# Anyone know yiddish?? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 14, 2004, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-know-yiddish/250236 "2004-06-14T03:39:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Miss\_Magic8ball](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Miss\_Magic8ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Magic8ball)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2004, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-know-yiddish/250236/1 "2004-06-14T03:39:20Z")
So I was watching the movie “Gladiator”. MMM… mindless violence, men in short shorts and lotsa blood. Yummy. But I really liked the music. Especially [this](http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/gladiator/nowwearefree.htm) one. And I want to know what the words are. I tried doing the whole yiddish-english translator thing, but these are all in english letters, and the translators only work in the actual hebrew letters. But I knew shalom was yiddish, so… yeah. Anyone willing to help me out? The lyrics are here… Anol shalom Anol sheh lay konnud de ne um {shaddai} Flavum Nom de leesh Ham de nam um das La um de Flavne… We de ze zu bu We de sooo a ru Un va-a pesh a lay Un vi-I bee Un da la pech ni sa (Aaahh) Un di-I lay na day Un ma la pech a nay Mee di nu ku (Fast tempo, 4 times) La la da pa da le na da na Ve va da pa da le na la dumda Anol shalom Anol sheh ley kon-nud de ne um. Flavum. Flavum. M-ai shondol-lee Flavu… {Live on…} Lof flesh lay Nof ne Nom de lis Ham de num um dass La um de Flavne… Flay Shom de nomm Ma-lun des Dwondi. Dwwoondi Alas sharum du koos Shaley koot-tum. I figured if you like, sound it out, and speak it, you would know what it meant… ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2004, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-know-yiddish/250236/2 "2004-06-14T08:02:24Z")
[http://www.filmtracks.com/comments/titles/gladiator/index.cgi?read=579](http://www.filmtracks.com/comments/titles/gladiator/index.cgi?read=579) The consensus of this thread (represented by this post) is that while the lyrics contain words from Hebrew & various Latinate languages, it has no coherent meaning as the singer Lisa Gerrard of Dead Can Dance was kinda making them up as she went along. ---
**Author:** ![Silentgoldfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@Silentgoldfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silentgoldfish)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2004, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-know-yiddish/250236/3 "2004-06-14T08:26:42Z")
Incidentaly, Yiddish and Hebrew are different languages. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2004, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-know-yiddish/250236/4 "2004-06-14T10:28:11Z")
> [@Silentgoldfish](#): > > Incidentaly, Yiddish and Hebrew are different languages. Right. I don’t know how Yiddish speakers would feel about my saying this, but Yiddish is essentially a dialect of German transcribed using Hebrew letters. I speak German a bit and can understand some Yiddish, but not Hebrew because it’s completely different. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2004, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-know-yiddish/250236/5 "2004-06-14T16:20:05Z")
I figure Yiddish is more of a creole than it is a dialect, much like the French spoken in Haiti. Ladino is another example of the phenomenon - it was the language spoken by the Sephardic Jews both before and after their expulsion from Spain in 1492. I was also going to say it was quite a bit of a howler for a film set in the era of the Roman Empire to use Yiddish at all, since the language didn’t make an appearance until a thousand years later. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Magic8ball](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Miss\_Magic8ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Magic8ball)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2004, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-know-yiddish/250236/6 "2004-06-14T16:27:21Z")
Well, don’t I feel like an idiot… Well, I figured that Shalom was hebrew, and I didn’t know that Yiddish and hebrew were 2 different languages. But yeah thanks. I’m kinda dissapointed that there aren’t any you know, Deep meanins to the words. Its a damned good song though.