Whose Yiddish is richer? DEBORAH STONE meets two researchers surveying Americans and Australians to compare their familiarity and usage of Yiddish words
WE DON’T WANT to noodge you but be a mensch and do a mitzvah for a couple of language mavens. They’d love you to get off your tuchus and complete this survey about the use of Yiddisher words in English.
If you are Jewish, you probably understood much of the above paragraph, even if you don’t speak Yiddish or Hebrew. To what extent non-Jewish people have also absorbed Jewish vocabulary into their English language usage is a question which interests linguists Emma Breslow and Caroline Hendy.
The two doctoral students at the University of Hawaii are currently surveying Americans and Australians, Jewish and non-Jewish, to compare their familiarity and usage of Jewish terms. They would prefer you to fill in their survey before you read the rest of this article so your language isn’t primed by discussion of their work. (It takes about 20 minutes.)
Breslow and Hendy come to their interest in Jewish English from opposite directions. Breslow is a Jewish American who grew up in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Her mother, who had lived in New York, often dropped Yiddish words into conversation but the young linguist-to-be was initially unaware that her mother’s vocabulary was not part of standard American English.
“I remember I was in middle school, and I was talking to my friends about plants. There’s a weed called vetch and I said something about how we always kvetch about vetch and my non-Jewish friends just looked at me. It was the first time I realised that it wasn’t an English word.”
A non-Jewish Australian, Hendy’s introduction to Jewish vocabulary, on the other hand, came when she met her husband Daniel, who is Jewish and grew up in Melbourne.
They hypothesise that the higher population of US Jews will mean there are more Jewish terms used in American English
“He used all these terms I had never heard before and I really loved them: words like nachas and shlemiel andshemozzle. They are just such great words.”
She also discovered that words she thought she knew changed in Jewish mouths. She had only heard the word chutzpah used with admiration, but among Jewish friends she heard it used as an admonition.
Comparing their different experiences, the two linguists hit on the idea of studying the different usage of words drawn from Yiddish in the vocabulary of Australians and Americans. They hypothesise that the higher population and profile of American Jews will mean there are more Jewish terms used in American English – but exploring language is not a mere numbers game.
Some Jewish terms have come into Australian English from Yiddish but via British English and are little known to Americans. The word shemozzl – a personal favourite of Hendy’s – is an example of a British Yiddish word used more in Australia than the US. Gazumping, a word known to all real estate players in Australia, whatever their background, is unknown in the US.
The word shemozzl is an example of a British Yiddish word used more in Australia than the US.
The trademark Australian linguistic habit of shortening anything that can be shortened has also impacted on Australian Jewish English. Australian Jewish youngsters regularly refer to their barmi or batmi. While American Jews and non-Jews are familiar with barmitzvah and batmitzvah, they usually draw a blank on the peculiarly Australian abbreviation.
One aspect that interests the linguists is to what extent Jewish people curtail their use of Jewish vocabulary when speaking with non-Jews. In their survey, they ask participants to think about not only whether they understand or use a word but with whom they use it.
This question measures the degree to which English has been changed by the influence of Jewish words and the degree to which using Jewish words functions as an identity marker.
When I hear a fellow dog owner at the park admonishing her pup to stop begging treats from other people with the words “Don’t be such a shnorrer!” does the term signal a fellow Jew or just indicate that the word has come into English? Is the answer different if the dog park is in New York or Melbourne? In Caulfield or Geelong?
Gazumping, a word known to all real estate players in Australia, whatever their background, is unknown in the US.
Breslow and Hendy’s study follows on a 2010 study by Sarah Bunin Benor evocatively titled Mensch, bentsh, and balagan: Variation in the American Jewish linguistic repertoire. Benor found American Jews speak English with distinctive linguistic features, and with variations based on age, level of religious observance and region.
She has built a Jewish English Lexicon which functions as an urban dictionary of English based on Yiddish, Hebrew and Aramaic and includes words in religious life, in business-speak and in leftist politics, among others. A random search throws upItchy (a Syrian Jewish term for an Ashkenazi Jew, shaila (from Hebrew, a question usually in the context of seeking a religious ruling), and zitsfleish (the ability to stick at something, from Yiddish for ‘sitting flesh’).
Jewish English continues to evolve. Breslow cites a new term which was nominated as a 2020 Word of the Year: Oysgezoomt
Like all languages, Jewish English continues to evolve. Breslow cites a new term which came into the English last year and was nominated as a 2020 Word of the Year: Oysgezoomt– a word all too resonant for those of us who have spent large sections of the year locked down and communicating on Zoom.
Breslow hopes the new study will contribute to validating the linguistic experiences of Jewish Americans and Australians and enabling them to see the wealth of their cultural inheritance.
“A lot of Jewish people are surprised to learn how much Jewish influence there has been on English. They might be secular or not know much about Judaism, but they have this rich store of cultural knowledge and that’s really cool,” she said.
Photo: Photo: New York licence plate (Courtesy website: I could cry but I don’t have the time)
