Authors: Marnie Winston-Macauley
“Mrs. Farber had the gall to bring her own turkey to our house for Thanksgiving.”
“Mrs. Farber shlepped her own turkey to me on Thanksgiving! What chutzpah!”
The first is way too polite, and probably ends the issue.
The second is felt down to the spleen. “What an insult! Did that idiot think I wouldn’t make enough? Was she just being a witch and showing off her hotsy totsy silver serving plate? Can
you believe a normal human would do such a thing?! This, I’m getting to the bottom of!”
Then there’s the reply:
“Mrs. Farber had the chutzpah to bring to you her own turkey on Thanksgiving?” you ask.
“Gall” would never even make it onto the runway. In this example, the speaker could be silently chuckling, thinking, “Way to go, Mrs. Farber! You risked wrath and possible banishment, but you had the chutzpah to finally bring a turkey that wouldn’t send people to Mount Sinai hospital.” See? And it all comes from the glorious—Yiddish.
As Yiddish and Yinglish are artfully used by many a Jewish mother, and language is a critical component of culture, here are some facts and examples, which gives us a sense of not merely a language, but a mindset. For a thorough examination of Yiddish, I recommend
Born to Kvetch,
by Michael Wex.
Yiddish, not to be confused with Hebrew, the language of Eastern European Jews, is a hybrid of German, Polish, Russian, Romanian, Ukrainian, and other Slovene dialects. It is also known as
mama-loshen,
“mothers’ language,” since Jewish women, who were taught little Hebrew, spoke it to their children, who, as adults, spoke it to Jews from other Eastern European countries in shtetls—or on the run. Yiddish became the common denominator and contributed to its remarkable richness. My grandmother, for example, was Polish. My grandfather was Russian. Yet they communicated in Yiddish. It is doubtful there is another language that is quite so brave, anxious, hilarious, critical, bawdy, nuanced, passionate, hysterical, subversive, loving, irreverent, expressive, filled with majesty, and sentiment—and kvetching.
Timeline: | |
| Initial Yiddish | 1000–1250 AD |
| Old Yiddish | 1250–1500 AD |
| Medieval Yiddish | 1500–1750 AD |
| Modern Yiddish | 1750-on |
Yiddish began when Jews from the north of France
settled along the Rhine, adding Germanic dialects to their Hebrew and old French. The language flourished, beginning in 1179, as Jews, driven by pogroms into a variety of countries, brought their languages along.
A
N OFTEN OVERLOOKED FACT:
While the sacred books are in Hebrew and/or Aramaic, discussions in the shuls, yeshivas, and other Jewish institutions were and frequently still are conducted in Yiddish!
A
s OF
2001:
Harvard has the only endowed Yiddish chair.
Only 0.5 percent of Yiddish literature has been translated into English.
About a hundred books are printed in Yiddish annually.
Apart from the Andrews Sisters record of “Bei Mir Bist du Schön,” the only Yiddish song that mainstreamed was Joan Baez’s 1960s version of “Dona, Dona.”
The
Oxford English Dictionary
contained 144 words of Yiddish origin.
G
ertie and Betty were discussing Yiddish when Betty observed, “You know, there’s no word for ‘disappointed!’
“I can’t believe it. Wait, I’ll call my mother.”
To her mother, Gertie asked in Yiddish, “Mama, if I promised to bring the family to dinner, and you worked all day to make the finest meal—chopped liver, soup, chicken—then, two minutes before we’re supposed to arrive, I telephone to say something important came up and I can’t come. What would you say?”
“Hmmm,” she sighed. “I’d say,
‘Oy bin ich
(am I)… disappointed.’”
I can recall my own mother asking my
bubbe
(gram) how to say “Happy Birthday” in Yiddish. After mulling, she blurted: “Heppy Boyzday!”
As the language of the persecuted, along with our superstitions, much of Yiddish is euphemistic and critical. God forbid anyone should think something’s going well, someone (or something, such as the evil eye) will make sure to snatch it. Many a Jewish mother felt it was better not to tempt fate by over-talking.
“So, how’s your son Joel’s practice?”
“Eh … it’s there.”
“I heard your daughter’s engaged.”
“Finally.”
“I saw in the paper your grandchild was valedictorian and plans to go to Harvard.”
“We’ll see.”
Better yet, the Jewish mother may pretend not to be too crazy about good fortune.
“Ma, don’t worry. I’m sure the doctor will say it’s nothing serious.”
“I should be so lucky!”
“Eliot just got a promotion!”
“With any luck, he’ll keep it.”
“Mama, the new pool Dad put in is great.”
“With his
mazel
(luck) he’ll hurt his back with his swan dives.”
Many Jewish mothers also
gestured to
ward off enemies, demons, and evil eyes when hoping or speaking well of something. One of our most popular, which many including myself use, is the ubiquitous, ever handy—spit. (And you thought it was only used by Jewish mothers to wipe a smudge.) Heaven forbid, you say, “I hope my son passed his entrance exams—spitspitspit,” “Your baby? Gorgeous— and so healthy—spitspitspit,” or “The buyers made a bid on our house—spitspitspit,” those around you could water their lawns.
Less humid is the
keyn eynhore,
or “no evil eye.” It’s a magical phrase that when uttered has the power to ward off bad events. The Jewish mother has the option of saying: “My triplets—are now developing perfectly,
keyn eynhore.”
The flip side of protecting our assets in a brutal world is complaining and arguing about it. And Jews, with a rich tradition of argumentation, have peppered Yiddish with
tsouris
(trouble) and kvetches. If we understand Yiddish and Yinglish in the context of our history, it may not take the sting out of the language, but makes it comprehensible—and today, often hysterical.
There has never been one word that constitutes a small vocabulary more than “oy.” The ubiquitous kvetch, the Jewish mother uses it to register surprise, pain, relief, despair, or horror. The meaning varies from, “Oy, I gained five pounds” to “The IRS is auditing?! Oy vey!” (The “vey” adding more woe to the “oy.”) Bigger than “too bad,” it comes from the
kishkas
(guts) of Jewish trials.
A classic:
“Oy …” said Mrs. Levy.
“Oy-oy-oy,” sighed Mrs. Stein
“Oy vey,” answered Mrs. Cohen.
Mrs. Fein folded her beach chair. “Bite your tongues! Didn’t we agree not to discuss the children?!”
A first cousin is “
nu”
—registering any and all from a sigh, a grimace, a sneer, to a grunt, among more benign emotions.
“Lisa, I saw you talking to that nogoodnik,
nu?
!”
(What’s the story!)
“Nu,
he stopped me on the street.” (So what could I do?)
“And the next time …
Nu?”
(Haven’t you learned your lesson, with that
yutz?
)
Oy
and
nu
together work like a dictionary!
“Nu?”
said Mrs. Frankel.
“Nu,”
said Mrs. Greenbaum.
“Nu!”
said Mrs. Frankel.
“
Nu
,” said Mrs. Greenbaum.
“Nu?!!”
said Mrs. Frankel.
“Oy! Alright, already!” said Mrs. Greenbaum. “This week I’ll take carpool!”
In addition to the always handy “oy,” the Yinglish-speaking mother can use a number of linguistic devices to register scorn and criticism. A few of these include: repetition, sarcasm, shifting emphasis or meaning, the afterthought, word additions—and of course, the
question.
Repetition: This device simply requires answering a stupid question— with the question in declarative form.
“Mama, don’t you want to me to be happy and fulfilled?”
“No, I don’t want you to be happy and fulfilled.” (Did my daughter suddenly become a
shmegegge
[idiot] or what?)
Sarcasm: Also a handy device for the stupid comment. Exaggeration here makes the point beautifully.
“Mama, should I have a car pick you up?”
“Actually, I’d prefer shlepping on three buses.”
(Did my son suddenly become a
shmegegge
or what?)
Shifting emphasis can turn “scorn” into art. Listen … “Is this a serious relationship?” Simple right? Not right.
Is this a serious relationship? (I’ll believe that when elephants fly.)
Is
this a
serious relationship? (Finally, one before I die.)
Is this a
serious
relationship? (Or are you
futzing
around, as usual?)
Is this a serious
relationship?
(From what I saw between you, darling, I have more of a “relationship” with my butcher.)
“Lovely” is, by most people, a nice compliment. But when my mother or grandmother said it, it meant, “Oy, you could
plotz
from that!”
“On you, it looks lovely.” (Burn it.)
“Your new girlfriend? Lovely, just lovely.” (Bring me the Rolaids.)
“Your son’s studying flamenco. How lovely.” (Oy … he needs therapy.)
“It was a lovely thought.” (Too bad you didn’t have a better one.)
One of the linguistic traits my grandmother failed to pick up was the “white lie.” No matter how many times we tried to tell her the absolute truth wasn’t entirely necessary, she never quite got hold of the concept. Every time we saw disaster coming—like the time Mrs. Needleman insisted on showing photos of her grandson—my mother and I would clutch our hearts and say a little prayer. But there it was. Grandma would take one long look at the photos and say in her deeply Yiddish accent, “Hmmm, not very good-looking,
nebuch
(pity).” After losing four friends, we began mumbling something about “arterial flow-problem.”
The afterthought: There is nothing like an “innocent” add-on of a word, or a partial word, to make a point when the listener is not doing his job. Expert Yinglish speakers can emphasize (OK, zing) with the afterthought, which, of course, is the whole point.
“So, Molly,” said Myrna, “have you made up your mind where to send your David for speech therapy?”
“No … we’re still considering the whole thing.”
“Don’t rush. Sleep on it. Listen, by the time he’s married, he’ll probably talk right—
if there’s still time.”
More examples of the afterthought.
“Yes, OK! I admit, a good cook she is, that witch.”
“Even so, he graduated medical school, that
nudnik.”
“Yet she managed to snag a millionaire, that alrightnik.”
New word additions, or partial word additions: A little inventive word play or exclamations can completely alter a sentence.
The poetic “shm” when added to a word can deflate faster than a dirigible on the Space Needle.
Rich-shmich:
“Your boyfriend doesn’t spend a nickel.”
Fancy-shmancy:
“Darling, it still looks like a
skmatte
(cheap rag).”
Dentist-shmentist:
“He still spits when he talks.”
Pate-shmate:
“It can’t touch my chopped liver.”
And finally, the Queen of Yinglish—the Question! Whether this comes from thousands of years of debate and argumentation and/or reflects our precarious relationship with the world where a question is safer than making a definitive statement, answering a question with a question is at the very core of Yiddish and Yinglish.
“Ma, your soup was delicious.”
“And the brisket you didn’t like?”
“Ma, when’s Passover this year?”
“What am I, a calendar?”
“Ma, I finally bought a new car.”
“And who can afford the insurance?”
“Ma, I haven’t called in a week. So what’s new?”
“You didn’t wonder if I was lying dead somewhere?”
S
ince many Jewish mothers answer a question—with a question—why not try it?
M
OTHER:
“Esther told me a single doctor just joined the temple. Why don’t you come with us this Friday?”
D
AUGHTER:
“So how are things with Esther?”
M
OTHER:
“Who knows? Would it kill you to come to temple this week?
D
AUGHTER:
“I
S
Esther’s arthritis still acting up?”
M
OTHER:
“What am I, a rheumatologist?
D
AUGHTER:
“When you see her, will you ask her?”
M
OTHER:
“What’s with you and Esther? You know what? Forget I even asked!”
Yiddish and Yinglish do not bear fools lightly—and neither do Jewish mothers. There are almost as many words for fools as the Iron Chef has recipes for rice. With the emphasis on learning, personal ethics, and common sense, it’s not surprising the Jewish mother holds those “without” in contempt. Although, one theory sees the fool as the “anti-scholar,” lightening the learning load in the shtetls. But more, in the small insular towns of Europe, where Jews held no status in the outside world, one’s own psychological status within their community may be raised by recognizing yet, those who are deemed inferior.
Many have been elevated to first and last name status. Leo Rosten describes a few: Chaim Yankel, Joe Nebuch, Shmerl Narr, Moishe Kapoyr, Shimmel Shlemiel, Lester Lemish, Shimon Shmegegge, Moishe Pupik. These are all pathetic souls who blend in with the wallpaper—or rip it falling because someone stepped on them. And the outspoken Jewish mother was a master, given her gift for both the verbal and the psychological.