# Yiddish: אזוי גאיט עס



## melaniet

I guess 7 years of hebrew school didn't do as much as I would have hoped 
 
A picture is in the attachment
 
Thanks in advance


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## solysombra

melaniet said:


> I guess 7 years of hebrew school didn't do as much as I would have hoped
> 
> A picture is in the attachment
> 
> Thanks in advance


 
I don't know enough english to explain it but it is, literally, "that's the way it goes"... and it is not hebrew, it's Yiddish!!!


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## Nunty

Welcome to the forum, Melaniet!

As solysombra points out, your words are Yiddish, not Hebrew. (Yiddish uses the Hebrew alphabet, with a few changes, but is linguistically derived from an old form of German, I believe.) 

Solysombra's translation is correct; here is the breakdown:
אזוי literally, _thus_, "in this way"
גאיט is  _geht_ in German, the third person singular present tense of "to go".
עס is _es_ in German, "it".


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## Whodunit

Just in case Melanie T. wants to pronounce the phrase:



Nun-Translator said:


> Solysombra's translation is correct; here is the breakdown:
> אזוי literally, _thus_, "in this way" = English: azoy (Spanish 'a')
> גאיט is _geht_ in German, the third person singular present tense of "to go". ) = English: gite (guy + t)
> עס is _es_ in German, "it". = Spanish: es


 
Nun-Translator, do you think that אזוי and German "so" (meaning: so/thus) are akin to each other?


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## übermönch

Wonderful, finally something in Yiddish! Schejn! 


Nun-Translator said:


> Welcome to the forum, Melaniet!
> 
> As solysombra points out, your words are Yiddish, not Hebrew. (Yiddish uses the Hebrew alphabet, with a few changes, but is linguistically derived from an old form of German, I believe.)


A major part of Yiddisch grammar and vocabulary derives from Old/Middle Frankon German, which itself is a dialect of High German. 



> Solysombra's translation is correct; here is the breakdown:
> אזוי literally, _thus_, "in this way"
> גאיט is  _geht_ in German, the third person singular present tense of "to go".
> עס is _es_ in German, "it".


Indeed, *asoj geyt es* is *Well, so it goes.*

From what I know, asoj is usually used when beginning to tell a story, or as so (in such way). I'd say it's both German so and also. You may want to take a look at that jiddish forum to see it in use, though it's in cyrillic to make things more complicated .


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## Nunty

Whodunit said:


> Nun-Translator, do you think that אזוי and German "so" (meaning: so/thus) are akin to each other?



They very well could be, but I think אזוי is also related to the Hebrew אזי (pronounced _azai_), meaning "then" or "so". Yiddish speakers also use it in the same way as German speakers use _so_, to express interest or involvement in what is being said.

I should have pointed out in my earlier post that Yiddish pronunciation is neither German nor Hebrew and also varies greatly from place to place. The spelling sometimes reflects this, such that: גאיט עס might elsewhere be spelled (and pronounced) גטיט'ס.

But all that almost surely comes under the "more than you wanted to know" heading.


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## Nunty

übermönch said:


> Wonderful, finally something in Yiddish! Schejn!
> 
> A major part of Yiddisch grammar and vocabulary derives from Old/Middle Frankon German, which itself is a dialect of High German.
> 
> Indeed, *asoj geyt es* is *Well, so it goes.*
> 
> From what I know, asoj is usually used when beginning to tell a story, or as so (in such way). I'd say it's both German so and also. You may want to take a look at that jiddish forum to see it in use, though it's in cyrillic to make things more complicated .



Here, I would respectfully disagree with your translation. "That's how it goes", I think, more closely catches the fatalistic tone of אזי גאיט עס, whereas "Well, so it goes" has, to my ear, a more philosophic tone of resignation.

In my family (yes, the Forum's very own nun comes from a Yiddish-speaking family), אזוי was indeed used at times to start a story, but was more often used in a tone of exasperated or pained disbelief, as in "_That's_ how you talk to your mother!"


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## solysombra

übermönch said:


> Wonderful, finally something in Yiddish! Schejn!
> 
> A major part of Yiddisch grammar and vocabulary derives from Old/Middle Frankon German, which itself is a dialect of High German.
> 
> Indeed, *asoj geyt es* is *Well, so it goes.*
> 
> From what I know, asoj is usually used when beginning to tell a story, or as so (in such way). I'd say it's both German so and also. You may want to take a look at that jiddish forum to see it in use, though it's in cyrillic to make things more complicated .


 
(My english is very poor) It was so funny! My mother tongue is spanish, I know hebrew and Yddish, and russian is very far from me. But I teached myself the cyrillic alphabet some years ago. It is not so useful, because I read russian but I don´t understand NOTHING (may be a word or two). And today, for the first time in my life, I read Yddish written in cyrillic alphabet. It was amazing! (can you correct my mistakes? Thank you!)


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## maxl

Another detail worthy of being mentioned is that the spelling is rather irregular. Normally the second word, geyt, would be spelled with a giml, two yods and tes, not with giml, pasekh-alef, yod tes. So the spelling is rather phonetic, not morphologic, and reflecting the pronunciation of Polish (and some Hungarian) Jews. Where is the text from?


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## Haskol

I think it's worth expanding on maxl's comment here and clarifying that the correct spelling is* אזוי גייט עס*.


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