My Yiddisher Tongue
I would like to mention that I’ve just come across, more or less indirectly—an insomniac google through any new mentions of ‘Yiddish’ on the blogs, followed by a conversation (protracted due to technical difficulties, and abbreviated due to the medium of Twitter) with the author—a brief but pleasant radio program on the BBC about Yiddish, called My Yiddisher Mother Tongue. The man who’s done the program is a comedian and actor (I remember him from Alan Partridge, now that the IMDB mentions it), and also an apparently fluent graduate of Dovid Katz’s in Oxford, so we will for the minute assume that the strange macaronic spelling of the title was not his idea.
In any case, the program is a good and even-handed look at the state and history of Yiddish, including some interviews with Professor Katz, who always sets the record straight, and even a brief talk with the 65th US Secretary of State, General Colin Powell (!).
