Limes with Orange

"Schlemiel! Schlimazel! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!"

Did you know that schlemiel and schlimazel are both actual Yiddish words? I came across them while I was writing my previous post (My Latest Spiel).

Schlemiel : an inept clumsy person; a bungler; a dolt
Schlimazel : a chronically unlucky person

The difference between a schlemiel and a schlimazel is best described through the aphorism, "The schlemiel spills his soup on the schlimazel."

A little bit about Yiddish:

Yiddish is a language that is used by Ashkenazi Jews, and is related to German (but also has many Slavic, Hebrew, and Aramaic loan words). It is written using the Hebrew script. Before the Shoah, there were estimated to be 11 million fluent Yiddish speakers, and today Yiddish is experiencing a revival in America (Ladino is the Spanish equivalent of Yiddish for Sephardic Jews). In America, a hybrid of Yiddish and English has developed called "Yinglish" or "Ameridish." It is also sometimes called "frumspeak," since it is often associated with the Yeshivas and orthodox Jews living in New York City.

Yiddish is, above all, the paradigmatic "Jewish" language — the insider's way of communicating to fellow Jews about day-to-day things (talk about God and faith is reserved for Lashon Hakkodesh — the holy tongue of Hebrew). It is at once sarcastic and dark, yet it is ultimately full of vigor, hope, and charm. In it you can hear the pathos of Jewish suffering but also the omnipresent faith that the Jew's future will triumph in hope.

(from hebrew4christians.com)

There are so many good, fun Yiddish words... too many to choose from. But choose I have. Here are a mere handful of the Yiddish words that pepper my vocabulary (with an emphasis on the many varied words that describe different types of unfortunate folk):

Chutzpah : ballsiness, guts, daring, audacity, effrontery
Kvell : feel delighted and proud
Kvetch : to complain habitually, gripe; as a noun, a person who always complains
Mensch : an upright man; a decent human being
Meshuggeneh : crazy, insane
Mitsve : a good deed
Nebbish : an insignificant, awkward person; a nerd
Nudnik : an obnoxious person; a pest
Oy vey : interjection of grief, pain, or horror
Putz : an idiot, a jerk (literally, a diminutive form of 'penis')
Schlub : a clumsy, stupid, or unattractive person
Schmuck : a contemptible or foolish person; a jerk (also means 'penis', but not a diminutive form... so, colloquially speaking, I guess that a putz would be a "little prick" while a schmuck is a "big prick" )

Labels: judaism, language