LL-L "Etymology" 2010.03.09 (05) [EN]

Wed Mar 10 02:13:49 UTC 2010

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*L O W L A N D S - L - 09 March 2010 - Volume 05*
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From: Paul Anisman <panisman at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2010.03.09 (02) [EN]

Ron - In support of your statement assigning Yiddish origin to the verb "to
nosh" and the noun "nosh", I can attest to the fact that, when I was a kid
in Brooklyn (1940s-'50s) very, very few people outside the Jewish community
would ever have used either of those terms, and most would have likely never
even heard of them....but the terms were most certainly alive and well
inside the Jewish community. Same holds true for other
borrowings...."maven", "shlep", "khutspeh", among others, as well as a
couple of choice, obscene epithets (since this is a family show)....not to
mention the amazing proliferation of "bagels" (as a term, and as a food)
among the general U.S. population.
--Paul

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Etymology
>
> Dear Lowlanders,
>
> As most of you probably know, “to nosh” is a colloquial English word for
> “to eat,” often especially in the sense of “to snack,” and the noun “nosh”
> usually means something like “snack.”
>
> I am fairly confident in saying that these go back to the Yiddish verb *
> nash-* (נאַשן nashn) ‘to snack’ and/or noun *nash* (נאַש) ‘snack’.
> Theoretically, they could have come from the German verb *nasch-* (*
> naschen*) ‘to snack’ (usually more in the sense of ‘to have a treat’,
> particularly a sweet treat). I don’t think German has a noun form of it.
>
> Old German has the verb *naskōn* ‘to nibble’, while Danish has *naske* and
> Swedish has *naska* with similar meanings. It is my belief that the
> original meaning was something like *’to chew on something’. The reason for
> this is that I suspect it is also related to English “to gnash” (as in “to
> gnash one’s teeth”), thus with an old prefix *g-. This again is related to
> Low Saxon *gnasch-* (*gnaschen* ~ *gnarschen*) and (> Middle Saxon?)
> Danish *gnaske* ‘to gnash’, ‘to crunch’, related to German *knirschen*.
>
> All of these appear to be of onomatopoetic origin and originally referred
> to sounds making with one's teeth.
>
> I can not find the Old English ancestor of “gnash.” According to the *
> Oxford* *English Dictionary*, it appeared in the 15th century and may be
> related to archaic “to gnast” from Old Norse *gnísta*, an ablaut form of *
> *gnaist* ‘to gnash’. I, however, am wondering if “gnash” came from Middle
> Saxon, in part because the 15th century saw more or less intensive contacts
> between Britain and the Hanseatic Trading League, and the shift **gnast* >
> *gnash* would seem somewhat unusual.
>
> Any ideas about this?
>
> By the way, some Low Saxon dialects do have *naschen* in the sense of ‘to
> snack on treats’, but I suspect this is a German loan. Many other dialects
> use *snopen*, which is related to Dutch *snoepen*. Other Low Saxon verbs
> with this meaning are *snoken*, *snoven*, *snabbeln*, *snœkern*, *snückern
> *, *sleckern* and *slickern*. Note the recurring *s-*, specifically *sn-*,
> also in English “snack” and Low Saxon *snacken* ‘to talk’, originally ‘to
> make sounds with one’s teeth’! In the case of *sleckern* and *slickern*,*
> *his *s-* seems to precede a frequentive (-r-) form of the group "lick."
>
> Regards,
> Reinhard/Ron
> Seattle, USA
>

----------

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Etymology

Hello and thanks, Paul! It was good to hear from you again.

I quite agree that a lot of Yiddish loans have made their way from the
"Yinglish" jargon originally used in the northeastern parts of the United
States into general American parlance. Some of them -- and I believe "nosh"
is one of them -- are also fairly well known outside North America.

I use a lot of those words you mentioned (including some of the naughtier
ones). It is easy to forget that some English speakers don't understand some
of them. However, in North America pretty much everyone knows what for
instance "to shlep" and the noun "shlep" mean (related to German
*schleppen*'to lug', 'to drag'), with the intransitive extension that
in German is
reflexive *sich schleppen* "to drag oneself'). The other day I said "shlep"
while talking to an Irish immigrant. She did not know what it meant,
although she has been here for several years (but doesn't seem to be very
interested in non-Irish people and things).

However, there are many more Yiddish loans in Yinglish-influenced American
English, even here on the West Coast, that have so far not entered general
parlance. Some of my Jewish friends even use "to shluff" (from Yiddish
שלאָפֿן *shlofn ~ shlufn*) for 'to sleep" and "shluff" (from Yiddish
שלאָף *shlof
~ shluf*) for nominal 'sleep'.

In American English you sometimes can't be sure if a loan came from Yiddish
or from German, because they sound (almost) alike and denote the same
things. German influence in America ought not be underestimated either, and
I assume that the multitude of German-speaking Jewish immigrants played a
role in this as well.

An example is *shpeel* ~ *shpiel*. In the senses of "line of business",
"gig", "customary talk". It seems to come from Yiddish *shpil* (שפּיל),
since it too can have such semantic extensions of the basic meaning "play".
The particularly Jewish English term "Purim shpiel", however, is more likely
to come from German *Purimspiel* "Purim play". Apparently it was in the
Rhineland that Jews began to integrate Carnival customs into their holiday
of Purim, including farcical and burlesque performances (of the Book of
Esther). (Christian Carnival and Jewish Purim tend to occur close together.)
Apparently, this tradition of *Purimspiel* was played up quite a bit in
Conservative and especially Reform Judaism, both of which began in Northern
Germany and were and still are particularly popular among Jewish Americans
of German descent. So it is my hunch that "Purim shpiel" comes from German
rather than from Yiddish, unless it can be shown that it began in Western
Yiddish (which is now pretty much extinct).

I should remind you and others here that in earlier times Yiddish influence
had also been quite noticeable in German and Dutch, and many Yiddish
loanwords reached Low Saxon via German and Dutch. Some Yiddish words,
expressions and phrases seem to have entered German and Dutch directly.
Most, however, entered them via the now pretty much extinct underworld cants
Rotwelsch (in German-speaking areas) and Bargoens (in Dutch-speaking areas),
both of which adopted numerous Yiddish and Romany words and twisted their
pronunciation and meaning in every which way.  For instance, in German *
Mesuse* can mean 'whore' (now archaic), which came via Rotwelsch and Yiddish
*mezuze* from Hebrew *mezuzah* (מזוזה) 'mezuzah' (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mezuzah), apparently because pretty much
everyone touches a mezuzah (hanging/leaning on a doorpost) ... (I take it
you get the drift.)

The etymological paths some of those words have taken from Hebrew via
Yiddish and Rotwelsch to German are complicated and obscure, especially
because some of them suggest German-internal (folk) etymologies.

For example, German *betucht* means "well to do", "comfortably off," which
leads one to a folk etymology based on German *Tuch* 'fabric', 'garment
material': thus suggesting "well dressed". In reality, *betucht* comes from
Yiddish *betukh* (בטוח), which comes from Hebrew בטוח (*baṭuaḥ*) 'safe',
'secure', 'certain', 'reliable', 'trustworthy', based on the verb root בטח (
*baṭaḥ*) 'trust'. So the idea here seems to be that people that are better
off are more reliable.

Another example is German *Rutsch* as in *guter Rutsch* which you wish
people around (usually before) New Year, extended to Low Saxon as *goden
Rutsch*. German *Rutsch* means 'slide' or 'slip' (cf. verbal *rutschen* 'to
slide', 'to slip'). So people etymologize this as having something to do
with sliding or slipping into the new year. However, as it turns out, *
Rutsch* in this case is etymologically unrelated to German-rooted *Rutsch*.
It comes from Yiddish and Hebrew *rosh* (ראָש), literally 'head' or 'chief',
in this case from implied *Rosh-Hashanah* (Yiddish *Rosh-Hashone* ראש-השנה,
"head of the year" = "beginning of the year"), namely Jewish New Year. The
tendency to extend this wish *before* New Years is probably based on the
folk etymology whereby people are going to slide into the new year and you
wish them a smooth slide.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

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