“By borrowing a word from another language, you give this language a compliment. After all, such a word seems to you somehow special. It has a charm,” says Ronen Steinke. In 2020, a German publicist and lawyer published a book that talks about borrowed concepts from Yiddish that have taken root in the German language. These include, for example: a thief, a swindler (“Ganove”), a prison (“Knast”), an insolvent debtor (“Pleitegeier”), fraud and discord (“Zoff”), a hole in the meaning of an abandoned place (“Kaff”) … All of these words have their roots in Yiddish.
Steinke admits that Yiddish often seems to him more euphonious than German. “Du bist meschugge” sounds much better to him than “du bist nicht bei Verstand” (can be translated as “You’re out of your mind!”). Angeschickert is better than besoffen (drunk), malochen is better than arbeiten (to work).
Ronen Steinke
At the same time, Ronen Steinke draws attention to the fact that words borrowed from Yiddish are often used in German in an inverted and negative sense. “Language shapes our perception of each other,” Steinke says. For example, the term “Mischpoke” in Yiddish simply means family. In German, they say that about unpleasant people. “Ische” is simply a woman in Yiddish, but in German it has become a bad name.
If the borrowing of words is accompanied by such a negative connotation, then this indicates what idea was spread about the native speakers of the language from which they were borrowed. In the Middle Ages, Jews from poor neighborhoods were actually equated by the Germans with thieves and swindlers. The author of the book has a few more examples: “Schachern” – in Yiddish means “to trade”, “to make money”. In German, this verb is used when they want to emphasize that money is earned dishonestly. Or “mauscheln”: someone is trying to bargain for themselves the best conditions in secret from others.
But in fact “Mauschel”, as the expert explains, is Moses in Yiddish. And only in the 17th century a verb was made from a proper name, and even with a negative meaning. The Germans still use this word. And even if this is done without malicious intent, but simply out of old habit, such a vocabulary still offends Jews. The publicist compares such words with arsenic. In small doses, it does not cause any harm, but if you use it for years, then the effect of the poison will certainly make itself felt.
Therefore, it is not surprising that Steinke titled his book like this: “Antisemitismus in der Sprache: Warum es auf die Wortwahl ankommt” It is important for the author to show that such “delicate concepts” in the language often have an even greater impact than outright anti-Semitic statements, which are immediately noticeable and which can be quickly “banned” when it comes to social networks.
Yiddish: from the history of the language
Yiddish originated in the 13th century, when Jews in Germany lived only in ghettos. Over time, many had to flee to the Kingdom of Poland, where they could live more freely and practice their faith. Therefore, Yiddish arose from the intertwining of several dialects. About 10 million people spoke Yiddish, from Kiev to Berlin. But after the Holocaust, not a trace of many Jewish communities and shtetl remained. Today, there are not many ultra-Orthodox communities that continue to speak Yiddish on a regular basis, the author of the book writes.
Especially after World War II, Jews who settled in Israel saw Yiddish as the language of the oppressed. And even if Yiddish was once spoken by more than half of the entire Jewish community, over time they began to treat it as a relic of the past. It was only in the 21st century that a new generation of young Israelis began to show interest in the language of their ancestors. Steinke is convinced that Yiddish is only good for the German language – even if sometimes there is confusion with the concepts: “Sometimes the most suitable word for this is” Schlamassel “(confusion).”
See also:
.