How Yiddish found a home in SA English

You may have spoken Yiddish today without knowing it. Words such as klutz, schmooze, chutzpah, schlep, and bagel have travelled far beyond Jewish homes. In South Africa, the language has been shaped by migration, apartheid, and local English. 

Yiddish is the historic language of many Ashkenazi Jews. Jewish English is broader. It includes words and expressions from Yiddish, Hebrew, and Aramaic. Some remain recognisably Jewish. Others have become so familiar that speakers no longer think of them as Jewish at all. 

American linguist Dr Sarah Bunin Benor has spent years studying this process. Her research shows that words can move between Jewish and non-Jewish communities through social relationships, media, entertainment, products, and discussion about language. 

Benor says there is no single point at which a loan word becomes English. She uses “glitch” as an example, although its Yiddish origin is uncertain. She says “klutz” and “pastrami” are other examples whose origins are often unknown to English speakers. 

Words with distinctive sounds can remain more visibly Jewish. “Because of the sounds, people are more likely to think of them as Yiddish. But I don’t even think everyone knows that ‘schmooze’ is Yiddish.” 

Meaning can change, too. Benor’s research found that “chutzpah” developed a positive meaning in American English, alongside its negative sense in Yiddish. A word can therefore retain its origin while acquiring a different social meaning. 

The journey from Yiddish to English has not followed one route. In the United States (US), comedy has played a particularly important role, with comedians and the media helping Yiddish cross into mainstream American English. Jewish food and products also helped. 

Hebrew has followed a different path. Benor says Hebrew used in prayer and Torah tends to remain within Jewish communal settings. A 2026 study by scholars Emma Breslow and Caroline Hendy compared familiarity with Jewish English among 611 Jewish and non-Jewish participants in Australia and the US. 

The researchers divided words into categories ranging from widely incorporated terms to words used mainly within Jewish communities. They found that Jewish participants were more familiar with most Jewish English categories than non-Jewish participants. 

Non-Jewish Americans were generally more familiar with Jewish English terms than non-Jewish Australians. However, words that had become part of Australian English were more familiar to Australians regardless of whether they were Jewish. 

The study included widely incorporated words such as schmooze, klutz, shtick, and spiel. It also examined words such as mazeltov, oy vey, shalom, kosher, chutzpah, and schlep. The findings demonstrate that Jewish English is not one fixed vocabulary. Words can be widely shared, strongly associated with Jewish communities, or distinctive to a particular country. 

South African researcher, translator, and librarian Dr Veronica Belling grew up in a family with strong Yiddish connections. Her mother’s family came from the Paarl area, and her grandmother spoke Yiddish as her first language. The family later moved between Afrikaans and English. 

Belling remembers Yiddish not simply as a language but as a collection of expressions passed through family life. She said the richest part of the vocabulary she inherited from her mother was the proverbs. 

Her daughter and son-in-law, who live in Australia, do not understand some of the expressions Belling grew up hearing. That illustrates how expressions can disappear between generations and across countries. 

Some South African Jewish English words, however, have survived precisely because they became locally embedded. One of the clearest examples is “kitke”, the name commonly used for challah in South African supermarkets. 

Benor said “kitke” is one of the few things that’s exclusively South African in Jewish English. Belling also highlighted the word, saying she was struck by the fact that it had survived in South Africa. 

The Australian study offers a comparison. It found Jewish Australian forms including “barmi” for Barmitzvah, “batmi” for Batmitzvah, and “yarmi” for yarmulke. These reflect Australian English’s tendency to shorten words. 

South African Jewish English has also absorbed influences from the country’s social history. Belling recalls words used during the apartheid era that referred derogatorily to black people. Their survival illustrates that language can preserve uncomfortable aspects of a community’s past. 

Another example is “shiksa”. The term has a long Jewish linguistic history, but in South Africa it was also used in the context of domestic service. Belling remembered hearing it used for non-Jewish women and domestic workers. 

These words cannot be separated from the history of the communities that used them. Language records migration, family relationships, popular culture, social boundaries, and power. 

Belling has continued teaching Yiddish to older South Africans. She described her regular group as “like a family”, with participants joining her Zoom sessions from South Africa and overseas. 

Benor is less optimistic about the future of some Yiddish words in mainstream English. Her 2008 survey found younger non-Jews were less familiar with many Yiddish words than older generations. Her 18- to 22-year-old college students tend to know “klutz” and “pastrami”, but are less familiar with “chutzpah”, “schlep”, “kvetch”, and “schmutz”. “I do expect a huge dropoff,” Benor says, “and that people will be much less likely to know and use some of these words than they were in 2008.” 

Her original 2008 survey drew more than 40 000 responses, although it was not designed to represent all Americans. It deliberately included Jews from diverse backgrounds and non-Jews with Jewish friends. The survey therefore offers a large, but selective, data set. 

The disappearance of one word does not mean Jewish English disappears. New words can enter the repertoire, while older ones become generational markers. 

The Australian study similarly concludes that Jewish English is best understood as a changing repertoire rather than a single fixed variety. Its speakers draw on different linguistic resources depending on their identities and the contexts in which they speak. 

In South Africa, words such as kitke, shul, schmooze, oy vey, and schlep sit alongside expressions that may survive only in particular families. Sometimes its history survives in a single word across generations, even after the original language has faded from use.