Re: Primary Interjections - Universals?

(Sorry I'm late responding to this very interesting thread ---
I just got around to reading the postings!)

On 5 April, Danny Wier wrote:

<snip some geat stuff>

>Spanish has _ay_ and Yiddish has _oy_ (could I also include
Cockney/Australian
>English "oi"?). Combine both and you get _oy vey_  for Yiddish and _ay
vaay_ for
>Farsi.
    It's my understanding that "oy vey" is a corruption of the Hebrew phrase
"oy va-avoy" (which is how it's pronounced today in Israel)  in the same
situations that Yiddish might use "oy vey" ).
    This is probably a rhymed version of "oy" (as found, for example, in
Samuel I, chap 4, verse 8) and "avoy" (which might or might not be
related to the word "oya"  [aleph-vav-yod-heh]  ), found in
Psalm 120, verse 5).

On 6 April, Steg wrote:

>_Vay_ is used in Mishnaic (c. 200 CE) Hebrew.
"oy and "avoy" are found together even earlier:
in Proverbs , chap 23, verse 29)
"lemi oy? lemi avoy?" ( = to whom oy? to whom avoy? )


Re: pain interjections, Israeli Hebrew uses /aj/ and if the
pain is great enough, maybe /aja/. /oj/ is used, but
for expressing worry, not pain.


Dan Sulani
---------------------------------------

 likehsna  rtem  zuv  tikuhnuh  auag  inuvuz  vaka'a.

 A  word  is  an  awesome  thing.




-Stephen (Steg)
 "meihhamas yoshi`eini."