„Mázlid van haver, nem bóvli a szajré.” Hebrew and Yiddish Loanwords in Present-Day Hungarian Language
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24193/subbtref.70.2.02Keywords:
Hebrew loanwords, Yiddish loanwords, Semitic loanwords in Hungarian, Hungarian vocabularyAbstract
The Jewish minority in the Hungarian population has been undergoing a kind of renaissance in the last decades: the financial and cultural support of the ruling governments met with the awakening power of Hungarian Jews, which has led to the revival of the Hungarian Jewry. As a result, the theme of “Hebrew and Yiddish loanwords in Hungarian” has reappeared. Several list, some simpler, some more detailed, were published either in printed or in electronic form.
Despite the lack of serious sociological and linguistic surveys, the author attempts to give an established and valid list of this segment of Hungarian vocabulary. After biblical onomasticon and international words (e.g. Amen, behemoth, bagel, goy, hallelujah, etc.), he then examined a third group as well, which consists of allegedly Hebrew and/or Yiddish loanwords in the recent usage of Hungarian. Most of them belong to the realm of slang. This part of the vocabulary is well known, but some of the words seems to be new. To clarify this confused picture caused by the new, shorter or longer lists, we have introduced three categories: accepted loanwords, dubious loanwords, and refused loanwords. During the survey, we used all standard Biblical Hebrew dictionaries, workbooks and standard Hungarian linguistic reference books, too.
Because of the aforementioned Jewish revival, we believe that Jews would like to express their renewed dignity in linguistic terms as well. Yiddish has disappeared as a transmitter, but this does not mean they cannot create new lists, extending their loanwords together with their dignity. So, new lists are emerging in Budapest and for Budapest.
References
ABELSON, P. (1915): English–Yiddish Encyclopedic Dictionary. New York, The Jewish Press.
APTROOT, M. – HANSEN, B. (2013): Yiddish Language Structures. Berlin, W. de Gruyter.
ÁLDÁSSY, A. – ÁBRÁNYI, K. – ACZÉL, K. – ÁGOSTON, J. (1900): Pallas Nagylexikon. Vols. I–XVIII. Budapest, Pallas Irodalmi és Nyomdai Részvénytársaság.
BÁRCZY, Géza (1932): A „pesti nyelv”. Budapest, Magyar Nyelvtudományi Társaság.
(1991 [1941]): Magyar szófejtő szótár. Budapest, Trezor.
BÁRCZY, G. – ORSZÁGH, L. (1992): A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára. Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó.
BAUMGARTEN, J. (2005): Introduction to Old Yiddish Literature. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
BENOR, S. (1999): Loanwords in the English of Modern Orthodox Jews: Yiddish or Hebrew? In: Chang, S. S. et al. (ed.): Proceedings of the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistic Society. Berkeley, Berkeley Linguistic Society. 287–298.
BIRÓ, Tamás (2004): Weak Interactions: Yiddish Influence in Hungarian, Esperanto and Modern Hebrew. In: Gilbers, D. et al. (eds.): On the Boundaries of Phonology and Phonetics, a Festschrift Presented to Tjeerd de Graaf. Groningen, University of Groningen. 123–145.
BLUESTEIN, G. (21998): Anglish/Yinglish: Yiddish in American Life and Literature. Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press.
BROWN, F. – DRIVER, S. R. – and BRIGGS, C. A. (1979 [1906]): Hebrew and English Lexicon with an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic. Based on the lexicon of William Gesenius as translated by Edward Robinson. Peabody, Hendrickson.
CLINES, D. J. A. (1993–2011): The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. Sheffield, Sheffield Phoenix Press.
DAHN, Thomas C. (1999): Wörterbuch der ungarischen Umgangsspache: Ungarisch–Deutsch. Hamburg, Helmut Buske Verlag.
DIETRICH, W. (2013). Konzise Aktualisierte Ausgabe des Hebräischen und Aramäischen Lexikons. Leiden, Brill.
FRAKES, J. C. (2004): Early Yiddish Texts 1100–1750. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
FROJIMOVICS, Kinga – KOMORÓCZY, Géza – PUSZTAI [Bányai, Viktória – STRBIK, Andrea (1999): Jewish Budapest: Monuments, Rites, History. Budapest, Central European University Press.
GESENIUS, W. (1949): Gesenius’ Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon. Grand Rapids, Eerdmans.
HARKAVY, A. (1925): Yiddish–English–Hebrew Dictionary. New York, private edition.
HASPELMATH, M. – TADMOR, Uri (2009): Loanwords in the World’s Languages – A Comparative Handbook. Berlin, W. de Gruyter.
JACOBS, N. G. (2005): Yiddish. A Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
JASTROW, Marcus (1903): A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature. London, Luzac.
KAHN, Geoffrey (2013): Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics. Leiden, Brill.
KENESEI, I. (2004): A nyelv és a nyelvek. Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó.
KLEIN, E. (1987): A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English. Jerusalem, Carta.
KÖHLER, Ludwig – BAUMGARTNER, Walter (1967–1995): Hebräische und Aramäische Lexicon zum Alten Testament. Leiden, Brill.
(1994–2000): The Hebrew & Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Leiden, Brill. CD-ROM edition.
MARGOLIS, R. (2011): Basic Yiddish: A Grammar and Workbook. London, Routledge.
RENDSBURG, Gary A. (2013): Rotwelsch, Hebrew Loanwords. In: Kahn, G. (ed.): Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics. Vol. 3. Leiden, Brill. 431–434.
STERN, Heidi (2000): Wörterbuch zum jiddischen Lehnwortschatz in den deutschen Dialekten. Tübingen, Max Niemeyer Verlag.
TOLCSVAI NAGY, Gábor (2007): Idegen szavak szótára. Budapest, Osiris Kiadó.
WEINRICH, U. (1968): Modern English–Yiddish Yiddish–English Dictionary. New York, YIVO.
WEISER, C. (1995): Frumspeak: The First Dictionary of Yeshivish. Northvale, Jason Aronson.
ZAICZ, Gábor (2006): Etimológiai szótár: a magyar szavak és toldalékok eredete. Budapest, Tinta Kiadó.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai Theologia Reformata Transylvanica
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
