Talk:Bei Mir Bistu Shein

renaming
When I renamed the article, I didn't check in Google how many occurences has the previous spelling, Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen. If I did, I would probably not rename it. If some admin thinks that renaming was incorrect, feel free to revert it. --Yms 18:16, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Or, you could just rename it back. What's your source for this other spelling you renamed it to? Wahkeenah 17:45, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
 * You can't change the name back because the old title is now a redirect page. (You'd have to got through WP:RM.) And this page looks fairly reliable and explains that the current spelling is correct and that the German spelling is a later translation. More info can be found using this Google search. --Espoo 18:01, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Sure you can. Just temporarily replace the old page with some other content besides a redirect, then rename it to something else, then rename this one back, then rename the other one to this spelling, and make it a redirect. I realize that's some degree of trouble, but it's a fitting punishment to whoever messed with it in the first place.
 * Exactly, you can't "just rename it back" as you claimed.
 * True, but did you need an admin's help? Wahkeenah 00:49, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Meanwhile, you're citing stuff that's not in the article. The spelling difference between the article title and opening paragaph is unexplained. Wahkeenah 19:12, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
 * We weren't talking about the article yet. The source i posted explains why the German name is wrong and gives a Yiddish spelling that corresponds to the current title and therefore proves Yms did the right thing in getting rid of the German article name even though he may not have researched enough first to be sure of his choice.
 * One has to be careful with Google results and a Yiddish dictionary + grammar would be a better source, but although Googles of "Bay Mir Bistu Sheyn" and "Bei Mir Bistu Shein" produce about equal numbers of hits, 532 hits for "Bay Mir Bistu Sheyn" site:edu. and 14 hits for "Bei Mir Bistu Shein" site:edu show clearly that the former is preferred on US edu sites, which are clearly more reliable than Internet sites in general.
 * On the other hand, this authoritative page says The song in question, with Yiddish words by Jacob Jacobs and music by Sholom Secunda, was first published as "Bei Mir Bistu Shein" on September 25, 1933 by the composer. Therefore the article should probably be moved to Bei Mir Bistu Shein, and the large number of edu pages with the other spelling apparently represent a phonetically more correct and more modern transcription.
 * This contradicts the message at the link i first posted, which used "Bay Mir Bistu Sheyn" and said it was correcting errors in previous posts, which seems to indicate the claim that the other spelling is wrong. Interestingly this message's claims [and its incorrect comment about German spelling ...Germanized the title changing "sheyn" to "Schoen" (umlauts over the "o") which would produce the incorrect öe instead of the correct ö = oe, and it's also incorrectly capitalised] were not disputed by the previous poster quoted above, who seemed at least as well or better informed. The following two sites seem to prove that the former poster was indeed better informed: and especially . The latter is the most authoritative so far since it quotes the Yiddish Radio Project and even shows the title page. --Espoo 23:58, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Thank you for fixing it. Wahkeenah 00:48, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, there is no such thing as the "correct" or "incorrect" title, because the most widespread English version of the song indeed was titled "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen", and it is a fact. The article is on the same song, whatever title we use (Yiddish original or not), so I thought it would be better to keep the most known title as the basic one, and later explain that it was not the original. --Yms 12:07, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Seems to me like it should be titled "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen", as I think that's how the Andrews Sisters version was spelled and it's the correct German spelling, ja? Another thing worth pointing out would be the incorrect pronunciation of "Schoen" (or "Schön") as "Shane", a common English mistake as in the song "Danke Schoen", where it is also described at some length (that explanation actually takes up half the article, since the actual lyrics are not in it due to copyright concerns). Wahkeenah 13:19, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

You're probably both right, and i seem to remember a section of WP:MoS that supports this, but i haven't had time to deal with this and to nominate it at WP:RM. The correct German title would be "Bei mir bist du schön" or "Bei mir bist Du schön", but it seems that we'll have to use the Anglicised spelling and capitalisation "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" because that's the most commonly used name in English.--Espoo 18:20, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Right name of this song is "BEI MIR BIST DU SCHÖN"...

For a German native the latter doesn't sound convincing since its semantic doesn't seem to make common sense. We should never forgot the fact the original title was Jiddish, not German. If an English translation of the title "To me you are beautiful" was correct, then the correct German translation would be: "Für mich bist Du schön". What makes this convincing regardless the narrow documentation backup is the common sense it makes together with the balance of the text of the original Jiddish song. 199.181.136.59 (talk) 21:34, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Remember though, that East German dialects are not necessarily like standard German. For my Omi from Presburg the sentence was not ungrammatical. "Für mich bist Du blöd!", for example, from my youth. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Karpaten1 (talk • contribs) 01:49, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

So much of what is above is incorrect because the song has no connection to the German language. The song was written in YIDDISH, and even the title of the pop English version is Yiddish, absolutely not German, and the rules of syntax and transliteration are different. There is no umlaut in Yiddish so "schön" could not possibly be the correct word (although it sounds like the Yiddish word which is transliterated as "shein"). -- kosboot (talk) 19:16, 28 September 2008 (UTC)


 * However, we can't just ignore the fact that the title it was actually given in many recordings was the quasi-German "Bei Mir bist du Schön" (or Schoen). That's the title that a lot of people know it as.  --  JackofOz (talk) 21:43, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Lemma
If the name of the original song is "Bei Mir Bistu Shein" how come the current lemma is "Bei Mir Bist Du Shein"? I mean, "Let's Misbehave" isn't filed under "Let Us Mis-Behave", either. I'll move the article. Maikel (talk) 11:10, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I would need to check the original sheet music of the song, but the title as given in Yiddish does have 2 separate words for "bist" and "du." -- kosboot (talk) 20:21, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Shasta Jingle?
Was the tune to "Bei Mir Bist Du Shein", with different lyrics, used for a Shasta (or some other soft drink company) TV commercial jingle in the late 1970s or early 1980s?

72.82.178.23 (talk) 09:29, 7 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, Shasta used it for a root beer commercial in 1976. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arnt9IbvHO0 75.171.5.152 (talk) 02:08, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

broken link
The lyrics link is broken as of March 25, 2009. Replacing with lyrics link at Wikisource —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.69.103.77 (talk) 21:48, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Bay Mir Bist Du Sheyn Original lyrics in Yiddish

iTunes link
The last link added for a recording of this song links to Apples iTunes music service for purchase of the song. Should Wikipedia articles be linking to a specific vendor for a described item? This seems antithetical to Wikipedia's stated purpose.

German translation
Shouldn't it be pointed out that "Bei mir bist Du schoen" doesn't make sense in German? The translation of "Bei mir bist Du schoen" to English would be "At my place you're beautiful", which is rather odd. Donik (talk) 16:14, 27 April 2010 (UTC)


 * It already does:
 * The song became famous with English lyrics but retaining the Yiddish title, Bei Mir Bistu Shein. However, it also appeared with the quasi-German title Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen (in german: Für mich bist Du schön).
 * "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" is characterised as "quasi-German" and a translation into standard German is provided. --macrakis (talk) 16:52, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
 * FWIW Max Raabe's version uses English lyrics but with the quasi-German "bei mir bist du schön" (rather than "sheyn"; he definitely uses "schön") BGManofID (talk) 00:32, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
 * There is nothing "quasi-German" to it; heck, even wikipedia knows this: see eg discussion in a similar poetic title: Bist du bei mir. Please keep in mind that spoken, and especially poetic grammar may be weird. Try reading some classical English poets. My daughter has a student's book of them with verse-by-verse English-to-English translation :-) Loew Galitz (talk) 00:18, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * It looks like "bei mir" in the sense of "according to me", "in my opinion", "to my mind" is a Yiddish idiom that is not used in standard German. See בײַ, definition 5. However I wouldn't be surprised if "bei" is used in this sense in some German dialects. It is probably the origin of the American idiom "that's OK by me". MaxBrowne (talk) 03:10, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

found on www.radioswissjazz.ch
I can't really confirm who played these versions:

http://www.radioswissjazz.ch/cgi-bin/pip/html.cgi?lang=en&m=cdinfo&sid=84248e7704510d39719aab8eae6c39a331686 (listed here: http://www.radioswissjazz.ch/cgi-bin/pip/html.cgi?lang=en&m=entity&sid=32809508719f71c36e63492afc338e207dee1)

http://www.radioswissjazz.ch/de/songinfo/sid/9478b1b83fc1d12f4085a9bff478da355083 (the back of the CD: http://www.musicpower.ch/shop/cds/tremble.htm) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Balihb (talk • contribs) 08:29, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Title translation
It seems that the original meaning of the line is thoroughly forgotten. In fact, the formula "bay mir iz" may be a possession clause : בײַ מיר איז אַן אוצר - Bay mir iz an oytser - "I have a treasure". Some languages, like English are of "habere" style, where the "possesed item" is a direct object. In other languages, such as Russian the posssessed item is the subject or the sentence, rather than the object: "U menia / est / sokrovische" ("At me / there is / a treasure"). I am not sure whether 'bay mir iz' is inherited from the archaic Hebrew or borrowed from Russian (definitely not from Polish, "(Ja) mam skarb" - "habere" style is used in Polnish). Anyway, I have an opinion that the title in fact says "A have a pretty you", kind of "You are my pretty", although I have no proof to meet wikipedia standards of reference. Long time ago I've seen a book which thoroughly traces the history of both the tune and the lyrics to Yiddish folklore, but unfortulately I am failing to refind it. Loew Galitz (talk) 00:11, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

It is true that "bay mir iz/zenen" followed by a nominative noun phrase does express possession, either from Hebrew or some Slavic influence. However, here it is not "bay mir iz a sheina" (to me is a pretty [one] = I have a pretty [one]), it is "bay mir bistu shein". There is no nominative noun phrase of a thing being possessed. Rather, there is a clause "du bist shein" with a peripheral argument "bay mir" which has been fronted. --AndreRD (talk) 00:32, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Who Translated This Song to English?
This page attributes the translation to Sammy Cahn while the Vic Schoen page attributes that Schoen wrote it will Cahn coming on board later. Neither offer any citations.

Additionally both pages are contradicting each other as to who introduced the Andrews Sisters to the song. And still, this page states that Lou Rogers (trumpeter in Vic Schoen's band and future husband of LaVerne Andrews) was the one who found it.

UpgradeTech (talk) 03:49, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Sin Pan
Does anybody knows if Spanish Civil War song "Sin Pan" ("No bread") is the same as "Bei Mir Bistu Shein"? The tune seems very similar but I don't find much about "Sin Pan", although it's often included in various Spanish song collections dedicated to the Civil War. Maybe someone with good knowledge of 1930's Spain could clarify this moment? - 88.147.153.12 (talk) 20:44, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

The songs are both in minor key, and they use _some_ of the same harmonies, but the melody and the structure are different. Anyone trying to copy a song would certainly copy the most memorable part. The most memorable part of "Sin pan" is not in "Bei Mir Bistu Shein" at all, and the most memorable part of "Bei Mir" is not in "Sin pan". I'd say they're not related at all. TooManyFingers (talk) 17:08, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

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Potential DYK
@Flask, it looks like you've done some excellent work on this article! If you end up taking it all the way to GA, I think the DYK hook Did you know... That the Yiddish song Bei Mir Bistu Shein was a smash hit in Nazi Germany until its Jewish origins were uncovered? would do extremely well. Cheers, &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 20:00, 12 October 2023 (UTC)


 * @Sdkb Thank you for your kind compliments! I agree that would be a good DYK hook for the article. I hope to expand and to polish this article a bit further next year before pursuing the GA nomination. — Flask (talk) 14:01, 13 October 2023 (UTC)