How Certain Yiddish Words Became Incorporated Into Everyday English

Patrick Foote of Name Explain looked at how certain words from the Yiddish language were incorporated into the modern English lexicon, These words included everyday language such as bagel, lox, schmuck, klutz, and spiel. He also explained how the language made its way across Europe and around the world from those fleeing religious persecution.

The language was born from the movement of Jews across Europe …Yet despite the small size of the Yiddish speaking population today the language has found itself a home all across the globe This is all down to the migrations that speakers have undertaken across history in not just Europe but the whole world

Because these words are so descriptive, it didn’t take long for them to be used regularly, particularly in larger cities with larger Jewish populations, like New York City.

Even to this day, New York City is a place deeply linked with Jewish culture and is believed to have one of the largest concentrations of Yiddish speakers on the planet This allowed Yiddish to intermix with English with a key result of this being Yiddish words finding themselves at home in the English language. 

Lori Dorn
Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.