Talk:Oy vey

"Oh je" in German

In German we say "oh je!" to express anxiety, shock or dismay. It is pronounced almost like "oy vey!". As we have quite a few Yiddish loanwords in German language, AND there are lots of German words in Yiddish, I cannot figure out where it orginally comes from. Does anybody know? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.236.54.118 (talk) 21:35, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you could say that there are Yiddish words in German. Yiddish is basically German with some Hebrew words. TFighterPilot (talk) 21:05, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Oje! is a minced oath for O Jesus! (Which is probably the source of Polish Ojej!, transformed then into Ojejku, Ojejuśku etc. There's also northern Polish O jeny (kochany)! for O Jezu (kochany)!, but I don't know if it's native or e.g. derived from Low German). Jews mostly used to adhere to Rabbinic Judaism, so they wouldn't swear upon Jesus. 89.64.68.227 (talk) 16:48, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

"Au Gewalt ?"

Im German and I've absolutely never heard anyone use this expression. Sounds like something someone foreign to the german language might say. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.243.48.2 (talk) 23:39, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

BTW, "Gewalt" is German for "force" or "violence". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.168.238.14 (talk) 00:21, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

In Polish, there's old-fashioned Gwałtu! (genitive, not nominative, with partitive meaning, analogical to Wody! "[give me some] water!"), meaning "Help!" (the notion is that others might not be able to overpower the attacker, or even see anything in the dark, but if they make enough noise [Gewalt], the attacker may get scared away). Perhaps it's Gwałtu! and not some German usage that was rendered as Oy gevalt!. 89.64.68.227 (talk) 17:32, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Eyvah - Turkish Word with same meaning

Turkish word "Eyvah" is also used as an exclamation when faced with a disaster. Used with an exclamation mark when in writing. Spoken sound is very similar to the "Oy veh"

eyvah Far. eyv¥h ünl. (eyva:h) Beklenmedik, kötü, hoşa gitmeyen bir haber veya olay karşısında duyulan acınma, üzülme sözü:

eyvah excl. (eyva:h) Word of pity or sadness expressed to an event or news that is unexpected, bad or disliked.

Taken from Turkish Language Society website link http://tdkterim.gov.tr/bts/ (search function for dictionary) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.215.110.15 (talk) 21:46, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

The Turkish word looks like it's from Arabic (cf. ʔaywa). Arabic is related to Hebrew, but not to Germanic languages like Yiddish. 89.64.68.227 (talk) 23:07, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

bad Greek?

this guy on the internets said this on a forum & I thought, given the potential pronounciation of the greek in question, that this may be of some importance regarding the history of "oy vey"... Just thought I'd share it, in case anyone ever had the means to maybe look into the implications.

"θε να (also seen written as θε' να) represents an intermediate stage in the transformation of ancient/classical θέλω 'ίνα + subjunctive clause ("I want that...") into the Modern Greek particle of future tense, θα."

What I mean is, mispronouncing "θε να" as "oy vey" would obviously lead to such a mispronunciation claiming right to an expression that basically means "oh well". If you get where I'm coming from here.Lostubes (talk) 01:30, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Have you actually checked the pronunciation of the Greek you're citing? I doubt it. This wouldn't be just "irregular development", this would be "bananas development". 89.64.68.227 (talk) 23:09, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Chabad as a source in the field of linguistics

I think the chabad.org staff are not a reliable source in the field of linguistics and should not be used in the article. HueSurname (talk) 08:22, 20 January 2022 (UTC)