Gardening Sale!
 
 

Special Offers see all

Enter to WIN!

Weekly drawing for $100 credit. Subscribe to our Specials newsletter for a chance to win.
Privacy Policy

More at Powell's

Recently Viewed clear list

Interviews | May 16, 2013

Jill Owens: IMG Claire Messud: The Powells.com Interview

0 comments By Jill Owens

Claire MessudClaire Messud's new novel, The Woman Upstairs, is fiercely intelligent and urgently intimate, written with precision, humor, and an incredible... Continue »
  1. $18.17 Sale Hardcover add to wish list

    The Woman Upstairs

    Claire Messud 9780307596901
spacer
Ships free on qualified orders.
$6.95
Used Trade Paper
Ships in 1 to 3 days
Add to Wishlist
Qty Store Section
1 Burnside Large Print- Large Print

More copies of this ISBN

Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods (Large Print)

by

Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods (Large Print) Cover

 

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

A delightful excursion through the Yiddish language, the culture it defines and serves, and the fine art of complaint

Throughout history, Jews around the world have had plenty of reasons to lament. And for a thousand years, they've had the perfect language for it. Rich in color, expressiveness, and complexity, Yiddish has proven incredibly useful and durable. Its wonderful phrases and idioms impeccably reflect the mind-set that has enabled the Jews of Europe to survive a millennium of unrelenting persecution . . . and enables them to kvetch about it!

Michael Wex—professor, scholar, translator, novelist, and performer—takes a serious yet unceasingly fun and funny look at this remarkable kvetch-full tongue that has both shaped and has been shaped by those who speak it. Featuring chapters on curse words, food, sex, and even death, he allows his lively wit and scholarship to roam freely from Sholem Aleichem to Chaucer to Elvis.

Perhaps only a khokhem be-layle (a fool, literally a "sage at night," when there's no one around to see) would care to pass up this endearing and enriching treasure trove of linguistics, sociology, history, and folklore—an intriguing appreciation of a unique and enduring language and an equally fascinating culture.

back to top

About the Author

Michael Wex is a novelist, a professor, a translator, a lecturer, and a performer of stand-up and one-person shows. Wex has been hailed as "a Yiddish national treasure" and is one of the leading lights in the current revival of Yiddish, speaking widely on Yiddish and Jewish culture. He lives in Toronto.
back to top
back to top

Product Details

ISBN:
9780061340840
Author:
Wex, Michael
Publisher:
Harperluxe
Subject:
Linguistics
Subject:
Linguistics - General
Copyright:
2007
Edition Description:
Large Print
Large Print:
Y
Publication Date:
20071131
Binding:
TRADE PAPER
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Pages:
456
Dimensions:
9 x 6 x 1.03636 in 17.12 oz
back to top

Other books you might like

  1. The Large Print Roget's II Thesaurus... Used Hardcover $9.95
  2. A Grief Observed (Large Print) Used Trade Paper $6.95
  3. Angela's Ashes (Large Print)... Used Trade Paper $3.50
  4. Abigail & John: Portrait of a... Used Trade Paper $6.95
  5. Sam Walton, Made in America: My Story Used Hardcover $9.95
  6. The American Future LP: A History... Used Trade Paper $4.50
back to top

Related Subjects

Health and Self-Help » Self-Help » General
History and Social Science » Linguistics » General

Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods (Large Print) Used Trade Paper
0 stars - 0 reviews
$6.95 In Stock
Product details 456 pages Harperluxe - English 9780061340840 Reviews:
spacer
spacer
  • back to top
Follow us on...




Powell's City of Books is an independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, that fills a whole city block with more than a million new, used, and out of print books. Shop those shelves — plus literally millions more books, DVDs, and eBooks — here at Powells.com.