Please Translate this Yiddish-Laden Monologue

Factual Questions
1

From the movie A Mighty Wind. Here’s the setup: Lars Olfen is talking to Jonathan Steinbloom about Jonathan’s father. When Lars was a teenager back in 1966, Jonathan’s father gave Lars and his friends good tickets to a sold-out show. Lars’ monologue is laden with Yiddish words. That’s the joke, see. How many people named Lars Olfen are Jewish?

Anyway, here’s Lars’ speech:

“The noches that I’m feeling right now - because your dad was like mishpoche to me - when I heard I got these tickets to the Folksmen, I let out a geshreeyeh… and I’m running around with my friend like a vilde chaya right into the theater, right into the front row! We’ve got the shpielkes because we’re sitting right there. And it’s a mitzvah, what your dad did, and I want to give that back to you. Okeinhorah, I say, and God bless him.”

2

“Noches” (more commonly spelled “nachas”) = Pleasure/pride. The kind of feeling a parent gets when his or her child has accomplished something good.

“Mishpoche” = Family (actually Hebrew, not Yiddish)

“Geshreeyeh” = scream

“Vilde Chaya” = wild beast (Vilde = Yiddish for Wild, Chaya Hebrew for Beast)

“Shpilkes” = Similar to Nachas above, but more of a physical sensation that denotes it, like “butterflies in the stomach” denotes nervousness.

“Mitzvah” = literally commandment of G-d, more loosely (and more likely, in this context) good deed (Hebrew)

“Kinehora” (the O is probably a separate word “Oh,”) Actually thre separate words, first one Yiddish, last two Hebrew, Kein Ayin Hora = Without any influence by the evil eye. Generally appended to any statement of blessing, hope, wish or praise.

3

I’d translate “Shpilkes” as “jumping up and down in our seats” in this context. I’ve always heard it used to mean a state of restless anxiety.

“Hey, I’ve got shpilkes. Let’s go do something.”

4

Do people typically mix up Hebrew and Yiddish like that?

5

Yiddish is a dialect of German, characterized by many words from Hebrew and Slavic languages (and now English), and a grammar system different from standard German.

So, Yiddish by definition mixes in Hebrew. Yiddish influenced Hebrew is pronounced differently from standard, modern Hebrew, which goes by the Sephardi pronunciation (i.e., Hebrew spoken by Jews who lived, generally speaking, under Arab rule, though the word Sephardi actually means “Spanish”. I can give the reason if anyone is interested.)

Yiddish speakers can usually figure out simple German, but German speakers have a tougher time with Yiddish because of all the Hebrew and Slavic terms.

btw: keinahora (no evil eye) would be more precisely broken down as "kein ayin ha-ra’a – “ayin” (eye) is feminine, and therefore the modifer “ra’a” has to be feminine as well.