I may have written about this before, but I'm past the point where I can search for an older entry and link back to it. The empress will remember, though, I think.Yiddishkeit means the Yiddish-language based culture of the Jews of Eastern Europe. These were people who were denied citizenship in the countries in which they were born, and who generally had very little to do with those outside cultures, especially those Jews who were poor and/or lived in small villages. Although Yiddish as a language grew out of Hebrew and an old form of German, it wasn't usually spoken by German Jews, who were, in fact, assimilated into that country's culture, and so spoke German. But the Jews of Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Austria, Hungary, and Latvia spoke Yiddish as their mama-loshen (mother tongue.)
So much for the history lesson. All four of my grandparents and everyone else they knew of their generation spoke to each other primarily in Yiddish, the language they knew from "the other side". They were all lanzmen (countrymen, neighbors). It was the language they spoke at home, although their children had to speak English to go to school. My mother, in fact, spoke Yiddish first, and did not learn English at all until she was four or five, although both her parents were fluent in English and she had an older brother already in school. My father's parents, however, did not permit him to speak Yiddish, although he understood it fluently. They wanted him to be American.
I heard Yiddish all around me from the time I was born, although not nearly as much as my sister did, because she and my parents lived in my grandparents' apartment until she was about four, just before I was born. But we lived in the same building they lived in, and they were always around. As a child, I thought that all old people had accents. I somehow assumed that everyone in America had grandparents who had come here from some other country. Of course, everyone I knew did have grandparents from Russia, or Poland, or Latvia, or Lithuania.
Over time, English replaced Yiddish for all of them, unless they were alone. If my grandparents were apart -- say Grandpa in Florida and Grandma visiting us for a few weeks -- they would write letters to each other in Yiddish script. But they spoke English to me, except for those expressions that linger on.
Yiddish is a very colorful and expressive language. One of my favorite words has always been shvitz. It means sweat, the verb, only more so. You can say "I'm sweating like a pig" but it's more believable somehow if you say "Oy, I'm shvitzing!" The word sounds like what it means.
There are many sites that give good definitions for Yiddish words. Here's one, which I think the empress actually sent me once. It's usually the one I link to when I link. I've also collected several books about or in Yiddish over the years, and sometimes I get my definitions from those. My vice-principal at school, who is not Jewish, is very intrigued by Yiddish, and I'm one of her staff informants, who feeds her expressions or definitions from time to time. I need to keep my research up!
Voodoochick asked me to post a list of Yiddish words, but rather than try to be complete, I'll just share a view of my faves, and some of the basics. Remember, it's representative of a particular culture, one that uses a great deal of imagery in its speech. Almost everything has both a literal and a figurative meaning. My parents' generation fell into the habit of mixing Yiddish expressions into their everyday English speech (as I do), rather than converse with each other in Yiddish. And spelling, of course, is anybody's guess. Real written Yiddish uses the Hebrew alphabet
kuchleffel - Literally, a cooking spoon. A kuchleffel is someone who stirs things up. ("She told you that your husband is having an affair? That kuchkleffel!")
fadrai dein agenah kup - Literally, go bother your own head. This is what my mother said to me fifty times a day when I was a pesty little whiny kid. Figuratively, leave me alone!
faigeleh - This is a term of endearment for a little child; my grandmother addressed me most of the time as faigeleh. ("Faigeleh, make the light!") Literally, little bird.
ainikle - Means grandchild. She would introduce me to people as "the baby ainikle.)
mensch - Literally, a man. A mensch is someone who does the right thing, is a good person. A mensch supports his family, visits his mother, pays his taxes, doesn't cut you off on the highway.
goy -- A goy is a non-Jewish person. A gentile. The plural is goyim. Sometimes, goyim would be used to mean the entire non-Jewish world out there.
schicksa -- A non-Jewish girl, as in what they didn't want their sons to marry. A non-Jewish boy would be a shaygets, which I'm guessing wasn't as big a concern for them, since the word is not as common. Perhaps they didn't expect their daughters to marry outside the faith. Surprise!
machutunim -- I love this one; like many Yiddish words, there is no English equivalent. Machutunim are in-laws' in-laws. In other words, my parents' machuntumim were my husband's parents. My mother-in-law would have been my parents' machutenesta. My father-in-law would have been their mahoutin. And vice-versa.
meshuggena -- If you are meshuggena, you are crazy. Your craziness is misheggas. You can also be a meshuggena, a crazy person. This is crazy as in "You're nuts!" and not crazy as in "You need to be legally institutionalized", as applied to my Uncle Aaron. The other word for Uncle Aaron would be
shonda -- A shame. (Not as in shameful, but as in, Oh, what a shame!") Similarly ...
nebbuch -- Poor thing. I use this one all the time, and K uses it, too. It usually follows a sad thing you had to say about someone. It can be used very seriously ("She got the diagnosis, nebbuch" or more facetiously "Did you see that haircut she got, nebbuch?")
emes! -- Really! The straight story! I am not making this up! (My grandmother punctuated a lot of her stories with emes!, presumably to encourage people to believe her.)
epis -- This was another one of my grandmother's. To me, it means "the perfect example of which is". Now I know that sounds strange. Here is my main memory of her using it. She had gone to see a movie because of the wonderful actresses in it, but it turned out to be Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and it totally freaked her out. Her lament to me afterwards was "Why don't they make good movies anymore, epis Now, Voyager?" Now, Voyager was her favorite movie of all time.
genug -- Enough! I heard this one from my mother plenty, too.
beshert -- This is a sweet one. It means fate, or kismet. If you have found your soul-mate, then it was beshert. It was meant to be. If not ...
shiddach -- An arranged marriage, or a match. If your cousin second-removed introduced you to the guy you ended up with, even if the two of you fell in love on your own and it was beshert, she will claim credit for the shiddach. This makes her the shadchen, the matchmaker.
kvetch -- Well, I use this one in my diary all the time. It means to complain, or gripe. Someone who is a kvetch is a complainer.
kvell -- It means to swell with pride. When your child graduates from college, you kvell. When someone tells you that your child has done a good job, or helped someone in trouble, you kvell. Kvelling is usually done on behalf of one's child or grandchild, but not necessarily.
naches -- Another sweet one. Naches is the joy you get from someone else. ("My daughter made dinner tonight! Oy, the naches I get from her!")
shtup -- Ahem. Literally, it means to fuck someone. Figuratively, it's more often meant like socking it to someone. I've also heard it used to mean to give someone a bribe, as in "If you want your apartment painted again this year, you'll have to shtup the super." Like slip him a fifty.)
drek -- shit.
schmuck -- has come to mean the kind of idiot who has caused his own dilemma, but literally it means penis. There are dozens of words that literally mean penis but that are used figuratively to describe varying levels of stupid or mean or bad behavior.
tuches -- ass, behind, buttocks, or, if you're six, tushie.
oy -- it just means "oh." Oy vey literally means "Oh woe!"
shnorr -- to shnorr is to grub off someone else, whether you're shnorring a meal by not picking up the check, or my favorite, to express so much appreciation for someone else's stuff that they wind up giving it you. If you do this habitually, you are a shnorrer.
chozzer -- a pig, a greedy person. Speaking of pigs ...
trafe -- food that isn't Kosher.
ongepatchket -- Oh, what a good word. Let's say you're wearing jeans and a denim jacket, and they have little silver and gold chains hanging from them, and all kinds of leathery fringes, and you have fringed boots with buckles on them, and long hanging complicated earrings, and many strands of beads in different sizes and shapes and colors, and IT'S ENOUGH ALREADY! You look too ... too ... MUCH! Ongepatchket!
Kosher -- not a Yiddish word, but Hebrew; it means food that you can eat because it complies with the dietary laws as specified in the Torah. The Torah, essentially the first five books of the Old Testament, are the foundation of the Jewish religion. In common use, if something is kosher, it's okay, like it has the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. It's on the up-and-up.
glatt Kosher -- This one makes no sense to me. Glatt implies that the food is really Kosher, no doubt about it, everything you can get in this establishment is absolutely Kosher! Since Kosher is in and of itself an absolute, all food is either Kosher or it's not. I don't know what the glatt is for.
in miten drinen -- in the middle of everything. ("And then, in miten drinen, the doorbell rang!")
yenem velt -- out in the middle of nowhere. In English, I've heard people say "Bumblefuck" to mean an imaginary place that's far away from everywhere. In Yiddish, it's yenem velt, which I think literally means far country. I used this expression once when R was about 5; we were looking for a repair shop out off a highway in the country, and I said we were going to yenem velt. Surprised, confused, she said "Where are we going? Yenimsville?" So now in my house, the middle of nowhere is Yenimsville.
a shaina maidelah -- a pretty girl. a shaina punim is a pretty face. Sometimes you will see an older person pinch a child's cheek and exclaim "Look at that punim!" or someone with a guilty look might be said to "have a punim on him."
shpilkes -- Mike Myers used this one on Coffee Talk. Shpilkes is when you can't sit still; if you've got shpilkes, you've got ants in the pants.
luch in kop -- My mother would say "I need it like a luch in kop!" A hole in the head.
sha! -- Shh! Be quiet!
nu? -- So?
zei gezunt -- Be well! Usually used as a good bye.
L'chaim! -- A toast. To life!
mitzvah -- a blessing or a good deed. Probably Hebrew.
My brain is drained. If I think of more, I'll share.
