When I was little and my grandparents were alive, I used to know quite a lot of Yiddish. Now I've forgotten it, mostly, and it's funny when a word will come floating up from the depths of memory, or I'll hear it and remember. (When I see my friend's babies, it seems to come out. "Bubela! Boychik!")We didn't think of them as foreign words at the time - it was probably only in going to school that you noticed subconsciously that you never heard those words there - meshuggena; tush; schnozz; schluf ...
Even now I've no idea how you spell these words. It was only a spoken language to us. And I can see how other, lucky children grow up bilingual, with this double knowledge of words. (Like the kids at school, who sometimes forget and talk to me in Sylheti.) No one ever had to sit down and explain these words to us, they just were. I wish I hadn't lost it (or my grandparents, for that matter), but some of them have entered into the English language, like shmooze, or shlep - it's earthy and expressive, makes me glad I haven't lost it altogether.
About art and men
6 days ago