Comprehensive Yiddish-English dictionary /

More than 80 years have passed since the publication of Alexander Harkavy's Yiddish-English-Hebrew Dictionary (1925; 2nd expanded ed., 1928) and more than 40 years since Uriel Weinreich's Modern English-Yiddish Yiddish-English Dictionary (1968). Even if this new volume is no more than a direct translation from the French Dictionnaire Yiddish-Francais by Yitskhok Niborski and Bernard Vaisbrot, with Simon Neuberg (published by the Bibliotheque Medem in 2002), it is a prized accomplishment of lexical dedication, containing more than 37,000 words and a treasure horde of idiomatic phrases. Editors Beinfeld (formerly, Washington Univ. in St. Louis) and Bochner (linguist and Yiddishist) have included the best characteristics of Harkavy and Weinreich while providing readers with the most contemporary grammatical and semantic nuances. Students and professional Yiddishists on all levels now have available a crucial aid in their work. Included is a most helpful user's guide, an introduction and road map through the difficulties inherent in working with two distinct alphabets and language systems. This volume is an indispensable, skillful, and user-friendly addition to the field of Yiddish. Summing Up: Essential. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers. S. Gittleman Tufts University