Talk:Oy vey

Origin of 'oy' and 'vey'
To put it mildly, there is absolutely no sense discussing the origin of this phrase, which is entirely Germanic, a fact that no scholar of Yiddish or linguistics has ever questioned; in Middle High German the phrase "ou wê" (and variants of it) occurs frequently, and this phrase persists in many Modern German dialects as "au weh" or "o weh." Apply the historical vowel changes and you get modern Yiddish "oy vey." Furthermore, in older Yiddish texts we find the interjection "או װײ," and though we may not know how this was pronounced, it proves that there is no connection between the ancient Hebrew noun "אױ" and the Yiddish interjection "אױ." This makes sense, since these texts predate the vowel change that turned various different vowels into "oy" in Yiddish. Bws2002 (talk) 14:50, 27 December 2005
 * Thanks Bws, that's what I suspected. Do you want to make the appropriate edits? RMoloney (talk) 20:46, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

The mention of ve is used several times in the Guru Granth Sahib. Ve can have varying meanings. The mention of "O" Heor "Oe" or "Hoe" to be. There is a lot of Punjabi, Sanskrit words that are similar to ancient Hebrew and also found in Yiddish, reflected in the diaspora of Jews even into India and possible have some historical connections to some of the Sikhs who could be in part descendants of the lost tribes of Israel. More research is required. There is startling similarities of the philosophy of the Sikh scriptures to the Hebrew scriptures of describing God and also Maimonides works. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:3024:504:F500:F013:63A9:3A39:C8C8 (talk) 20:09, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Origin of 'vey'
Are there any sources which argue that 'vey' is of Hebrew origin, rather than, say, German 'Weh'? As it stands, this claim looks like original research RMoloney (talk) 18:57, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


 * RM: Do you read or understand Hebrew? If you do then the following section in the article is perfectly legitimate and is not "original research": "While the expression Oy used alone has become common, the usage of Oy Vey probably has its roots in such verses from the Book of Proverbs 23:29 as: Lemi oy lemi avoy  (לְמִי אוֹי לְמִי אֲבוֹי) "Who [cries] oy who alas...?" " A similar expression is still used in modern Israel Oy VaVoy to denote "Woe, and Alas" meaning something like "Woa! You're in big trouble" or "Wha! This is terrible". Furthermore, Hebrew has always been the core language of the Jewish people and has never been lost. The German language arrived on the scene much later in history relative to Hebrew, and if anything, it may have absorbed words from the Hebrew due to the long presence of the Jews in the lands of present-day Germany and Austria. In turn, of course, the Jews absorbed words from Old German and applied it to the (historically) newer language of Yiddish. What exactly don't you like? IZAK 19:21, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * What exactly I don't like is the 'probably'. That seems POV, as my assessment is still 'probably germanic'. I'm not saying that your argument isn't persuasive. But I don't think it's the universally accepted etymology. There's an interview here with a linguist Ghil'ad Zuckermann (who seems reasonably credentialled) in which he mentions that 'vey' comes from the German 'Weh'. If there's an expert who disagrees with this, then we'll just say that the origin is disputed, and include the relevant sources. RMoloney (talk) 20:28, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
 * As for 'oy', it could be an old Hebrew expression; it could also be an artifact of the o->oy vowel shift common in some Yiddish dialects. 'Vey' is clearly derived from German 'Weh' -- they are identical in pronunciation and have identifiable cognates in other Germanic languages. There is a distant possibility of it being a Semitic borrowing, but even assuming the information in the article is true (not being a Hebrew speaker I'm in no position to gainsay it), it doesn't prove that the 'vey' part of 'oy vey' is anything but Germanic in origin. (Indeed, considering the expression "oh woe is me" is common to English, German, and Yiddish, there's a distinct possibility it's a very old Germanic expression indeed.) Also, I sense a hint of identity politics in IZAK's assertions -- I could be wrong, but if you check the history of the Urdu page you can see what kind of trouble identity politics cause when discussing linguistic issues. Haikupoet 20:53, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

As regards 'oy', Rosten mentions in The Joys of Yiddish that it is Slavic in origin, and it seems that there is a Ukrainian exclamation "Oy!" or "Oy-yoy!" . I have to say, I always thought it fell into the category of natural exclamations, like 'ah' or 'oh', but with a Yiddish flavour. Anyway, is anyone aware of a dispute regarding the etymology? RMoloney (talk) 02:15, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
 * To the best of my knowledge the Hebrew Oy and VaVoy precede both the Germanic and Slavic versions. Proof for that is simple enough: They are can be found in the most reliable of texts: The Hebrew Bible, as in Book of Proverbs 23:29 as: Lemi oy lemi avoy  (לְמִי אוֹי לְמִי אֲבוֹי) "Who [cries] oy who alas...?  . What's so hard to grasp or accept about that? IZAK 23:37, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, to me, the 'oy' is plausible enough to be included, as a note at least, but the 'avoy' is definitely too much of a stretch. There are no sources indicating that "oy avoy" was ever used as a phrase prior to the Yiddish "oy vey", and there are no sources indicating an evolution of the word "avoy" to "vey". Since "weh" is the commonly accepted origin, we should just go with that.
 * I'm not saying that the phrase was never used with a nod toward the biblical verse; that seems quite possible. However, I would suggest that attempting to say that there is an explicitly religious connotation to the phrase is speculation. Certainly in the last century, it was as secular as any other Yiddish phrase; and even if it's true that "oy vey" has a biblical origin, I don't see that there's any proof that Yiddish speakers were widely aware of this origin.
 * Finally, Hebrew predates the Germanic/Slavic influences: so what? That doesn't guarantee its survival into the modern language (half of whose speakers had little to no Hebrew). Indeed most experts reckon that less than 20% of Yiddish words are of Semitic (Hebrew/Aramaic) origin. RMoloney (talk) 02:01, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

TM:So how does "weh" with a soft German "w" become "Vey" with a very strong "v"? For you the "the 'avoy' is definitely too much of a stretch" because you are not a learned Jew, but to anyone familiar with Judaism, as most Jews were historically before they began assimilating, they absorbed uncountable words from their Tanakh that most knew by heart into their everyday vernaculars. You are seeing this in too limited a light I fear, to your own detriment. IZAK 02:40, 19 December 2005 (UTC) Haikupoet:You obviously know very little about Yiddish, and Hebrew for that matter. The German "w" is much softer than the Yiddish "v". Vay in Yiddish is pronounced with a "v" identical to the Hebrew "vav", a very heavy and emphatic sound which it is not in German. As for "Occam's Razor" it doesn't sound very Jewish (which is the translation of the word Yiddish) to meIZAK 03:14, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
 * What do you mean "soft German "w""? The sound is /v/ in German and Yiddish, no matter how it's spelled. Furthermore, your hypothesis seems to violate Occam's Razor -- two languages, obviously closely related, sharing the same phrase constructed exactly the same way, and with the Yiddish word under dispute being identical in pronunciation with a German word with exactly the same meaning, and you're asserting that it came from Hebrew? Haikupoet 02:49, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Occam's razor states, in a nutshell, that the simplest, most straightforward explanation that fits the evidence is the one to follow. (That's the funny thing about logic -- it works no matter the cultural origin of the problem.) In this case, since the word "weh" in German and "vey" in Yiddish are used exactly the same way in exactly the same context, there is no reason to assume anything but a common origin (in this case Middle High German) for the words -- it's only complicating things to assume a more baroque explanation. It's a little like Uri Geller -- yes, he could be a real psychic, but in light of the fact that he a) is a trained amateur magician, b) has repeatedly been caught cheating, and c) his tricks can be duplicated with magical techniques, it's highly unlikely. Now I suppose you could be right about "oy", but at best it's a convergence of a Hebrew exclamation with a German idiom, perhaps with a dash of folk etymology thrown in. Haikupoet 02:32, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

"It is also a very Jewish thing for someone to say. So if you hear someone use this term they are most likely Jewish" I am not extrmemly experienced with wiki and I've tried to change this, but I haven't had enough time to figure out how. I feel this should be deleted from the main article. I'm not arguing that it's Jewish or not, but feel it's entirely out of place in an encyclopedia. Blueboxbandit 06:25, 17 January 2007 (UTC)blueboxbandit
 * sorry for the poor editing just figured it outBlueboxbandit 06:40, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Articles for Deletion debate
This article survived an Articles for Deletion debate. The discussion can be found here. Owen&times; &#9742;  21:07, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Just goes to show - there is nothing to crappy for this site. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.127.128.114 (talk) 22:08, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Swedish "oj"
Does anyone know if the swedish expression "oj" (pronounced just like oy), meaning something like oops, has any connection with "oy". It certainly seems like it, but i wouldn't want to edit an article to find myself beeing completely wrong.

OGOL 21:18, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, by comparing the entries for Svenska Akademins Ordbok and Deutsches Wörterbuch, it seems plausible, but we'd need a better, more explicit source. On the other hand, interjections are often bad choices for etymology, since they're prone to occhur naturally, and are easily loaned between languages. (However, a common origin somewhere in the German-Dutch language continuum doesn't sound unlikely, from what I could find out.) 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (&lt; \) (2 /) /)/ * 10:01, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

In Denmark we say "oh ve" where "ve" means pain (mostly used about women in labour, where the labour is called "ve" or "veer" in plural). We also have "øj" or "oj" which is used as an exclamation with no particular meaning (e.g. it can have the meaning of "hey look", "wtf!?", "oops", "oh boy") Contributions/130.226.70.2 (talk) 17:36, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

In Finnish, a very common expression is "oi voi" (or "voi voi"). As I understood it's pronounced the same way like oy vey. It can be used in situations to acknowledge bad happenings without resorting to profanity. If you spill milk, you might say "oi voi" instead of shouting off your mouth (especially when children are present). Or: "did you hear the old lady from 13th floor finally passed away?" -"Oi voi...". I'd say semantically it's very close to "oh, woe" in translation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.254.76.147 (talk) 15:50, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Here in Norway, "oi" is a pretty widely used expression for "oops" (Also sometimes expressed as "oi sann"). 193.215.199.34 (talk) 10:47, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

In popular culture
I'm editing out this section it doesn't add anything to the article.  Whispe ring  14:49, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It's been put back. I tend to agree with you, and think that "popular culture" sections are too often used for "piles of stuff I find vaguely interesting", with a sudden lack of the quality control the rest of the encyclopedia gets. I've added an unreferenced template, and I think it would be perfectly reasonable for anything that's not sourced after a reasonable period to be removed. For example, the "Oy Oy Seven" Bond parody has no referencing at all, and should not remain. 86.132.138.84 (talk) 14:49, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Arbitrary citations
The footnotes in the introduction are overused and sloppy. For instance, there are two different articles cited from two different papers, but they are clearly articles on the same story. The problem is they are used to cite two different things... That makes no sense and takes the legitimacy away from both of the citaitons. Citations are not to be arbitrarily doled out to one sentence or another. They are supposed fit with sentences/clauses like a locks and keys. There are a lot of arbitrary citations here... Someone should fix... ask123 (talk) 19:10, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

"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)

Popular culture addition
Please add whoever is editing this page:

Peter Sellers's character Dr.Fassbender in 1965 movie What's New Pussycat at 1º37'48'' exclaims "Oh Vey!".

The screen writer is none other than Woody Allen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.215.110.15 (talk) 22:06, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

In popular culture (redux)
As stated above the pop culture section is currently nothing but a trivia list, a clear violation of the MOS (see Manual_of_Style/Trivia_sections). For whatever reason Nikkimaria has an emotional attachment to this. I have tagged the section appropriately and the tag needs to stay until the section is fixed. There are three possible remedies:
 * 1) The listed material can be moved into other sections of the article and discussed in a meaningful way.
 * 2) The whole section can be rewritten to be a serious discussion of the significance and meaning of the phrase in modern culture.
 * 3) The section can be removed altogether.

--192.88.165.35 (talk) 20:12, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

P.S. The article itself is of questionable value in and of itself. As it stands it is mostly a dictionary entry (see WP:NAD) with some random info added. If the article is to remain there needs to be a more meaningful discussion of the term and its significance.

Translation of full phrase--incorrect?
The article says that the full phrase, "oy vey ist mir" translates to "Oh, woe am I." I know we're talking dialects here, rather than textbook German, but surely that can't be correct. Shouldn't it rather be "Oh, woe is to me"? I would think the "Oh, woe am I," would come out something like "oy vey bin ich." Uporządnicki (talk) 19:30, 2 January 2013 (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)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 December 2014
Eminem's song, Rap God, uses "oy vey" in the lyrics.

Je6johns (talk) 06:08, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
 * ❌: please provide a reliable source for the information you want added. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 15:08, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

forget about the other german comments, get THIS!
when i read "oy vey ist mir", which does alrdy include the two originally german words "ist" (is) and "mir" ("me" in the meaning of "to(wards) me) and combined it with the "oy vey" which alrdy does sound like "oh weh!" (in it's originally meaning, you would say "oh...god/fuck/damn!"), i figured out "oh weh ist mir", a sentence that was used in southwestern germany in until the last 100 years. my (dead) grandma's vocabulary could have easily include this sentence, it's expressing that you do not feel well. nothing magic, nothing special, just "i don't feel good"; if you do need a word-for-word translation, take "so sick is me!". greetings from germany, --78.43.41.5 (talk) 03:22, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Insult
Can we consider this phrase as an anti-semitic slur to the Jewish people according to the Conspiracy theorists? 02/14/19 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.146.131.227 (talk) 00:25, 14 February 2019 (UTC)


 * How so? Do you have any reliable sources that say this?  The phrase is a bit stereotypical, but not so much that non-Jews don't use it humorously.  I don't think that would constitute a slur, even if deliberately used as part of a racial caricature.  P Aculeius (talk) 14:00, 15 February 2019 (UTC)


 * It's not really a slur, but it's often used by the alt-right to express anti-semetic remarks, an example would be "oy vey the goyim know". I found some articles here: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/beyond-three-more-ways-to-troll-the-internets-nazis https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/the-goyim-knowshut-it-down https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/04/19/day-trope-white-nationalist-memes-thrive-reddits-rthedonald https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/04/19/day-trope-white-nationalist-memes-thrive-reddits-rthedonald. And for some more examples just browse /pol/ archives: https://archive.4plebs.org/pol/search/text/oy%20vey/. I think it's important the Wikipedia documents alt-right dog whistles better.95.168.158.121 (talk) 23:15, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Gevalt versus Gevolt
Hi! There should be a redirect page at Gevalt liking here. Regards no bias — קיין אומוויסנדיק פּרעפֿערענצן — keyn umvisndik preferentsn talk contribs 09:27, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 June 2021
Chabad is a cult and should not be a validated source for Orthodox Judaism. This is akin to anti-semitic white washing of Judaism. CHABAD is NOT JUDIASM.

יחי אדוננו מורנו ורבינו מלך המשיח לעולם ועד "Yechi Adoneinu Moreinu v'Rabbeinu melech hamoshiach lolam vaed!" Long live our master, our teacher and our rabbi king moshiach forever and ever. This song is an anthem of the messianic branch of the Chabad movement which venerates Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. (The Chabad version of Jesus) AKA not Judaism.

Moshe Feinstein - the Haredi Posek declared that "Chabad is the CLOSEST thing to Judaism." Chabad is not actual Judaism and should never be promoted as such on a platform like Wikipedia.org

--This is not Judaism. This is Chabad cult worship and anti-Judaism. 188.26.252.25 (talk) 23:14, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 23:41, 8 June 2021 (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)