Verklempt vs. Faklempt

Verklempt

Yiddish words may be used in a primarily English language context. An English sentence that uses these words sometimes is said to be in Yinglish or Hebronics; however, the primary meaning of Yinglish is an anglicism used in Yiddish.

This secondary sense of the term Yinglish describes the distinctive way certain Jews in English-speaking countries add many Yiddish words into their conversation, beyond general Yiddish words and phrases used by English speakers. In this meaning, Yinglish is not the same as Yeshivish, which is spoken by many Orthodox Jews, though the two share many parallels.

While “Yinglish” is generally restricted in definition to the adaptation of Yiddish lemmas to English grammar by Jews, its usage is not explicitly restricted to Jews. This is especially true in areas where Jews are highly concentrated, but in constant interaction with their Gentile fellows, esp. in the larger urban areas of North America. In such circumstances, it would not be unusual to hear, for example, a Gentile griping about having “shlepped” a package across town.

Yinglish was formerly assigned the ISO 639-3 code yib, but it was retired on July 18, 2007, on the grounds that it is entirely intelligible with English.Many of these words have not been assimilated into English and are unlikely to be understood by English speakers who do not have substantial Yiddish knowledge. Leo Rosten’s book, The Joys of Yiddish, explains these words (and many more) in detail. With the exceptions of blintz, kosher (used in English slang), and shmo, none of the other words in this list are labeled as Yinglish in Rosten’s book.

Primarily Ashkenazi Orthodox Jews will use Yiddish, Hebrew, or Aramaic while speaking a version of English. Many of these do not translate directly into English or have a different connotation. For example, a secular (English) “Book” but a holy (Hebrew) “Sefer”; or regular “lights” but a “Shabbos Leichter” (or “Lachter” depending on sub-group type). This will vary from 10% in “normal” speech to 40% in a lecture or Talmudic discussion. Sephardic Jews might do the same but do not normally understand Yiddish and would only use Hebrew or Aramaic terms.

As with Yiddish, Yinglish has no set transliteration standard; as the primary speakers of Yinglish are, by definition, Anglophones (whether first-language or not), Yinglish used in running speech tends to be transliterated using an English-based orthography. This, however, varies, sometimes in the same sentence. For instance, the word פֿאַרקאַקטע may be spelled farkakte, ferkockte, verkackte, among others. In its roots, though, Yiddish (whether used as English slang or not) is fundamentally mediaeval High German; although mediaeval German suffered from the same vagaries in spelling, it later became standardised in Modern High German. This list shall use the same conventions as Modern High German, with the exception of certain words, the spellings of which have been standardised. Furthermore, common nouns shall be left lowercase, as in English.

See also List of English words of Yiddish origin.