computer. First, go to Add/Remove Programs, Then Windows Setup. Next Add Multilanguage support for Cyrillic or Central (Polish etc.) European Languages, or whatever language you want. You may also need to Add the Character Map, if that is not in your program list under Applications/System Tools. It is in Add/Remove Programs, Windows Setup, System Tools. With both of these installed, open the character map and look at the different fonts available, for example, in Windows 98, there are several CE (Central European) fonts, like Ariel CE. There is Cyrillic. When you choose the font, you will see all the strange characters available. Choose one, copy, go back to your document, and paste it in. you can also set up hot keys if you use them repeatedly. You can also change your keyboard, but it is not recommended. For Hebrew, you need Hebrew fonts and the capability from Microsoft. This information obtained from a JewishGen Digest of 12/8/00 submitted by Sally Bruckheimer. You can also download the necessary Internet Hebrew fonts from World AltaVista - (same as Babelfish) can translate passages of text or entire web pages among nine languages, or they can translate your page into their language of choice.
Belarus Meschane - means petty bourgeois Bosnia & Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Slovene, OCS* Languages * indicates extinct languages Bosnian and Herzegovina Language Help Bulgaria Bulgarian Language Help Chinese The Beijing Expert Translation Co., Ltd. is based in Beijing, China, providing high quality translation services in most of the world’s commercially significant languages. In addition to considerable expertise English translations, we offer translation services in the following languages-pairs: French-Chinese, Chinese-French, German-Chinese, Chinese-German, Japanese-Chinese, Chinese-Japanese, Russian-Chinese, Chinese-Russian, Korean-Chinese, and Chinese-Korean. English to Chinese Croatia Croatian Language Help Czech Republic Czech, Slovak, Polish, Polabian*, Kashubian, Upper/Lower Sorbian Languages - * indicates extinct languages Czechoslovakian Language Help http://www.slavophilia.net/language.htm French
French to English and English to French http://www.freetranslation.com/-/desktop-translator/?6FFARYLE91X01HKT
Note: See also my Yiddish page The German language is a very variable one. In German-speaking areas of Switzerland, for example, the local dialect is different enough that high-school students study standard German as a foreign language. Yiddish is also called "Judeo-German". From a posting to soc.genealogy.jewish by Stan Goodman 1/29/2004
Translating Services Just in case you didn't think of it, contact a nearby university or college's foreign language department. They may offer to write letters and translate letters into English. A nominal fee is usually charged. "In the early 19th century in Germany (before there was much of an exodus to the USA from eastern Europe), groups of young Jews from one town would band together, exchange information, and eventually proceed as a group, on foot, for the ports, often settling down together in the same town when they arrived in the USA. These were probably the original Fusegangers." "By 1850 Western and Central Europe had an effective railroad network. It had reached well into Russia by the end of the century. There were up to four different 'classes' and prices; the 4th class with hard wooden benches and no frills was for the working poor. I doubt very much that it would have been commonly cheaper to walk long distances than to ride by train, factoring in the cost of shoe leather and food. Certainly it would have severely limited how much of one's possession one could take into the new world. There was also a good chance that one might get robbed on the roads and lose the money for the trans-Atlantic ticket." "I suspect the term Fussgaenger came into more general meaning among Jews to perhaps mean emigrants in general (possibly limited to those going as a group). In the late 19th century there were passenger ships sailing out of the Baltic and Black Sea ports; it would have made little sense for a Jew to walk from the Pale to Bremen if he could take a train (or, if necessary walk) to Koenigsberg or Danzig and get on a ship there." "We should always remember that both hardships and pleasures tend to grow in intensity as their history is remembered over the years and handed down through the generations." From a posting on JewishGen by Michael Bernet mBernet@aol.com on November 20, 2002 Umlaut - "It's always acceptable in German to write the umlauted letters as plain letters followed by an e. Back in the hardware-only (typewriter) days, a good many documents were written like that in German, even in Germany. And ignoring the umlaut is *not* a good idea. Can lead to some dreadful embarrassments, too. Finally, have you tried using alt-nnn typing to enter special characters? Try this when you're entering data: --turn on the caps-lock key --hold down the ALT key --on the numeric keypad on the right-hand side of your keyboard, type 129. If that gets you a u-umlaut, congratulations, and my apologies to the software manufacturer. 132 is a-umlaut, and 148 is o-umlaut. The sharp S (or ess-zett) is 225." From a posting on JewishGen by Roger Lustig on 1/27/04 English to German and German to English Hoch Deutsche or High German Greek Language Help to learn Greek at Hebrew Language
The ability to read Hebrew - even just to decipher the letters - is a great asset to anyone engaged in Jewish genealogy. The National Jewish Outreach Program teaches Hebrew reading in four or five sessions. Shorashon© is a lexicon containing nearly 4000 Hebraic roots and has an innovating method of classification. The lexicon is accompanied by instructions, which also act as gloss of morphology of the Hebraic language according to a particularly original approach. Shorashon© can be freely downloaded (Acrobat®Reader or Palm OS format). Shorashon©'s instructions and translation of Hebraic roots are available in French only. Dealing with Hebrew Characters - Frequently Asked Questions
Department of Hebrew and Semitic Languages - The Faculty of Jewish Studies, Bar Ilan University, 52900 Ramat-Gan, Israel E-mail Attn: Zvi Betzer betzez@ashur.cc.biu.ac.il Phone +972.3.531.7334 Fax: +872.3.535.1233 Dictionary - Review of the Oxford English Hebrew Dictionary Guide to 19th Century Russian and Yiddish/Hebrew Cursive Records - some pages may take a long time to load but very interesting "Hebrew and Aramaic Words in the Yiddish Language - their Phonetic Spelling and Translation into English and Russian" - authored by Dr. Moisey Wolf. The dictionary is available for $12 from the Jewish Federation of Portland, Oregon (503) 245 6219 "Hebrew Inscriptions and their Translations" - published by The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Index of Jewish Art. It contains a list of frequently used inscriptions with their English translation as well as help in deciphering abbreviations and initials and the listing of literary sources.. Their address is Hebrew Translator - translator and interpreter. Mrs. Circolone provides fast and accurate bilateral translations (English-Hebrew), for the private and public sectors. Michal has a working knowledge of French and a university degree (BA) in Psychology and Communications. She is an Israeli citizen based in the United States (Phoenix, AZ). Hebrew is her native language. There is also a wonderful commercial site that offers CDs and a learning Hebrew information at http://www.hebrewresources.com/discus/messages/10/200.html "Learn Hebrew Today" - authored by Paul Michael Yedwab with Howard I. Bogot and published in New York by UAHC Press in 1992 - 61 pages ISBN 0-8074-0483-7 Hebrew Language Learning Resource - this web site has both written and audio pronunciation guides, alphabet charts including cursive, boldface and Rashi script, as well as links to other topics relating to the Hebrew language Additional information concerning Rashi
Hebrew Language Training System for Adults (PC) A commercial site http://www.jewishsoftware.com/ My Hebrew Picture Dictionary - an on-line resource to learn Hebrew words. Each word in the dictionary has a photograph of the item along with English/Hebrew translation and transliteration. SIL Hebrew Font System - a free (with some restrictions) Hebrew font package for Windows and Macintosh that displays and prints Biblical Hebrew text. E-mail sil_fonts@sil.org Sahbak.com - If you want to write Hebrew e-mail even from computers that do not support Hebrew, the solution may be Sahbak. Sahbak means (in Hebrew slang) a good friend. Sahbak will do most of the work for you. Sahbak will install Hebrew fonts and add a right to left direction. It will also supply a virtual Hebrew keyboard if you need one and its all free to download. It won't work on MAC computers, however Hungarian On-line Hungarian Dictionary http://dict.sztaki.hu/english-hungarian A Useful English-Hungarian Dictionary
Magyar - Prior to 1910, when the Hungarian language orthography was modernized, the cs consonant combination was eliminated. It was replaced with ch and ts. 'ch' is pronounced like ch in CHeap and 'ts' is pronounced like 'ts' in iTS. Ts is pronounced like the 27th letter of the Ukrainian alphabet. The Ukrainian word 'tsehla' means brick or tile. A tsehl'nik is a brick-maker. Janos is John in Hungarian Italian Italian to English and English to Italian Nonna means grandmother Latin Latin Words - find out what many of the Latin words on Birth and Death Certificates mean by using this site Lithuanian Language The Lithuanian language is the state language of the Republic of Lithuania. It is the oldest of the living Baltic tongues and belongs to the family of Indo-European languages. The language was formed in the 5th century A.D.
Spoken living languages in Lithuania - Karaim, Lithuanian, Romani Baltic http://www.tourslithuania.com/pages/tours_lang.shtml Macedonia Macedonia Language Help - Polish Language Note that to write to the Archives, you can write in English. To a registry office, local official, etc., write in Polish. Writing in the language of the person that you are writing to is always best ... it exhibits respect and courtesy. Make it as easy as possible if you want the quickest response. Six to eight months for a reply, is not uncommon. English to Polish Dictionary "Hebrew and Aramaic Words in the Yiddish Language - Their Phonetic Spelling and Translation into English and Russian" - authored by Dr. Moisey Wolf. The dictionary is available for $12 from the Jewish Federation of Portland, Oregon (503) 245 6219 "In Their Words" - a 400-page book designed to help specifically with Polish documents. Here's the direct link to info on that book: The Polish language does have a "Y" in its alphabet. It is in the Russian language that a "I" or "J" becomes a "Y". Example: the Polish Marja or Maria becomes Marya in Russian The Polish letter "C" is pronounced "ts" like the Hebrew tzadi. In the Polish language records, it often replaces the German "Z" or "tz". The problem of the Polish "C" is an important piece of general knowledge for those researching ancestors with Polish names. It seems to have been "lost" even by gentile Polish-Americans, who routinely pronounce names ending in "icki" as though they rhymed with "sticky" - when in fact they should be pronounced "Itsky". 'rz' combination in Polish is identical to 'zh' "W" in Polish is pronounced as the sound "V" (the Polish alphabet has no letter "V"). "Polish, as the other Slavic and Baltic languages, use declensions. Seven forms of Polish declensions are responsible for the changes that occur at the word ends. For example, in translation from English "Town Bobrka" to Polish "Miasto Bobrka", the Nominative declension is used and no change in word "Bobrka" occurs. But when translating from English "Born in Bobrka" to Polish: "Urodzony w Bobrce", the Genitive declension changes "Bobrka" to "Bobrce". Similar changes occur in other town names declensions forms such as shown in the examples below. Note the differences in the words ends: Lwów - Lwowie Poznan - Poznaniu Since ShtetlSeeker database, or any other geographical references are using Nominative declension form, the changes in the towns names suffices will not occur. Those changes, on the other hand, will be noticeable in Polish or Russian documents that describing places where birth or marriage events took place. This information was posted by Alexander Sharon a.sharon@shaw.ca , on the Gesher Galicia SIG Forum. Polish Language Translator http://www.slavophilia.net/language.htm Polish to Ukrainian; English; Swedish; Norwegian; Italian;
http://www.personal.ceu.hu/students/97/Roman_ Russian Polish English Alphabet
Polish Words
* w. obecnos'cis'wiadko'w starozakon nego Israela Segal, handlarza zboz (symbol over the z]a, = ... in the presence of the witnesses, Jew Israel Segal, the grain merchant ..." Russian CYRILLIC The Rusyn language is classified as an Indo-European, East Slavic Language. More information can be found at Learning the Russian alphabet and how to read Russian for content http://it.stlawu.edu/~rkreuzer/russ101.htm Roman Tunkel at tunkelr@juno.com offers his own inventive system using an English keyboard and some imagination. He suggests using the Arial font. Dictionary of Russian - Russian Dictionary for Addict Spell Check made freely available to all users of Addictive Software's Addict Spell Check and Thesaurus - version 3 and higher Elementary Russian - Russify your computer, put sound on your computer and find more Russian links Russian Language Translation Help - Teach your computer to read Russian. It would be of great help if you are able to read and write a bit of the Russian/Cyrillic words, but how do you find an easy way to learn the language? Note that the Russian language has no "H" in their alphabet. They normally replace an "H" with a "G". Example: The name Hirsch in Russian is spelled Girsch. Sometimes 'H' is replaced with the letter and sound 'X' which in Russian is an equivalent to the sound 'Kh', like in Khrushchev. And in the case of Haim, is known as Xaim (Chaim, Khaim) and Hanna as Xana (Chana or Khana), and Helsinki is known as Khelsinki. Sometimes Russians drop letter 'H' altogether (as in Hebrew 'hey'), and in Hindustan it is known as 'Industan', and Spain (Hispania) is known as 'Ispania'. In the Cyrillic (Russian) alphabet, 'N' looks like the English 'H' i.e. 'Huchim' could be 'Nuchim' which is a variant of the biblical male name 'Nachum'. "I" or "Y" was spelled in Latin letters - "IJ". The Cyrillic reminds of "Y" but of course it isn't, and the pronunciation is slightly different. Based on the system of the American Congress Library, the vowel "I" (they spell "I/l") which usually sounds like in English 'six' for the consonant "J" the same letter is used, but with the diacritical mark above it, like small "v". It sounds like the Hebrew "yod", like the first sound in "yes". The Russian vowel, which cannot be explained because it is not used in the English language, looks like "bl". Transliterating this letter, use "y". Further information on the Russian language may be obtained from Dr. Josef Ash j_ash@netvision.net.il Letters in the Cyrillic alphabet used for Russian look very much like the letters in the Greek alphabet, but do not have the same pronunciations. For example, what looks like an English "B" in Cyrillic is a "V". What looks to us like a "P" is an "R". "S" in Russian looks like a "C". Like Yiddish and Hebrew, Russian Cyrillic also has single letters for "sh", "ch" (one each for sibilant (i.e. cherry) and guttural (i.e. chutzpa). Also letters for "tz", "shch", "zh", etc. Many words in Russian, Polish, German and Yiddish are similar yet written in 3 different alphabets.
"Following the Paper Trail: A Multilingual Translation Guide" - authored by Jonathan Shea and William Hoffman. Published in New Milford, CT: Language and Lineage Press in 1991. 256 pages. This is a guide to documents in 13 languages including Polish, Russian, Czech, Romania, Hungarian and Lithuanian. Available from Avotaynu Guide to 19th Century Russian and Yiddish/Hebrew Cursive Records - some pages may take a long time to load but very interesting "Russian-Language Documents from Russian Poland: A Translation Manual for Genealogists" - authored by Jonathan Shea. Published in Orem, Utah by Genealogy Unlimited in 1989 ISBN 0-921811-05-6. It is out-of-print, and has been replaced with the information you will find at:
Russian adjectives have a variety of suffixes that change with the linguistic gender of the noun. Masculine adjectives usually end in a "ee" sound. The Cyrillic letter looks like an English "U". Feminine adjectives end in "aya". Example: In Russian black as an adjective is (transliterated) chornee in the masculine and chornaya in the feminine. Library of Congress' Slavic Languages Transliteration Table - The United States Library of Congress developed a standard set of rules to transliterate Cyrillic letters used by various languages that use Cyrillic letters such as Russian, Ukrainian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Macedonia, etc. A basic resource where you will a nicely laid out 'Table of Slavic Cyrillic Transliterations' Here is a page on Cyrillic handwriting - http://www.colby.edu/library/collections/technical_
Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/2286/ -ko - suffix indicates a connection with a person or object: often a small or little version; -ko is masculine and -ka is feminine. Kyiv
Telephone Directory - to use the on-line version, you need a
Ukrainian alphabet keyboard driver and Ukrainian fonts, KOI standard. Russian Translating Russian/English Transliteration Table http://www.history.uiuc.edu/steinb/translit/translit.htm Russian Language Information: SKY - a Russian Toponymic Possessive Suffix = as in TurovSKY i.e. of Turov. In non-Slavic languages Swedish also has one akin to it: SvenSKA - i.e. Swedish. In both cases, it is an Indo-European element common in many Euro languages. Also German - ISCH, Italian - ESCO, etc. Russian Polish English Alphabet Translation Sites http://www.vmhenterprises.com/englishpage.html Translations into Russian or Ukrainian and vice versa is available by contacting Serhiy & Yaroslav in Kiev at sp@alfacom.net Both of these Ukrainians are fluent in Ukrainian and Russian and appear to be quite good in English. They will quote you a price before initiating any translation job. Payment can be made by check through their US or Canadian contact. Ukrainian - English Dictionary On-Line - Ukrainian is an Eastern European language belonging to the Slavic group of Indo European language family and is closely related to Polish, Russian, Belorussian, Czech and Slovak. Ukrainian is spoken in Western Ukraine and in rural areas of Easter Ukraine. Ukrainian Language Translator www.travlang.com/languages/ukrainian/uke.pronounce.html Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada Table transliterates from Ukrainian to English http://rada.kiev.ua/translit.htm Verkhovna Rada Translations
Tutor of Russian & Ukrainian - Mr. Oksana offers his service as a tutor of Russian language for foreigners at $5.00 an hour; can also arrange to send an invitation necessary to obtain a visa to visit Russia; and offers to rent a comfortable room in his flat plus 3 meals for only $15 US per day. oksana@trav.kiev.ua or mail address: Mr. Oksana, Box 215, Kiev 25, Ukraine Slovak Republic Slovak Language Help
Slovenia Slovenia Language Help - Solitreo A form of Hebrew used in Istanbul, Turkey and possibly elsewhere. Spanish Busqueda de pasajeros - means "Passenger Search Tombstone Translation See also my Israel Hebrew page Sh'mariya (shin mem resh yud hay) Sh'mariya were the names of two distinct people at the time of Ezra the scribe. The iya suffix, is used to incorporate the name of G-d into a persons name, and was used by many Biblical characters. Sometimes a quote mark ' is put between the yud and hey so as not to spell out the holy name. The three letter verb root Shin Mem Resh means guard, and so the name means "G-d will guard". There is also the noun Shamir, which is either: a) a thorny plant or b" a hard stone, similar to a diamond or c) a name of a city in the Judean mountains. Ayzik is usually written Isaac in English and is an equivalent to the Hebrew name Yitzchak. Yitzchak Avinu (our forefather) was the son of Avraham Avinu (Abraham our forefather) and the second of the forefathers of the Jewish people. (Submitted to JewishGen Digest by David Ziants) Turkish The letter "C" in Turkish sounds like "J" in English Check out this list of surnames from The Istanbul Jewish Genealogy Project Turkish word meanings
"Ladino-English / English-Ladino Concise Encyclopedic Dictionary (Judeo-Spanish)" - authored by Dr. Elli Kohen and Dahlia Kohen-Gordon and published in 2000 by Hippocrene Books in New York Turkish - Ukrainian - English Ukraine Ukrainian Language Help - UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE RESOURCES including Ukrainian - English online wordlist basic Ukrainian grammar and other Ukrainian online dictionaries Ukrainian Translations offering by Ukraine. COM Yiddish Language Please see my Yiddish page
for my Although Yiddish is a German based language, written in Hebrew characters, many Hebrew phrases are used as part of the language. Much depended on the region or community on how much Hebrew was part of Yiddish. By the late 19th century, the spoken Yiddish had adopted differences in pronunciation as well as local expressions. The language was basically the same. You can compare it to the difference between the British English and the Texan English. The written language was the same - German and Polish printers sold their Yiddish books all over Europe. "Yiddish is also called "Judeo-German" -- which puts it in a class with Judeo-Spanish, Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-Parsi, and many other Jewish variants on local languages. The Spanish Language Academy, for example, regards Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) as Spanish, even though it has an admixture of Hebrew,; a similar judgment is justified also with respect to Judeo-German. There isn't any real reason, other than a nostalgic devotion to "juicy Yiddish", to the contrary." Yiddish was the language - the mameloshin, the mother tongue -- the language of the Diaspora, birthed from the ground of the European killing fields, beginning with the pogroms of the First Crusades that began in 1069 C. E. By 1939, it was made up of pieces of over 25 languages and by 1939, it was the first or only language of 75% of the world's 13 million Jews. Professor G. L. Esterson commented on the differences between the various Yiddish dialects used in nineteenth-century Europe. "The problems include pronunciation variations of a single name due to dialect variations within defined governmental jurisdictions in nineteenth-century Europe, as well as varying preferences between different given names from country to country regardless of the Yiddish dialects that may have varied within one country." "The four main Yiddish dialects (Western, Litvish, Polish/Galician and Ukrainian) cut across several of the European countries -- that is, culturally, the two split-regions were different. For such countries, one part might speak one dialect, while the other spoke another dialect. For example, for the western Ukraine of today, persons who lived west of a certain line might speak Galician Yiddish, while the others who lived east of that line might speak Ukrainian Yiddish. This resulted in different pronunciations of Yiddish words in general and of Yiddish given names in particular, as well as the choice of different patterns of name-making. This led to different preferential sets of given names of a certain name family. This means that some of the given names "commonly" attributed to one of these countries might be correct only in part of that country, or only partially in the other part (due to migration, marriages, etc.)" "The implication of Jewish researchers in Europe is that if his search is in a special part of his country of research where the Yiddish dialect was different from the country's main dialect, he must be prepared to use also the Given Names Data Base of the appropriate adjacent country having the same Yiddish dialect as his special region within his country. Otherwise he will miss alternative names which might be of interest to him." "A somewhat different problem existed in western Europe. There, the so-called Western Yiddish dialect was really not uniform in Western and Central Europe where it existed, but rather varied from country to country and sometimes within large countries as well. This led of course, to the same types of problems as in Eastern Europe, but with different results." "Another related problem existed at the boundaries of countries where a Yiddish dialect boundary also existed - there was a narrow boundary strip where both dialects were used in various proportions." The approximate boundaries between these dialect regions in Europe have been ascertained. While it is true that on either side of these lines, there was a mixture of the two dialects, this boundary region was relatively narrow, being of the order of 50 km thick, so a researcher would be able to compensate for this if he wished." "This
subject is discussed in more detail, country by country, on the Given
Names Data Bases web site at Yiddish
Dialects http://www.the-yiddish-world-of-michael-wex.com/born-to-kvetch-ch-3.html
Yiddish is thriving at the Yiddish Institute at Vilnius University. The Institute offers a month long course in the Yiddish language, literature and culture Phone: (268 7187) "College Yiddish and Modern English-Yiddish Yiddish-English Dictionary" both published by YIVO and Schocken Books and the YIVO website at: Guide to 19th Century Russian and Yiddish/Hebrew Cursive Records - some pages may take a long time to load but very interesting On-line Yiddish-English Dictionary Translation from Yiddish to English - Dr. Sheldon Clare clare15905@aol.com offers to translate from Yiddish to English for anyone as stated in a posting to JewishGen on 11-03-2002 Yiddish to English - Mindle Crystel Gross offers her translation services Yugoslavia Yugoslavian Language Help -
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