LL-L "Etymology" 2010.03.12 (01) [EN-NDS]

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*L O W L A N D S - L - 12 March 2010 - Volume 01*
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From: Jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2010.03.11 (03) [DE-EN-NDS]

 Beste Marcus,

to *lawaai* you wrote:

Dat Woord kummt al in dat 16. Johrhunnert vör. Jöödsch kann dat also nich
wesen. (The word already occurs in the 16. century. So it cannot be
Yiddish.)

As far as I'm informed Yiddish already was developed in the High Middle
Ages, that should be 11. to 13. century.

Allerbest!

Jonny Meibohm
Lower Saxony, Germany

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

Hi, Jonny!

You are right. But Yiddish developed from Central and High German varieties
mostly on both sides of the Upper Rhine and from there spread east- and
southward, later to be transplanted to Central and Eastern Europe. There is
this general assumption that Ashkenazi ("German") Jews did not move to
Northern Germany and the Netherlands until the early seventeenth century
(often said to be 1600), and this apparently to seek the relative security
the fairly newly Protestant area promised them. They took Yiddish and German
with them, but those that dealt directly with the general public apparently
learned Low Saxon (whose erosion began in the upper classes at the time).
However, I'm not sure how well documented the establishment of Jewish
communities in the North is, and I consider it quite possible that small
Jewish communities began to appear in the north earlier than that, most
probably in the larger port cities, like Danzig (Gdańsk), Hamburg and
Amsterdam.

One Rotwelsch cant is attested to have been used since at least 1475:
Keimisch, often referred to as "Jewish language" or "merchants' language."
The name may come from the Jewish men's name Chayyim (חַיִּים). Some believe
it comes from *chayiim* (חַיִּים) 'living ones," which I don't find
convincing. Yet others have postulated that it came from the Spanish and
Portuguese men's name Jaime (= English James). I don't believe this at all,
because Spanish "j" was still pronounce [ʒ] (as in "lei*s*ure") at the time
and still is in Portuguese.

Anyway, I have no access to the vocabulary of this cant and know nothing
about its geographical spread. However, if there *is* a Sephardi (i.e.
Iberian Jewish) connection, that would point to the north, specifically to
Amsterdam, Emden, Altona and Hamburg, as well as England. The Spanish
Inquisition began in 1478, the Portuguese one in 1536. Most Sephardim that
went to the north left from Portugal, and this included many that had
previously fled from Spain to Portugal. So this puts Sephardi settlement in
Northern Germany and the Netherlands into the middle of the 16th century.
These people spoke Lusitanic (Judeo-Portuguese, now extinct) and Ladino
(Judeo-Spanish) as their native languages, both of which use many Hebrew
words, just as Yiddish does. I believe this includes the said *alevay!*

By the way, until the 19th century, written Yiddish used to be considered
"women's language," something to give women to read, since they were
considered illiterate in Hebrew (though some were not). Already in the
Middle Ages, this led some writers to record popular stories (especially
romances) of the Germanic-speaking populations. One of these romances is
known in Yiddish as *Bovo-Bukh* (בָּבָא־בּוּך) "Bovo Book", written by the
Nuremberg native Elia Levita of Venice, where many Yiddish-speaking Jews had
fled. The theme derives from the Anglo-Norman romance of *Sir Bevis of
Hampton*, by way of an Italian poem that had modified the name Bevis of
Hampton to Buovo d'Antona. The Yiddish version later became known as *
Bove-mayse* (בָּבא־מעשה) "Bove story" (from Hebrew מעשה *ma‛asah* 'tale',
'story'). By way of folk etymology, this became in Modern Eastern Yiddish *
bobe-mayse* (בָבע־מעשה) "grandmother story" (from Polish
*baba*'grandmother', 'old lady'). Many American Jews (and those
affected by their
lingo) use the word "bobbe mayse" to mean 'tall tale', 'red herring' etc. I
have a feeling that the underlying idea is "made-up story (like the Tale of
Bovo)," considering the fact that written fiction began as a foreign genre
for Jews.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

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