Two vernaculars have been used in America among Jews: Ladino (also called Judezmo) and Yiddish, the former an Iberian lang uage connected with Spanish and Portuguese, and the latter a Germanic language associated with Germany and eastern Europe.

Ladino came early. In 1670, a temple was established in Charleston, S.C., by Jews who had spent a generation or two in London before setting out for the colonies. Most of them were bilingual in English before their arrival, but Ladino was kept alive by the community and by trade with Spain. The temple, now called Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, is still a center for worship in elegant downtown Charleston.

Ladino has had little impact on English, with only two words connected by etymology to it: borak (“a savory pie”) and Tedesco, a not very nice name for the Jews of Germany and eastern Europe.

Yiddish is the  Jewish language most Americans know about, and it was given great prominence in television when the old Vaudevillians and those raised up in the humor of the Catskills resorts appeared regularly. Buddy Hackett always called the language Jewish (which is an English translation of Yiddish), and the Marx Brothers, Milton Berle, Phil Silvers, and many others scattered Yiddish in their comedy and in their conversations. Nowadays there are humorists who toss around Yiddish loanwords even if they don’t know the language. Robin Williams has a great range of Yiddishisms, though he himself grew up an Episcopalian.

Nowadays, Yiddish is a symbolic language for many people: that is, if you are Jewish you need to feel comfortable with Yiddish even if you don’t speak it. The same sort of symbolism is imposed on southern Californians of Mexican descent: If you are Mexican, you might feel you need to know Spanish, even if you don’t. So you work out your identity problem by having slightly accented English or using a few familiar expressions borrowed from Spanish. A handy way of learning what you need to know about Yiddish is to read Leo Rosten’s Joys of Yiddish (1970).

In some respects, the impact of Ladino or Yiddish on English is not so different from that of other languages. But in one respect, Yiddish is an exceptional case: Yiddish expressions flooded into English in a great rush though the word Yiddish doesn’t appear in English until the 1870s. In the 1870s, there were just two loans from Yiddish; in the 1880s there were six. But in the 1890s, there were 39 and the 20th century brought them in droves. We can connect these words with two popular writers: Israel Zangwill and Abraham Cahan, the former writing about Jewish life in London and the latter about New York.

Most borrowings from foreign languages into English consist of nouns, often connected with foods or other cultural practices. Kreplach and gefilte fish are examples of the former, and bubbe and shul of the latter that come from Yiddish.

Yiddish came in with whole conversational strategies at hand: oi vai (“alas”) and nu (“so?”) Tags like these decorate English sentences in just the way they had ornamented Yiddish ones. Socially inept persons are imported along with their Yiddish names: nebbish, schnorrer, schlemiel. Yiddish ways of talking become English ways of talking: chutzpah, schmooze. All these put Yiddishkeit into English.

Yiddish is a language determined not to die, and the Frankel Center at the University of Michigan is our place for learning and celebrating it. Ardent revivalist efforts may yet keep Yiddish alive despite the efforts of Nazis to exterminate it and the tendency of contemporary culture to leave such things behind. If they succeed, English will be ready to absorb yet more influence from Yiddish.

How about you? Do you have a favorite Yiddish word or phrase? Share it in the comments section below.