Comprehensive Yiddish-English Dictionary

The Comprehensive Yiddish-English Dictionary Project

In 2004, just two years after the publication of the landmark Yiddish-French dictionary, work by a dedicated team of linguists began in Boston, Massachusetts on the Yiddish-English version of Yitskhok Niborski and Bernard Vaisbrot’s Yiddish-French dictionary, known as the ייִדיש־פֿראַנצײזיש װערטערבוך Dictionnaire yiddish-français. 

The new dictionary, entitled the Comprehensive Yiddish-English Dictionary  by Solon Beinfeld and Harry Bochner is now in its third printing from Indiana University Press.

Including over 37,000 entries and compiled by a team of expert Yiddish linguists, Comprehensive Yiddish-English Dictionary surpasses all its predecessors in the number of words and rich selection of idioms, examples of usage, and coverage of stylistic levels and dialect forms. The user-friendly entries include words for standard and literary as well as contemporary colloquial and conversational usage and a wide range of terms from all sources of Yiddish, including those of Hebraic-Aramaic, Slavic, and Romance as well as Germanic origin. The lexical corpus comes directly from the highly acclaimed Dictionnaire Yiddish-Français by Yitskhok Niborski and Bernard Vaisbrot, published by the Bibliothèque Medem in Paris in 2002. Augmented by an extensive user's guide, this volume is an indispensable resource for students, teachers, translators, and readers of Yiddish. ~ Indiana University Press

Read what Yiddish scholars have said about the project.

Answers to frequently asked questions about the project 

Project sponsors

For more information, visit the Yiddish-English Dictionary website. 

News

• Order your copy of the Comprehensive Yiddish-English Dictionary by Solon Beinfeld and Harry Bochner at Indiana University Press

  • Read about the ten-year project in the article in Pakn Treger, the magazine of the Yiddish Book Center, entitled "Best Words, Best Order"

Solon Beinfeld voted to be one of the Forward TOP 50 for 2013.

http://forward.com/specials/forward-50-2013/

MORE NEWS: 

Barry (Berish), one of the associate editors of the Comprehensive Yiddish-English Dictionary has just published The Hobbit in Yiddish. Order from the Harvard Book Store

Contacts

Boston-Medem Yiddish-English Dictionary Project

and the Comprehensive Yiddish-English Dictionary

http://www.verterbukh.org/

Co-Editor-in-Chief,  Solon Beinfeld

Co-Editor-in-Chief and Technology Director, Harry Bochner

Associate Editor, Barry Goldstein

Associate Editor, Jeffery Salant

Project Director, Elizabeth Kessin Berman

Website: http://www.verterbukh.org/index.html

Email: to contact the co-editors, email to: balebos@verterbukh.org

Advisor

Professor Yitskhok Niborski, Medem Library, Paris, France

Dictionary Linguists

Alan Astro

Ana Berman

Harry Bochner

Alec Burko

Isaac Cable

Barry Goldstein

Rubye Monet

Michael Rosenbush

Jeffrey Salant

Robert Shapiro

Advisory Board of Yiddish-English Dictionary

Michael Albert, Esq.

Samuel Bak, artist

Dr. Paul Glasser, YIVO

Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold, Harvard University

Professor Eugene Orenstein, McGill University

Professor Max Ticktin, The George Washington University

Professor Chava Turniansky, Hebrew University, Jerusalem

Dr. Barnett Zumoff, New York  

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