Language Trainers Blog

A Yiddish word has caused controversy at America’s annual spelling contest, Scripp’s National Spelling Bee.

Thirteen year old Arvind Mahankali spelled the word “knaidel” to beat 11 other contestants and go on to win the high profile competition. However, Jewish linguists say that the preferred spelling is actually “kneydl,” which refers to a small amount of unleavened bread, alternatively known as matzo balls.

The competition result will be upheld as the Spelling Bee uses Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, published by Merriam-Webster, as the official spelling of all words used in competition.

Conclusions cannot always be drawn about historical connections. Some words are similar in numerous languages.  Linguistic research has led to the theory of an Ur-language (Indo-European) spoken some fifty thousand years ago, from which most other languages have descended. Papa, for example, is used for ‘father’ in seventy percent of languages across the world.

Meanwhile, essential latterday vocabulary has crossed languages as easily as the jet-setting executive who uses it:

Taxi is spelt and means the same in French, German, Swedish, Spanish, Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, Czech, Slovak, Portuguese, Hungarian and Romanian

Sauna is spelt and means the same in Finnish, English, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, French, German, Dutch, Danish, Lithuanian, Croatian/Bosnian/Serbian, Romanian and Norwegian

Bank is spelt and means the same in Afrikaans, Amharic (Ethiopia), Bengali, Creole, Danish, Dutch, Frisian (Germany and Holland), German, Gujarati (India), Hungarian, Indonesian, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Sinhala (Sri Lanka), Swedish and Wolof (Senegal and Gambia)

Hotel is spelt and means the same in Afrikaans, Amharic, Asturian (Spain), Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian/Bosnian/Serbian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Frisian (Germany and Holland), Galician (Spain), German, Icelandic, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Tswana (Botswana), Ukranian and Yiddish.

Cursing and swearing are practised worldwide, and they generally involve using the local version of a small set of words describing an even smaller set of taboos that surround God, family, sex and the more unpleasant body functions. Occasionally, apparently inoffensive words acquire a darker overtone, such as the Chinese wang bah dahn, which literally means a turtle egg but is used as an insult for politicians. And offensive phrases can often be beguilingly inventive:

 
Zolst farliren aleh tseyner achitz eynm, un dos zol dir vey ton (Yiddish) may you lose all your teeth but one and may that one ache

Así te tragues un pavo y todas las plumas se conviertan en cuchillas de afeitar (Spanish) may all your turkey’s feathers turn into razor blades

When it comes to insults, few languages can compete with Yiddish.

In this wonderfully evocative language, even something as simple as the English equivalent ‘fool’ can be said to be a shmutte, a schlump, a nar, a tam, a tipesh, a bulvan, a shoyte, a peysi, a kuni lemel, a lekish, or even a shmenge.

Not content with these, however, the language can get ever more specific. While we’d be content at labelling somebody a fool and getting on with our lives, Yiddish has a word for every type of fool under the sun. If you find yourself being called a schlepper, a shmugeggeshnorrer, a paskudnik, a pisher, a yold or a no-goodnik; you’re simply being labelled a loser. A klutz is a clumsy, oafish bungler and a lekish ber schlemiel is a fool without luck. A fool who is not just stupid but also inept is a schlimazel, and a farshpiler is one who has lost all his money gambling. The saddest of all is perhaps the nisrof, the ‘burnt-out fool’.

Other useful (and similarly wonderful-sounding) insults in Yiddish include:

Nebbish: a nobody
Nudnick: a boring person who doesn’t shut up
Putz: a simpleton
Shlub: a clumsy and ill-mannered person
Shmegegge: a foolish, sycophantic person (cf. ‘suck-up’)
Shmendrick: a timid person who might as well not be there
Shnook: a pleasant but gullible person

Got any more?