Yiddish Loanwords in English

A bus stop sign in English and Yiddish, in the U.S.A. (Image Credit)

Hello, and Happy Friday! Today I wanted to talk a little bit about loanwords. You might remember that a few months ago we talked about loanwords in English. Basically, a loanword is a word that starts in one language, and eventually is adopted into another language. Examples include words like:

*cotton, hashish, and sheikh (from Arabic)

*gung-ho, feng shui, and kung fu (from Chinese) 

*gulag, samovar, and babushka (from Russian) 

And there are many, many more examples of loanwords from many other languages. In this blog we looked at some examples of English loanwords from French, Spanish, and German, and today I want to talk about another interesting language that provided quite a few loanwords for English: Yiddish. 

Yiddish is a language that is closely related to German in many aspects, and it was originally spoken by Jewish people in central and eastern Europe. Immigration to the United States in the last 100 or more years also increased the number of people there who spoke Yiddish, and there are now a few hundred thousand people who speak Yiddish in the U.S.A. 

Yiddish loanwords are often found in entertainment like movies and TV shows, but there are also some words that many people use commonly, without knowing they're from Yiddish. When you say something is "schmaltzy," you mean that it's overly sentimental. If you call someone a "klutz," you mean that he or she is uncoordinated and clumsy. And if you eat a "bagel" with "lox," you're eating a type of round bread with some salmon inside. All the words in quotes came from Yiddish. Also, since Yiddish is closely related to German, it's possible to see similarities between the two languages (for example, "schmaltz" in Yiddish is "Schmalz" in German, and "lox" in Yiddish is "Lachs" in German).

A Yiddish sign in the U.S.A. from World War I. It tells people to not waste food. (Image Credit)

There are many Yiddish loanwords in English, but not all of them are very common. You can see lists here and here. Here are

Ryan's Top Five Favorite Yiddish Loanwords in English:

5. schmaltzy: As mentioned above, this means something is overly sentimental or "cheesy." "Schmaltz" actually refers to chicken fat used for cooking, so the word just seems gross in general. Example sentence: "I got my girlfriend a big bouquet of roses and a really schmaltzy card for Valentine's Day."

4. chutzpah: Apparently it's not very positive in Yiddish, but in English it generally means super-confidence or arrogance, but it's not always negative. Example sentence: "Jenny told her boss to her face that she didn't feel like working because it was Friday. She's really got a lot of chutzpah!"

3. klutz: As mentioned before, it's an uncoordinated or clumsy person. Example sentence: "I was a waiter but I got fired because I dropped four plates in a single week. I guess I'm just a big klutz."

2. schlock: Usually used to refer to something that is cheap or of bad quality. Example sentence: "My parents went to Paris and all they brought back was this schlocky plastic statue of the Eiffel Tower." 

1. schlep: This means to carry something heavy, annoying, big, or difficult over a long distance. Example sentence: "I thought I would need my laptop while I was on my trip, so I had to schlep that heavy piece of schlock all over the place with me."

Do you know of any other Yiddish loanwords in English, or in other languages? If so, feel free to leave a comment below.

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!

Good Comic

A few weeks ago we were looking at different loanwords in English, and one thing that many loanwords had in common is that they describe foods. We didn't look specifically at Italian loanwords in English, but when I saw this Bizarro comic the other day, I thought it was funny and I wanted to share it:

You can find more comics and a blog by Bizarro's author/creator here. Thanks for reading, and have a nice weekend!

German and English: Similarities and Differences

A few weeks ago we were looking at loanwords from other languages, including German. I said that I wanted to mention some similarities and differences between German and English, since I teach both languages and I'm hoping to start teaching a German class soon. So, that's what this post is about. If you're not interested, that's OK; I'll try to put up another English-learning post later this week. So, here we go:

"March 18th Plaza," in Berlin.

SIMILARITIES: History, Vocabulary, and Verbs

Historically, German and English came from the same language family. In fact, English is considered a "Germanic" language (click here for a language map and here for a cool graphic with more information). That means that many common words are similar in both languages. Some quick, easy examples are house/Haus, man/Mann, here/hier, and good/gut. 

If you have a high level of vocabulary in English, you can also notice other similarities between the two languages. For example, the German word for "dog" is "Hund." That looks pretty different, but if you know that "hound" is another English word for "dog," then you can see the similarity. Similarly, "chair" is "Stuhl" in German; it looks very different, but it's pronounced quite similarly to "stool," a synonym for "chair." There are many more examples.

Another area where we notice both similarities and differences is grammar. In some ways, German grammar is horrible (trust me). Simply put, it's much more complicated than English grammar. Still, if you know that a verb is irregular in English, it's almost always irregular in German, too. For example, the English verb "to swim" is conjugated swim - swam - swum; in German, it's schwimmen - schwamm - geschwommen. That's obviously not exactly the same, but if you compare it to a Romance language like Spanish (nadar - nadé - nadado), then you can see English is quite a bit closer to German than Spanish.

Löschwassereinspeisung is a compound noun meaning "fire-fighting water feed-in."

DIFFERENCES: Grammar, Vocabulary, and Pronunciation

Before we look at the differences, I wanted to recommend a semi-famous article by Mark Twain called "The Awful German Language." It's a classic among German students, but even if you don't study German, it's pretty funny, and you can hopefully read it to appreciate the German language--while laughing a bit, also!

As you probably noticed, "vocabulary" was in the "similarities" category, too. That's because there are some similar words between English and German, but there are also many different words, as well as different word-forming patterns. As you can see in the picture above, German can sometimes have very long compound nouns. Some can get ridiculously long. Here's a fun one, since yesterday was Independence Day in the U.S.: Unabhängigkeitserklärung ("independence declaration"). Speaking of nouns, another characteristic of German is that the first letter in a noun is always capitalized; that's why Hund, Stuhl, and Unabhängigkeitserklärung are all written with a capital letter.

Another difference is definite and indefinite articles. These exist in English, but they're more complicated in German. The English definite article is "the," and the indefinite article is "a" or "an." But in German, the definite article can be der if the word is masculine, die if it's feminine, or das if it's "neuter." For example, Stuhl is masculine--don't ask me why, though!--so it's technically "der Stuhl," if the word is the subject of a sentence. If it's an object, it changes to den Stuhl. And it changes again if it's an indirect object and again if it's possessive. And that's just for the definite articles--the indefinite articles are a whole other problem! To make a long story short, there are between 6 and 12 ways to say the word "the" (depending on how you count).

And adjectives are even worse.

You're probably thinking, "Wow, that's horrible! Aren't there any good differences between German and English?" Yes, there is at least one area where German is generally considered easier than English: Pronunciation. English pronunciation is notoriously difficult to master, but German is much more phonetic, and if you can figure out how to read some of those ridiculously long words, you can also probably pronounce them without too many problems. German does have a few different sounds and letters (Ö, Ü, and Ä, plus the ß, which is basically the same as "ss"), but once you learn what they sound like, they always sound the same way, which is convenient. Then you just need to work on accent reduction!

So, I think that's all for now. I could talk a long time about all this stuff, so I hope it was interesting for anyone who's made it this far. I also hope I've not scared you away from German forever! It's difficult, but also sort of fun if you learn it with the right attitude. If you've got any questions about English, German, or anything else, please feel free to say hi in the comments section or contact me. 

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

Weekend Words: Loanwords

A buffet table. Have you ever wondered why it's spelled with a "T," but pronounced "buf-A"?

Maybe you've noticed English speakers saying bon appetit before they eat their lunch, or you heard one say gesundheit when someone sneezed. Or maybe it's occurred to you that kindergarten is spelled with a "T," but garden is spelled with a "D." Or maybe you wondered why the "T" isn't pronounced in words like valet, fillet, buffet, or chalet. If you've experienced any of these situations, then you might have thought that English was a bit insane, but the truth is that you were simply noticing what's called "loanwords."

A loanword is simply a word that one language adopts or adapts from another language. Loanwords can really go from any language to another, but in English they're really common. As English has developed through the centuries, it has taken on many loanwords from languages like Greek, German, Spanish, and, more recently, especially French. 

You can follow some of the links in this post to read more about loanwords now, and in the next few weeks we'll look at some specific loanwords from different languages. For now, I'd also recommend this interesting short story, which is written almost entirely with French loanwords!

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!