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In the haggadot which belonged to my grandfather ז”ל, there is a note on the translation for Adir Hu which mentions that they follow an old Yiddish version of the song, rather than the modern German translation.

Are there any other Ashkenazi communities, other than the German ones, where it was common to sing vernacular or Yiddish songs during Nirtzah, either instead of the Hebrew/Aramaic ones, or in addition?

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  • youtu.be/r6zMGUDCwp0
    – msh210
    Apr 9, 2015 at 17:17
  • Sepharadim sure do.
    – 147zcbm
    Apr 9, 2015 at 22:39
  • Are we including "Frogs Here Frogs There"? Though that isn't so much part of Nirtzah as Maggid. May 20, 2020 at 21:36
  • @Ze'evmissesMonica, I believe that some Sephardim sing Ladino songs during Maggid, but I'd say it's out of scope for this question, due to the focus on Nirtzah, although I now realise that some of the modern American numbers would be on-topic, albeit possibly irrelevant May 20, 2020 at 21:38

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I'm not sure about Ashkenazim, but Tunisians sing a whole bunch of songs in their own Judeo-Arabic (look up Nathan Cohen's recording of the haggadah), most of which are not in the Ashkenazic haggadah, and at least some Italians (check www.torah.it) sing Echad Mi Yodea and Chad Gadya in Italian. Abraham Baer has Chad Gadya in German in his compendium Baal T'filah. I've seen Echad Mi Yodea and Chad Gadya both in Judeo-Spanish (aka Ladino) many times, but I don't know if they're traditional or modern translations. Ezra Malakov sings Chad Gadya in Bukharan; there are YouTube videos of this floating around. I believe Moroccans also sing Chad Gadya in Judeo-Arabic, though theirs differs from the Tunisians'.

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