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!
Having the ability to say hello in a number of languages, or to decipher a letter or web site that is in a foreign language is becoming more common. There are now many sites available, but the results can be quite varied. Most returns of a translation will allow you to grasp the general intent of the original text but will not produce a polished translation.
Google now allows you to translate various languages into English. Give it a try. Type in the word or words you want to translate -- select the language to/from and it will provide you with the answer http://www.google.com/uds/samples/language/translate.html
To view a map showing language spread around Europe/Russia at the end of the century http://www.ethnologue.com/country_index.asp Russian was the language of the administration throughout the Empire at the late 19th century.
Learn A Language - this BBC site offers you the opportunity to learn many European languages by site and by sound and it is free! Here are the languages available, just click on the one of interest.
"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 www.langline.com or you can order from my link to Amazon.com by clicking here > Jewish Genealogy
"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 http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/
Translator Live - now you type in a sentence or words and translate it to many different languages for FREE! Give it a try - you will love it! http://translator.live.com/Default.aspx
"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 ISBN 0-9613512-1-7.
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
Umlauts - as a general rule, there is ambiguity in the transliteration of umlauts (the vowels a, o, u 'with two dots on top'. In central Europe, these are usually transliterated as ae, oe, ue. There is some logic in this because the umlaut characters originally were ligatures of these letters, like in the French word oeuvre. In North America, the preferred transliteration is a, o, u -- just omit the dots. Another character with ambiguous transcription is the "esszet" character which looks like a Greek beta. It is often replaced by a double s, sometimes 'sz' (the original ligature, now obsolete) and maybe others. Some Scandinavian characters pose similar transcription challenges. From a posting by Juergen Stockburger.
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. http://snipurl.com/gender_genie
Afgan Language - there is no specific language. The country has two major languages -- Pashto and the local Persian dialect known as Dari.
Baltic & Slavic Languages - translating assistance from/to English from: West Slavic; Czech; Slovak; Polish; Polabian; Kashubian; Upper/Lower Sorbian. South Slavic including Bosnian; Serbian; Croatian; Bulgarian; Macedonian; Slovene. East Slavic including: Russian; Belorussian; Ukrainian. Baltic including: Lithuanian; Latvian; Old Prussian http://www.slavophilia.net/language.htm
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 http://www.addictivesoftware.com
DOROT Genealogy Center - located at Beth Hatefutsoth in Tel Aviv e-mail
Ladino Language - also known as Judeo-Spanish, dates back to the Spanish Expulsion of 1492, when it became a specifically Jewish language. Several dialects are still spoken in the Balkans. Ladino is a mixture of many languages and is coined from the Spanish word ladinar, which means to translate the Torah from Hebrew into Spanish. http://home.earthlink.net/~benven/ladino.html
Ladino was a language of the Diaspora, much like Yiddish, when the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492. Spain is known in Ladino as Sefarad and is derived from medieval Castilian Spanish.
Not only Salonikan Jews spoke Ladino, but also Turkish Jews, Bulgarian Jews as well as Serbian/Bosnian and Croatian Jews. It is true that Ladino is not spoken much inside Sephardic families as it was once, but Ladino is taught in many academic institutions over the world. For some Internet discussion lists Ladino is the only language used to communicate.
In Spanish, the word for shirt is camisa. In Ladino it is camiza. Tarde means afternoon in Spanish and in Ladino it is tadre
Parnas = President of a Spanish and/or Portuguese Synagogue
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 http://babel.uoregon.edu/YLC/guides.html
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. http://www.123world.com/languages/index.html
Letter Writing to Archives - "Felicia Zieff requested the help composing a short letter in Polish (to go to the Lublin Archives).
What I recommended (as an alternative) was that she check the website of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS)'s Family History Library, There she would find a link to its "Letter-Writing Guide," which provides excellent advice re writing to Poland for genealogical records - and what to expect in return. The guide also includes sample (boilerplate inquiry) sentences in English then translated into Polish and a sample "step-by-step" letter of inquiry suitable for submitting to the state archives." From a posting by Naidia Woolf
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 www.sisuent.com
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.
A hundred or more years ago, many names were spelled variously at various times and in various places, even without the 'unusual' foreign letters. If you enter the information as you find it, you will end up with many difficulties finding people (do I search for Smith, Smyth, Smythe...etc.?) So you need your own conventions!" From a posting on JewishGen by Sally Bruckheimer on 1/27/04
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 http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/ 0,fid,16322,tk,hsx,00.asp
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 http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com/cgi
http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr 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 http://downloads-zdnet.com.com/3000-2279-10112948.html
Click2Translate - a fee-based site that will translate an entire page for a reasonable fee.
With 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
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.
German < > English Dictionary - Translation From English to German or vice versa http://dict.tu-chemnitz.de/
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 http://www.google.com/language_tools
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 http://www.apgen.org/localchapters/nationalcapital/index.html
Ling98 - a commercial service located in Montreal, Canada with partners all over the world http://www.ling98.com/wwa.html
Lingo - multilingual solutions - at this site you can upload your document and get an instant price quote on a professional human translation. http://worldlingo.com/
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 http://www.memoware.com
Mendez iTranslator™ a commercial translating service. The site offers FREE on-line language translations and also offers a human translator service. http://itranslatoronline.com/
Multi-Lingual Dictionaries along with Translations between European languages and much more can be found at http://www.yourdictionary.com/
Poltran - English to Polish and Polish to English free translation site http://www.poltran.com
Quick Fix - essential holiday phrases for the following languages: Albanian, Basque, Belarusian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, Flemish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Luxemborgish, Macedonian, Maltese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian. Basic words in each language you select and it includes speaking the words plus the meaning in English. http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/other/quickfix/
Russian Language - learn Russian words and meanings, Russian Dictionary, Russian Translations www.helpmelearnrussian.com
Rustran.com - you can enter a word or a sentence in Russian or in English and receive a translation in either language http://rustran.com/socrat.php4
Translating Services - Genealogy.net offers to do translations for free at http://www.genealogienetz.de/gene/misc/translation.html You need to send your requests, via email, to trans@genealogienetz.de The first line should read #SRC>DEST where SRC is the source language and DEST is the destination language (i.e. German to English). Supported languages include CZEch, ENGlish, DUTch, FREnch, GERman, POLish Read the instruction page thoroughly first. Requests can take up to two or three weeks, depending on the language involved.
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.
A possible source for having a document translated is your local college or university - perhaps a professor or a student would be willing to do a translation. A Language School may also be of assistance.
Web Translation Service for FREE. InterTran™ can translate single words, phrases, sentences and entire web pages between 767 language pairs http://www.tranexp.com.2000/InterTran? You must add the ? after the web address appears in the URL box.
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.
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. http://world.altavista.com/
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:
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
Word
English Meaning
Arbeiter
Laborer
Beamter
(female: Beamtin, plural: Beamte) means civil servant. But this English translation may be ambiguous, as German law puts public employees into two classes, namely ordinary employees (Angestellte) and Beamter, with the latter having more official duties and enjoying significant privileges. Privatbeamter could range from private secretary of an influential man to a functionary responsible for internal affairs of an organization. The term is no longer used very much because Beamter has become too much associated with government and civil service.
die Vorstadt
Suburb
Forstatt
Suburb
Fussganger
'Pedestrian' (lit. 'walkers on foot')
Gastwirt (Gastwirth)
Innkeeper
Geburts-Schein
(Geburtsurkunde)
Birth Certificate
Gemeinde
Community. Synagoguegemeinde is the Jewish community. Under German law, from way back when to this day, there are recognized Jewish institutions responsible for the affairs of the entire Jewish community in a town or geographic district, with a budget provided in large part by the central government and a certain measure of government control. This local Jewish community is known as the Israelitsche Kultusgemeinde. Synagoguegemeinde (sic) is the community of a specific synagogue. Can also mean a township or municipality. Also, correct spellings for certain words in the definition are Synagoguegemeinde (no 'u') and Israelitische (add an 'i'). Some corrections were made by Roger Lusting.
Haver
Used by German Orthodox Jews to refer to a layman who was learned in Jewish matters and usually also a pious individual, but not a rabbi
Klafter (Klapter)
Fathom, or with reference to wood a "cord"
Kuh
Cow
Leiche (Leische)
German for corpse. If you ever come across this word on a record (e.g. a ship's manifest) make sure it doesn't refer to someone who was being transported elsewhere for burial or died on board ship.
Neudorf
New Village
Raus (Heraus)
get out!, scat, scram, outside, expelled
Ritz
Crack, chink, scratch or fissure
Ritzkopf
hole-in-the-head. The term is colloquial and not very common. "Knucklehead" might be a more evocative translation according to Roger Lustig.
Saetzer (Setzer)
A profession. It is the person who works in a printing firm and puts together the separate lead letters in a mould and from the mould, the printing of books or other printed items In English this person would be known as a type setter
Schadenfreude
"It takes 7 English words to define it: "malicious satisfaction in the misfortunes of others".
Schiffskarte (Schifscarte) - (ship card)
It is in columnar form with a number on the top right corner. At the heading appears the name of the shipping company; port; name of vessel; and emigration date. In respective columns appear (in translation from German) Surname, Personal Name, Age, Marital Status, Former Residence, Town or Province, Occupation. Below seems to be a declaration of the amount of American dollars carried by the passenger. Also, the day and date of arrival appear written in English and Yiddish . On the back is what appears to be regulations (numbered 1-15) concluding with Bremen and a date stamped on it. Posted on JewishGen on 7-16-03 by Avrohom Krauss (with some modification by the webmaster).
Roger Lustig noted the following: "What is described in the definition is called a manifest in English, by the way -- and the standard German term for that is "Manifest." "Schiffskarte" generally refers to a chart, i.e., a map.
Schoffjockel
A handyman or laborer. Jockel appears to mean Jack, guy, fella. The Schoffe part means a lay assessor or magistrate, a shabby, deceitful (probably a Judaeo-German word from the Hebrew 'shafel'); to scoop or draw water. Roger Lustig noted the following: "Schoffjockel -- a *very* obscure term. Its only appearances on Google (apart from your page) are in connection with a 17th-century Frenchman who had that as his nickname. The definition as it stands is confusing, because it includes two unlikely sources for the first part of the word: Schöffe (juror) and schöpfen (to draw water).
Stadt
City with a diminutive ending. The Yiddish Shtetl is a 'diminutive' and the same diminutive exists in German and is spelled Staedtel. Note the altered vowel and the -el suffix. The uninflected form - Stadt - exists in Yiddish too, with the same meaning as in German, though the spelling is different. Roger Lustig trovato@bellatlantic.netmade note as a follow-up: "my prose, taken somewhat out of context. The word as presentedhere does not have a diminutive ending! (That would be Städtel.) Also, others pointed out that I wasn't quite accurate in stating that the German and Yiddish meanings of "Städtel" are the same."
Tedesco
German for Ashkenazi
Umschlagplatz
Trade center or market. However, it is also used to describe the train depots, stations, landings where the local Jewish population were forced to board trains which took them to concentration/deathcamps.
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
"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
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. www.njop.org or call 1 800 44 HEBRE
Sahbak is a freeware that was designed to solve that problem and is very easy to obtain. it can be downloaded and installed from the net, and once installed, it enables your computer to write and read Hebrew when using E-mail (written with Sahbak). The file size is only 131k. http://www.morim.com/tools_us_multi.htm
"<< The double-vav followed by an ayin suggests Hebrew rather than Yiddish. >>
==That was an unfortunate slip of my typing finger. A double vav is very rare in Hebrew. In Yiddish it represents a W and is very common. In Yiddish the `ayin represents an E and is very common. The combination of the two almost certainly points to Yiddish. From a posting by Michael Bernet
"In 1968 The Hebrew Language Academy posted rules for adding Vavs and Yods when writing without vowel signs. Less-than-strict adherence to these rules has produced several areas of confusion over the years:
1) Most Israelis indiscriminately add an extra Yod wherever an "ee" sound is present. 2) Most Israelis add Vavs for "o" sounds, even when it is a small, or short, vowel which, vowel signs present, would carry a Kametz Katan rather than a Cholam.
Usually, double vavs are used in the following cases: 1) Foreign - especially English - words or names, where double-Vav is used to transliterate the "w". 2) A consonantal Vav as in the word Dalet-Vav-Resh (which means postman), or the word Shin-Vav-Heh (which means equal or worth). In such words the Vav will usually be doubled by the writer when not using vowel marks.
There are also words where a consonantal Vav carries an "o" vowel, where there are, therefore, two Vavs - one which is the consonant, and the second connoting the long vowel - for example, the word Shin-Vav-Vav-Tav, which is the feminine plural of worth or equal - and in these words the Vav hasn't actually been doubled but, rather, the word really has two Vavs." From a posting by Benzy Shani bzs@actcom.co.il
Agoloh
a wagon or coach driver/owner, carter
Ba'al
a person who knows the Gomorrah very well
Ba'al Gvul
meaning owning a border
BeAvoda Gedola
in great work, or with great work
BeOl Goim
under the burden of Goim
Be'iyun Gadol
under great study
Betulta
'Aramaic for ha-betulah ('the virgin') and in a Ketubbah and other marriage-related documents it refers to the bride. Remarrying widows or divorcees were not designated 'the virgin so and so' but the widow so and so or 'the divorcees so and so.'
'A bride's status had to be specified in the marriage deed, because it governed the amount of 'bride-price' she could command. Virgins got 200 zuz as a matter of law, all others 100; and this is specified formally in the Ketubbah itself. Of course today (except among some orthodox who reference to bride-price in the Ketubbah is more or less a legal formality rather than a matter of substance.' Information supplied by Judith Romney Wegner on 12/16/98 in the JewishGen Digest.
Chevra
It means 'Society" - both in the narrow sense and in the wider sense. In slang, it's also used as "the guys" as in "I'm going out with the Chevra." But in that case, it's accented on the first syllable rather than the second.
Hilchot Gitin
Laws of Divorce
Im Bas/Ben Gilo/Giloh
literally means 'with his/her age mate' but is popular used in wedding invitations to link the names of the groom and bride and means 'with his/her intended'
Rav
Rav means rabbi. Actually, not quite. Many people nowadays misread the abbreviation "R" as Rav when in reality it represents the Yiddish word "Reb" -- which means simply "Mr." and not "Rabbi" at all. The confusion of "Rav" with "Reb" is very common nowadays because so many Jews are unfamiliar with Yiddish and unaware that "R" - "Rev" - "Mr." . An actual rabbi is normally designated with the definite article as HA-Rav (meaning "the Rabbi") From a posting by Judith Romney Wegner
Zahav
Gold (Paz is fine Gold) (Pazit would be Hebrew alternative for a woman named Golda or Zlatte
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
"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 http://www.jewishportland.org/index2.html
"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 P O B 4262, Jerusalem
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 www.jewishsoftware.com
"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 http://hebrew.about.com/education/hebrew/msubalphabet.htm
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. http://www.milon.co.il
Chotev = wood cutter (also Kotzetz and Chotekh meaning chopper/cutter)
Moh'r -usually a prefix for a rabbi
VeBa'ali He'Ahuv - And my beloved husband
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 allfree to download. It won't work on MAC computers, however http://www.sahbak.com
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.
The language of natives of the Isle of Malta is based on Arabic but using Latin alphabet. Most people seem to be trilingual:- Maltese, English and Italian. http://www.omniglot.com/writing/maltese.htm
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.
"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 http://www.jewishportland.org/index2.html
"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
"Polish language definitely have "y", and use to have a 'x' (instead of 'ks' combination) in the old transcripts, even at the beginning of the words.
As to the ending of the Jewish surname with "sky" instead of "ski", this is not limited to the Jewish surnames only, and this is not a practice invented in the States.
This is common for Czech and Slovak surnames, where all equivalent to the 'ski' ending surnames are ending always with the 'sky', and this practice was adopted by the Austrians and Germans. From a posting by Alexander Sharon
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 thePolish "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".
"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 Bo