# Yiddish: געמסרט



## minus273

Hi, people.
I was reading Kafka's _Trial_ in a Yiddish version, where the first sentence goes like:
A ponem az emetser hob Josef K. געמסרט;
"gemsrt"?
Is it a Hebrew word or there's an underspecified vowel here?


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## Maayan

Hi minus273,

I know this sentense in other versions, all meant to ridicule someone for trying to look like or act like someone else. The word געמסרט (or maybe it is געמצרט?) means "makes believe" or something like that...
So, א פונעם אז אעמעצער הוב ג'וזף ק געמסרט can be roughly translated to: (someone)makes beleive like he's Josef K (Kennedy?).


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## CapnPrep

The original German is "Jemand musste Josef K. _verleumdet_ haben". According to this page the Yiddish verb מסרן means "report, denounce", and it looks like it comes from Hebrew מסר "give, transfer, deliver".


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## minus273

Thank you! This dictionary is great, pity that I don't know Russian...
So according to the dic, it's pronounced: _ма'сэрн._
The word I was quoting should be read _gemasert_.
Is this right?


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## Au101

Hmmm...that's interesting, I stress that my knowledge of Russian phonology is almost nil, but ма'сэрн is transliterated as masern. The H is definitely not a t and the ge at the beginning seems to have, um, gone missing .


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## minus273

Yiddish conjugates like German. So masern is the infinitive, and gemasert a form of the past particle.
"Ge-" is lost in English.


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## Au101

Ahhh, that will be it, I'm sorry I don't speak Yiddish and have forgotten most of the small amount of German I had I was merely transliterating for you.


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