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A Yenta is not a Matchmaker? Oh, well. I do learn something every day.
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Charles V, King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, is reported to have said, "I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men and German to my horse." One wonders how he would have completed, "and Yiddish to..." To his mother of course! Who else?  Janet
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Quote:
A Yenta is not a Matchmaker? Oh, well. I do learn something every day.
A matchmaker is a shadchen.
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This word may indeed have come into currency in the United States from the Jiddisch, but it seems to be a descendent of Old Norse «genta» («joke», «prank») and has active descendents in the Nordic languages (Swedish dialects «jenta», Norwegian (bokmål) «jente»), i e, a young girl. Presumably Jiddisch picked the word up from these languages....
老朽
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dutch laguage has absorbed lots of Yiddish words. Earlier this year there was a poll in Amsterdam for the most populair Amsterdam word.
The winning word was : Achenebbish (though I don't know exactly how to write it), is a very common dutch word.Also outside of Amsterdam. Strange choice as it means: poorly, shabby. Pronounced with the sharp G.: aGennebbees.Most people never know where words come from. Yenta, I never heard of before.
I'm a yenta, no doubt.
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As any literate Jew knows, Yenta was the name of the matchmaker in Sholom Aleichem's stories, several of which were collected into what became the musical Fiddler on the Roof. Sholom Aleichem, taken from the common greeting that essentially means hello, was the pen name of Solomon Rabinovitz. Because Yenta was such a busybody, her name became synonymous with that characteristic. Perhaps because that characteristic is an advantage to a sachem (matchmaker), I often run across people who believe that Yenta means matchmaker.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Thanks for that explanation Dresdner.
I, like Komowkwa, also thought that yenta meant matchmaker. I seem to recall Barbra Streisand calling herself a yenta in the movie Hello Dolly, in which she was a matchmaker.
I'm strickly going on memory here, so, memory being what it is, I could be wrong.
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Here's some examples of what a Yenta sounds like: www.yentatones.comEnjoy.
When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. ~H.G. Wells
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Quote:
As any literate Jew knows, Yenta was the name of the matchmaker in Sholom Aleichem's stories, several of which were collected into what became the musical Fiddler on the Roof. Sholom Aleichem, taken from the common greeting that essentially means hello, was the pen name of Solomon Rabinovitz. Because Yenta was such a busybody, her name became synonymous with that characteristic. Perhaps because that characteristic is an advantage to a sachem (matchmaker), I often run across people who believe that Yenta means matchmaker.
An example of that:
"Have I Got a Boy For You"
Last edited by bikingbill; 07/17/06 04:12 PM.
When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. ~H.G. Wells
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Some years a service was offered (briefly, I think) in NYC called RentaYenta. For a fee a woman (presumeably) would harangue/harass a person of your choosing. Wonder if it's still around . . . ?
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