This is what I'm reading now: "Born to Kvetch" by Michael Wex. It's a book about Yiddish which has the distinction along with Jive of being one of the world's only deliberately funny languages. I've only just started it so I apologize in advance if I make any factual errors.Yiddish is a deliberate corruption of German with a lot of slavic words thrown in. It's a relatively new language, only a few hundred years old. It began when German Jews decided to come up with their own version of German so their kids wouldn't be assimilated into what Jews considered an alien culture and religion. Yiddish isn't only different than German, it's a parody of it. It's also a parody of Christianity.
The language can get pretty insulting but the insults are so funny sometimes that it's hard to get mad about it. In that sense it's like Jive, the language that some urban American blacks speak. Jive isn't supposed to be understood by the white man. It's deliberately full of funny sexual and racial references that would put off white people, if they only understood it. It's a funny language that's meant to use humor to seperate black people from the mainstream. Jive is fast disappearing as is Yiddish. Now that Jews have Israel and blacks have their freedom the need for seperation is slowly disappearing. Israel officially discourages Yiddish, except for scholars who study it as an academic subject in the university.
The title of the book mentions a Yiddish word, "kvetch." According to the writer all Yiddish speakers constantly complain (kvetch), whether there's anything to complain about or not. Yiddish-speaking Jews cultivated this to remind themselves that nothing will be right for them till they have a homeland of their own in Israel. The complaints are made tolerable by humor and it's no accident that Yiddish speakers helped to make America one of the funniest countries in the world. In Japan students of English sometimes study American jokes because it's believed that humorous speech is so widely used here that they'll be earmarked as foreigners if they don't make frequent jokes in the middle of a converstion.I wish I had the energy to look up a few common Yiddish words to include here but I'm so sleepy that that I can barely finish typing this sentense. When I do learn some Yiddish words and phrases I want to move on to select Italian words and gestures. I also want to pick up some Jive. With all these funny linguistic treasures around us it seems foolish not to dabble.
20 comments:
Don't mishmash everything up!
I'm feelingfarklempt right now! (That snl lady...)
Genuk!
Oi Ve! The most famous of them all, I think. Well klutz is pretty popular too. And maybe even, you shlub!
Yay!
Hi Eddie,
Here's a term of endearment you can use. My Momma used to call me this when I was little:
"Cholaria voos da bist"
Cholera that you are...
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8!
Schlmiele! Schlemazzel!
Hassenpheffer Incorporated!
Who were Laverne & Shirley digging into with that one? ;)
Bubbelah! Such tsauris you shouldn't wish on anyone!
Another good book is Favorite Tales of Shalom Aleichem. He was a Yiddish writer whose work was later adapted into the musical Fiddler on the Roof. Anyway, the book is mostly in English but leaves many Yiddish words in and has a glossary too. I don't see Yiddish used too much today except for once in while on the Daily Show.
Ed, you should learn to speak another language. And I mean be fluent on it. Anything else will be so different than what you speak that you'll soon actually learn another culture, of which the language is only the first step, and only one of its infinite aspects. When I was a kid I wanted to stop taking english lessons, but my father wouldn't let me. Boy, was he right, I'm really glad I know english. Many of my friend don't, and I have no idea how can they like american/english movies, tv shows, etc. They miss so much just for not understanding the original text. I have an aunt who really likes Seinfeld. So do I, but it's weird that she does. She doesn't speak english, and many of the jokes can't be properly translated or sometimes the kind of humor is alien to people in my country. The cultural background needed to like this kind of humor must be acquired if you're not a native english speaker. The same thing must be true to any other language. I wish I learned at least a couple more of them. Maybe I'll try french next...
Eddie,
Accordian to "Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books" By Aaron Lansky, the language is sort of shunned by its own people. As a load of gobbage!
As a grad student with a Van, he wanted to learn more, and sort of accidently stumbled into the creating National (or North American perhaps) Archives of the books written in the tongue. It was considered low class, or uneducated, whatever, by whatever powers that be.
Took me a while to find the title of that book, even though I've read it. But amazingly enough, instead I found a CD to Learn Yiddish Subliminally In Your Sleep!
Whooda thunkit, that those seeking subliminal audio self improvement, would have had a secret hankering to speak Yiddish, as self actualization.
What a great face on that cover!
Yiddish is perhaps unique in all the world, as the language where so many words sound exactly like what they are. Putz, klutz, shlub, schmear, who can top these?
Now that Jews have Israel and blacks have their freedom the need for seperation is slowly disappearing.
Jive has it roots in urban black communities. We was already "free", just a little sequestered. Certain words like "ofay" go back to the deep south, but most of it came out of Harlem or Chicago.
Jive is alive and well, as is segregation, but nobody black calls it jive, or ever did, since maybe the 40's, if then. They don't call it anything, they just do it. The term "jive", basically meaning bullshit, is from then. Nowadays it is often used incorrectly to mean "jibe".
Jive gets incorporated into the mainstream even more than Yiddish. Cool, hip, square, dig, daddio, solid, jack, groove, jazz, blues, rock n roll, do rag, funk...
Unlike Yiddish most of these words actually already exist, only the usage is new.
Jive never sits still for very long; every generation gives it a different flava, largely because the old words get so popular with whites, but also because young people always want their own shit. But as long as there is still urban DK, there will still be some form of it, and maybe thereafter.
"Jazz" and "funk" sound a lot like what they are, too. Jazz originally meant "to do the nasty". Funk originally meant how you smell when you do the nasty, as well as how you do it (at least how blacks do it). That would be the James Brown meaning. This has been black history minute.
Gabriel: I don't doubt that I'd get a lot more insights into things if only I knew another language, Alas! I seem to be resistant to it!
Steve, Dan, Anonymous: I'll look up those titles, including the audio book!
Louisa: You're both Italian and Jewish? I'll bet you can't resist gesturing, even when you're alone with your hands tied behind your back!
Kali Fontecchio said...
Don't mishmash everything up!
I'm feelingfarklempt right now! (That snl lady...)
Genuk!
Oi Ve! The most famous of them all, I think. Well klutz is pretty popular too. And maybe even, you shlub!
Yay!
Kali, you meshuggina, I almost plotzed when I read your post. Oy Gavalt!
Eddie, what's with the mishegoss, a goy like you learning Yiddish? Mazel Tov to your studies! It makes this nebbish happy, but don't be a schmuck about it.
Now to go read my fershlugina Kurtman era MAD magazines.
My favorite "Yiddish" words aren't exactly 100% genuine Yiddish at all, but come to us courtesy of the combined geniuses of Milt Gross and Harvey Kurtzman, plus the brilliant, unsung comedy writers who worked during the golden age of American radio in the forties (all of whom seem to have been named either "Nat" or" Sol".)
What a debt lovers of comedy, and entertainment in general, owe to east coast Jewish immigrants.
potrzebie
veeblefetzer
furshlugginer
farshimmelt
shvitzbud
smeck
banana oil
Looey, dot dope
not in de head!
is dis a system?
http://www.bubbygram.com/yiddishglossary.htm
Also, don't forget to check out Leo Rosten's enduring classic "The Joys Of Yinglish", which has been in print since the Ice Age.
(What did you t'ink - I come from Minsk, or Pinsk, bubeleh?)
Feh!
I left off my list the uber-mensch of TV Yiddish: "Pookie" from the Soupy Sales Show!
David Germain: According to Brooklyn urban legend, the difference between a "shlemiel" and a "shlimazel" is - when the shlemiel (aka: klutz) spills his soup, it's usually the shlimazel (aka: loser) he spills it on.
I would go get my Yiddish dictionary and give you a more accurate definition - but I should shlep to the next room, and get a farfel shmootz on my pupik, maybe?
Surely, you kibbitz, shmendrik? Some chutzpah you got! Dun't be such a yutz, noodnik!
Go krotz your zaftig toochis, ya shnook!
"Kali, you meshuggina, I almost plotzed when I read your post. Oy Gavalt!"
Stop picking on me!
Stop picking on me!
Bubbellah, where did you get such a kockamayme idea that I was picking on you? I guess the meaning of my post got farcockt. I think if you as a mensch!
Bubbellah...
I misunderstood, I am not as well versed in the ways of Yiddish as you- or at all haha! You seem very enthusiastic...
Kali,
It comes from years of reading MAD magazine, listening to Lenny Bruce records and watching Mel Brooks movies.
Yet for coveted mainstream acceptance, Borscht belt comics followed the dictum "Briddish, not Yiddish" when tummeling in places other than Catskills resorts, until Lenny Bruce.
Myron Cohen rules!
That is a really good book, I'm halfway through it because I find it very heavy on the brain.
I especially like the "god paper" instead of "toilet paper"
I don't know whether it's you or the author who has failed to recognize that at least 10% of Yiddish is of Hebrew origin. Examples: mishpuchah, meshugah, milhumah, yuntuv, and on and on. Also, Yiddish is far older than just a few hundred years. It goes back at least a thousand years and developed as Jews migrated from German-speaking areas to Eastern Europe.
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