[Mesorah] Hirhurim: Oh, Oy, Ow

[Areivim]

Here is anecdotal evidence, coming from someone with a Lithuanian father
born in Kovno, whose parents were from Kovno and Yanova, another Lithuanian
town.

 

When growing up, I heard a Yiddish expression, used by the aforementioned
three people and their friends of the same background, "Tu mir a teiveh." I
knew this meant "Do me a favor" in Yiddish.  I had figured out that the "eh"
at the end was a dialect sound for the sound "ah" or "oh". I had no doubt
that the word was the Yiddish language homophone of the Hebrew word that
means the ark Noah built, or the basket that held baby Moses. It was not
until quite a few years later that I realized that the word Teiveh, the word
that I assumed without question was the Yiddish word for "favor", was really
the Hebrew word "Tova" pronounced with the Litvish dialect. 

>.

Which explains why the name "Toviah" is sometimes pronounce as "Tevyeh".
(Inyoneh deyoma= Maarovis 1st night YT.)

But how did it become "Tuviyeh"?

 

SBA

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