The Power and Powerlessness of Yiddish Invective

I was raised in a two-tone world of Yiddish (the Lithuanian variety) and English (the South African variety). Consequently, I became attuned from an early age to two separate modes of communication, each with its distinctive emotional resonance. My parents spoke to me in English, but they often conversed with each other in Yiddish, especially when the topic of their conversation was deemed unsuitable for a child’s attention. Naturally, my ears flapped eagerly whenever those circumstances arose and I rapidly acquired a passable understanding of Yiddish as well as a precocious insight into my parents’ grownup preoccupations.

My mother also had a habit of drawing on a rich vocabulary of Yiddish invective whenever I fell foul of her injunctions or transgressed some or other behavioural norm, which was quite frequently. As a result, my understanding of curses, expletives, warnings and threats increased considerably, together with a list of medical conditions and tragedies which would befall the family if certain duties were not carried out. This was the sort of information which no child should have to absorb at a time of life when the joys of nature should be unfolding and an exciting world of adventure beckoning to be explored.

I vividly remember being accused by my mother of responsibility for her premature death and burial, and of inflicting untold illnesses on the family. These attempts to load me with guilt, accompanied by many oys and vays were coupled with threats of my own demise at her hands. Two examples spring to mind (the actual Yiddish has a more powerful resonance than the tame English translation: “Ich’l em avek hargenen tsum teyt” (“I will smite him unto death”) and “Du host mir bagrobben” (“You have buried me”). “Alive?” I would ask innocently.

Needless to say, my mother never laid a finger on me but the ferocity of her utterances was enough to intimidate me at a tender age. However, I soon learnt to treat her threats as a debased currency which could be safely disregarded, especially as the counterpoint to this kind of language was her anxious overprotectiveness and her insistence on stuffing me to the gills with nourishment as a way of warding off the spectre of starvation.

With the benefit of hindsight I came to accept that the ‘mamme-loshen’ was part of her heritage and that the curses provided her with her only outlet for the frustrations and losses in her own life. This enabled me to ride out her nonsensical threats and dark predictions with equanimity but I was still left with a vague sense of unease at their implicit reality.

Language is an instrument to be used with caution, especially where children are concerned. In an otherwise protected and affectionate environment, talk of murder, death and terrible afflictions loses its power as a deterrent. It fails to control unwanted behaviour and Jewish parents (among others, it should be added) who resort to such devices are simply squandering precious emotional capital and fostering an attitude of disbelief in their offspring. Excessive use of hyperbole provokes childish impatience at best, alienation at worst.

Spoken language is a civilised way of processing difficult and painful emotions. It is certainly a step forward from impulse-driven action. At the same time, human beings have evolved sophisticated ways of using language to control, punish and hurt, as well as to nurture, love, bond with and instruct those towards whom they feel positive emotions.

Unfortunately, violence, death, illness and suffering are all part of the human condition and the emotions which they generate – fear, grief, sadness, anger and rage, to name a few – have each acquired a language of metaphors and stories to lighten the burden of suffering. When words are used as a punishment or threat, this often leads to retaliation in kind, with a risk of bonds snapping further down the road.

A sense of humour is an indispensable part of the Jewish child’s survival kit. From an early age I learnt that one way of dealing with my mother’s ridiculous threats was to invent equally outrageous remarks and hurl them back at her. This would occasionally (though not always) transform her severe expression into a smile and might even compel her to burst into a reluctant laugh. I wonder how many Jewish comedians first discovered the trick of parroting their parents’ wild threats in Yiddish as a way of defusing family tensions.

Violence, death, illness and suffering are all part of the human condition, but they are only one part of it. The Jewish tendency to dwell on the tragic side of life is understandable from our history, but it is a mistake to use the language which attaches to such experiences as a weapon for controlling difficult behaviour. In some respects, children are wiser than their parents.