# Spanish with Yiddish script: אלגא גרועסא קע נא אקאבא באכאנדא



## Bekiddo

Hi,

Could somebody help me to translate the sentence in the image attached? It hasn't a good quality, but any effort would be enough, even if you just manage to translate just a word or to transcribe the image to Hebrew typing font.

Thank you!!


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## RaLo18

This sentence is in Yiddish, not Hebrew. I don't know Yiddish, but I can transcribe it:
אלגאָ גרועסאָ קענאָ אַקאַבא באַכאַנדאָ כאָמאָ דענסידאַד נאָ סע סי עס טראַבאַכאַבל


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## amikama

It looks to me like Ladino written in Yiddish script... very strange 

אלגאָ גרועסאָ קע נאָ אַקאַבא באַכאַנדאָ כאָמאָ דענסידאַד נאָ סע סי עס טראַבאַכאַבלע
algo grueso ke no akaba bacando como densidad no se si es trabacable
"something thick that doesn't finish ??? as density, I don't know if it's ???"


As it's not in Hebrew, I'm going to move it to Other Languages forum.


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## Bekiddo

Thank you very much, it makes sense for me... It's Spanish with Yiddish script:

Algo grueso que no acaba bajando como densidad, no sé si es trabajable

Meaning:
Something thick that doesn't go down as density, I don't know if it's workable

Thank you all for your help!


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## amikama

Very interesting. Do you have any idea why the Spanish sentence was written in Yiddish script?  Where did you find this?


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## Bekiddo

Well, it's quite a story... My drama teacher is an Argentinian Jew. He usually takes notes of his thoughts in Spanish but he writes in Yiddish some sentences so we cannot understand his writings. This sentence relates to my way of acting during a class exercise, not very good news, indeed. But curiosity killed the cat...


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## WyomingSue

Yiddish is a language related to German and Hebrew, written with Hebrew script or Latin script (in the U.S., anyhow).
Ladino is a language strongly related to Medieval Spanish, written with Hebrew script or Latin script.  As a second-language Spanish-speaker I can make out Ladino in Latin script.


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## elianecanspeak

Could this just be a personal shorthand?

Contemporary Argentinian Spanish written in Hebrew characters or influenced by how Hebrew characters are used in Yiddish?  

I raise this question because the great majority of Argentinian Jews are from an Ashkenazi (northern European) Yiddish speaking background, and Yiddish is written in a modified system using Hebrew characters, while Ladino is currently written in the same alphabet as Spanish, although it was originally written in Hebrew characters.


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## Cenzontle

Yiddish is a language related to German, but not to Hebrew, except for its use of Hebrew script (and possibly some loanwords).
"Yiddish script" is a misnomer, or at least as strange as it would be to refer to "the English alphabet".
(The alphabet used for English is usually called the Latin alphabet or the Roman alphabet, referring to its origin, not to a modern language that uses it.)


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## elianecanspeak

The way vowels are represented in Yiddish varies from the way the are represented in Hebrew.

Hebrew can have "points" or "nequdot"_(pl)_ (small vowel markings in proximity to the consonant characters) or be written without them, as is customary in newspaper, books, and everyday writing. The nequdot are used for Hebrew-as-a-second-language readers and to codify meanings and pronunciations.  The system now in use was developed over a thousand years ago in Tiberius and Jerusalem by the Masoretes, a group of scribes.

As a European language written in Hebrew characters, Yiddish evolved a system where certain of the alphabetical characters were adopted to actually act as vowels -- (there are four letters in Hebrew that can sometimes take on the role of vowels). So a syllable or one syllable word in Yiddish will require one of these adopted "vowel" letters.

In Hebrew a syllable does not require one of these letters that acts as a vowel in Yiddish, although these letters would be used in their Hebrew function as consonants or vowel indicators if they were part of the Hebrew word.

Hebrew words, especially of a religious or ritual nature, are written as they would be in Hebrew, without the insertion of the Yiddish "vowel" letters.

Yiddish, like Hebrew and other Semitic languages, is written from right to left, rather than from left left to right as the modern European languages are.

_(If someone has a more scholarly knowledge about the relationship between Yiddish and Hebrew, please feel free to correct me)_


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## CapnPrep

Cenzontle said:


> "Yiddish script" is a misnomer, or at least as strange as it would be to refer to "the English alphabet".
> (The alphabet used for English is usually called the Latin alphabet or the Roman alphabet, referring to its origin, not to a modern language that uses it.)


I wouldn't say these are misnomers and I don't find them strange; actually the strangest one in your list is "Roman alphabet", but some people may use that term and I would understand it.

The Yiddish script/alphabet is a specific form of the Hebrew script/alphabet. At a glance I would say that the OP's text is written in Yiddish script (because of all the אַ and אָ, with no other niqqud). This gives more information than saying "Hebrew script", for example about the use/distribution of vowel letters, as elianecanspeak explained. Saying "Yiddish script" also conveys that the language of the text is probably not Hebrew (whereas "Hebrew script" does not exclude the possibility of a Yiddish language text).

The English alphabet is a particularly boring version of the Latin alphabet, but if you see a text that contains lots of ß and ö and ü, or lots of ů and ř and ý, or lots of ę and ż and ń and ł, you can say it's written in "Latin alphabet/script", but you could also choose to be more informative.


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## fdb

Ladino (Judaeo-Spanish) is traditionally written and printed with the Rashi script. Yiddish is written with Ashkenazic cursive script (like the script in this sample), but printed with Hebrew square script.


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