...to take this fascinating survey of "American Jewish language." Its authors, a pair of social scientists from Hebrew Union College, say it's "the first of its kind to ask North Americans about the words from Yiddish and Hebrew (and other languages) that they may use or recognize."
Part of the survey is a vocabulary quiz that includes words such as the well-assimilated chutzpah, shmooze, maven, and mensch. There's also a section on Jewish-flavored English idioms, some of which were completely alien to me: Sure, I've heard (and used) "Enough already," but not "Are you coming to us for dinner?" or "What do we learn out from this?"
Because trends in baby naming are a demi-obsession of mine, I particularly enjoyed the questions about names you'd consider for your hypothetical children. Options include what I'd consider über-goyish (Christopher and Christine, absolutely; but John strikes me as more culturally neutral than the other choices) to modern Hebrew (Matan for a boy, Noa for a girl) and old-school Yiddish (Moishe, Mende, Basya, Freydie).
And yes, they're curious about non-Jews' linguistic scope, too. (You'll get a shorter survey than the one I took.)
But I wasn't able to discern which "other languages" were in the survey besides Hebrew, Yiddish, and English. Anyone? *
Via Polyglot Conspiracy.
* Update: I figured it out. There's a least one Ladino term in the survey. (Ladino: Judeo-Spanish spoken by Sephardic Jews.)
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P.S. About the post title: "You Don't Have to Be Jewish to Love Levy's Real Jewish Rye" was a famous ad campaign created by advertising genius Bill Bernbach (he also dreamed up Volkswagen's "Think Small" slogan). Beginning around 1970, the posters--featuring models from all ethnic groups-- appeared all over the New York subway system. Here's one poster; here's another.
Oy, was that survey fun! Yes, I say "hah-rible" and "ah-range," and my Northwest-born daughters laugh at me.
Did I just breeze through it too quickly, or did they omit "shlep," the Yiddish word I probably use most frequently?
Posted by: Jessica | July 15, 2008 at 11:17 AM
@Jessica: I didn't see "shlep" -- or "mitzvah" or "bupkes," either.
On the other hand, one of my cats is named Yofi, which *is* on the survey. (Hebrew: literally "beauty," but also a slang term translating to "cool" or "awesome.")
Posted by: Nancy Friedman | July 15, 2008 at 11:35 AM
I'm looking forward to completing the survey, but in the meantime your mention of "John" caught my eye. My husband's middle name is John, and I've told him (and his parents) many times that he is the ONLY Jew I've ever met named John (as opposed to Jon, short for Jonathan, which is a very popular Jewish name).
Posted by: Karen | July 15, 2008 at 01:16 PM
@Karen: I've known at least two Jewish Johns, both with distinctly Jewish surnames. And Mary used to be not uncommon among Jewish women of my grandmother's generation. I even used to know one Jewish Mary of my own generation. As a name, it certainly has more Hebrew cred than "Christine."
Posted by: Nancy Friedman | July 15, 2008 at 01:32 PM
I'm looking forward to taking the survey and completing the links, though that could be because I recently finished reading The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon and wanted so badly to have a giant Yiddish dictionary with me as accompaniment to the narrative.
And, probably superfluously, as someone with a Hebrew name, I really like it. It's no-nonsense. Especially when, in public, a mother calls for her daughter, by name, over and over again and I (and invariably at least one other woman), turn toward her, instinctively, every time she calls, "Sarah!"
Posted by: Sarah, etc. | July 16, 2008 at 03:09 PM
This is cool, Nancy. I just took the survey. Thanks for the heads-up!
Oh, and I found you from a TweetScan search on "american jewish" and will be following you in a minute...
Posted by: Ari Herzog | July 16, 2008 at 09:25 PM
@Sarah: I *loved* the language in Yiddish Policeman's Union. Chabon's a clever writer. But ... it would have killed him to include a glossary for the poor shmucks who don't know a sholem from a shvitz?
@Ari: Nice to meet you! I hadn't known about TweetScan--looking forward to trying it.
Posted by: Nancy Friedman | July 16, 2008 at 09:34 PM
You've piqued my curiosity. What's the Ladino word in the survey? And its translation? Are there many? Is it only Yiddish that has so many ways to say "ineffective male?" -- shmo, shnook, shlemiehl. Or can you be a female shnook?
Posted by: Jane Margold | July 17, 2008 at 05:02 PM
@Jane: The only Ladino word I recognized was "meldado," which means "study group." (I had to look it up -- the survey doesn't include definitions.) There may be others.
Good question about all the synonyms for "unfortunate male"! There are disparaging terms for women like "kurveh" (whore), but I'm not aware of equivalents to "shmo," etc. But then again, I'm hardly fluent in Yiddish.
Posted by: Nancy Friedman | July 17, 2008 at 05:19 PM