I came across this little throw away article and thought about what impact losing Yiddish would have to the English language.Can an English word give us the same sense of meaning to a concept such as having to “schlep” around or to be annoyed by a real “putz” or someone being a "mensch”?
Yiddish is not an ancient language but is made up of elements of German, Hebrew and a few Slavic languages. It was developed in the 10th century by Jews living in the Rhineland region.
By the 19th century, Jews and their language were under fire by the ruling classes who were suspicious that the Jews were trying to hide something. In spite of the pressure, or maybe because of it, Yiddish would flourish and gain huge popularity right up to 1945, producing some great literature and theater productions, including the play on which “Fiddler On The Roof” is based.The Holocaust would forever change the Jewish people and their communal structure. As the survivors of
this dark time in modern history struggled to regroup and moved to different countries, the use of Yiddish in daily language began to decline.But those European Jews who came to America and settled in large cities like New York kept the old language of their youth alive and it would eventually become integrated in our uniquely American English.
Can you imagine a Broadway that never produced Fiddler On The Roof or Hello Dolly? And a bagel by any other name? Just wouldn’t be the same, would it? And how else could you describe the art of schmoozing without the word schmooze?
To lose this most enlivened language with its rich history would be a crime. Thankfully, as long as there is an American English, there will be Yiddish spoken here.
Mir gefelt Yidish. Mir gefelt es zeyer gut! Un dir?
( I like Yiddish. I really like it! And you?)
(Disclaimer: While I gamely tried my hand at this bit of Yiddish, I am by no means a scholar of this language or German for that matter. So if you answer in kind, I will probably have no idea what you said.)
Mir gefelt Yidish. Mir gefelt es zeyer gut!
ReplyDeleteAnd I like the article. I sure would hate to see it disappear.
Ay vey! Reading this made me farklempt, Rocky. A world without mensch schmoozing over bagels while some putzes schlep their wares and kinder around, would be farcockt.
ReplyDeleteIt can't disappear. Too many of us love all those expressive Yiddish words and phrases.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in a working class neighborhood of Catholics, Protestants and Jews. I learned all my Yiddish from my best friend Myrna who lived around the corner and taught it to me and our mutual Irish girlfriends.
I'm going to see if I can remember all those wonderful words that have no equal in English (or Italian!).
You don't know bupkes!
OMG! When she sees that she's gonna plotz!
That outfit she's wearing looks all farblondzhet!
She had a house filled with hazarai.
When I see my daughter and her children, it makes me all verklempt.
Mazel tov!
Elizabeth and Shaw, reading those words again (farklempt, bupkes, plotzes, putzes, and farcockt) makes me laugh.
ReplyDeleteMy parents spoke fluent Yiddish. It was a forbidden language that kept conversations secret from young, prying ears. Thus, I never learned it, although I picked up some words.
I had a strange relationship with Yiddish, in part, because I had a strange relationship with my parents. I eavesdropped on your conservation about the emotive properties of Polish, and I think Yiddish bears a resemblance in some respects. Although it is considered a dialect of German, it has certain “cute-isms” that are similar to what you describe.
When I was kid, I winced at these “cute-isms” because I thought they were infantilizing (I felt embarrassed when they leached out in front of Goyische company).
Later in life, I heard Yiddish spoken in London, mainly in an area known as Golders Green (near Finchley Road) home to a Jewish population and in parts of East London such as Bethnal Green.
In Paris, whenever I heard a familiar sounding dialect spoken in a local bistro or brasserie, I recognized it as Yiddish … usually in the quarters known as Belleville, Le Marais, Village Juif, or along Avenue de Wagram radiating away from Arc de Triomphe.
If anyone keeps Yiddish alive, it will probably be the European Jews, not the Americans, and certainly not the Israelis who insist on Hebrew being the official language.
Octo, it's not eavesdropping when the conversation is public and open to others. :)
ReplyDeleteCuteisms are tough to stomach, no matter the language, IMO. Charming, on one hand, but nauseating, on the other.
OCTO said,"Elizabeth and Shaw, reading those words again (farklempt, bupkes, plotzes, putzes, and farcockt) makes me laugh."
ReplyDeleteMade me laugh too, remembering the older Jews out of New York that spoke in a mix of English and Yiddish. No doubt their parents spoke Yiddish at home.
My Mom bought a millinery business from an old Jewish couple who stayed on for a while to help her out. She was and remains an excellent milliner and seamstress but she didn't know squat on how to run a business. And her English wasn't too great either. Yiddish-isms would become a permanent part of her vocabulary and mine too.
Arabs have complained about the decline of Arabic for years. We've seen one language, Bo, die out recently. There are only four people left alive speaking Yuchee, the language of a small indigenous tribe from northwest Alabama.
ReplyDeleteYiddish is just one of literally THOUSANDS of languages facing extinction from the relentless march of globalized same-ness. But unlike Bo or Yuchee, Yiddish and Arabic will be remembered in the English language -- which I doubt will change much in a thousand years, as it is being "fixed in place" by the internet and global media.
My Mother's family arrived here around 1900 and my maternal grandparents spoke Yiddish among other languages, but I have a very hard time with it, partly because I grew up a thousand miles away from them, identifying more with my father's long line of Germans who had been here a hundred years already and had never heard of Yiddish -- and because to me it sounds like the patois it is and doesn't have any of the cuteness apparent only to those who aren't fluent speakers. Schlepp? What's cute about the German verb to drag?
ReplyDeleteIt isn't Zayer Geet, It's sehr Gut and all of it sounds like hip-hop German with a mouth full of marbles.
Yes, some of it is Hebrew, but why is Chazer (pig) a funny word while Schwein isn't? I don't get it.
Captain - ..,. why is Chazer (pig) a funny word while Schwein isn't?
ReplyDeleteBecause Chazer is pronounced deep in the throat sounding something between a grrrr and an expectorant thus rendering it onomatopoetic; whereas Schwein and its piglet form Schweinchen sound like flossing one’s teeth with air … and that's way too little Chazerei.
Aber ne, Schwein has a lovely sneer in it, like the smack of a whip against flesh.
ReplyDeleteTruth be told I can certainly envision a world without 'Fiddler on the Roof'. But then perhaps I'm seen one community musical production too many. Oy.
ReplyDeleteA minor point.
But I can't really imagine a world without Broadway show tunes. In particular that remarkable post-WWII occurrence when bebop built upon the tunes (and popular songs from Tin Pan Alley) from 30's and 40's musicals as the melodic basis for their improvisational innovations. Much of the very best of that material was written by Jewish composers and songwriters then radically rebuilt by beboppers.
Cannonball Adderly did a Fiddler on the Roof LP. I don't much care for it myself but listening to John Coltrane invest 'My Favorite Things' with a power not to be found in the 'warm woolen mittens' kitsch of the lyric is to hear just how terrific the music was.
Yiddish will never die, it belongs to the ages. Captian Fisher.
ReplyDelete