I don’t know much about Yiddish, but I know quite a few Yiddish words. Most everyone does. English is quick to naturalize useful foreign words. Thereafter those words become part of the vernacular.
Every time you describe a clumsy person as a klutz, you’re speaking Yiddish. So too, If you or dismiss shameless boasting as chutzpah, or a piece of bad writing as dreck, or think of anyone wildly accomplished as a maven, or refer to a snack as a nosh.
If you watch a lot of sitcoms, you might call a silly person a nebbish, or a heck of a nice guy a mensch, or a crazy person meshugah.
You might also describe anything foolishly complicated as a megillah, or every sucker as a schmo, easy to schmooze with any sort of schtick. Idle small talk, gossip and uncalled for advise will be dismissed as annoying kibitz.
Old folks will recall that Jimmy Durante got a lot of comedic milage out of his magnificent schnoz. If you’re overly money minded and all you care about is the gelt, and no noodge will change your mind, no matter how much schlock or schmaltz is put to the persuading.
If you were to congratulate me on my brief schlep through Yiddish words you might say, mazel tov.
Most Americans use and understand most of the words above as Yiddish words, although some of these words like: dreck, maven, nebbish, klutz, are used so frequently they’re often unrecognized as Yiddish words.
Any foreign word adopted by English ia adopted because the foreign word says something not quite said as fully in English.
We can say something is bad in English; Dreck says it with more emotion. Maven says seriously accomplished, with an implicit history of success attached. Nebbish has a clownish inuendo in the sound of the word that combines silly, inept, and useless with a single expression.
Words that get appropriated from another language often add something missing in the original language. That something is generally, extended-associated-meaning.
The French word elan says efficiently what English needs several more words to say: impetuous enthusiasm with spirted dash. The Spanish word Macho would take a paragraph of English words to say the same. The Italian word diva captures the haughtiness of certain female celebrities with more efficacy than gushing words of subservience from their followers.
English has borrowed many words from other languages. Yiddish has done the same.
Various diasporas over the centuries have scattered Jews all over the world. Wherever Jews ended up, they mixed the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic, of their native tongue with the language of whatever land they landed in.
Linguists have decided on four main categories of Yiddish: Judeo-German, Judeo-Spanish, Judeo-French, and Judeo-Persian.
Nearly all of American Yiddish is Judeo-German.
The Jews that ended up in Middle European countries like Germany, Austria, and some Slavic countries, are labelled, Ashkenazi. The Jews that ended up in Mediterranean countries like Spain, Greece and Italy are labeled, Sephardic.
Whichever diaspora - to whatever place - ended in a ghetto.
Ghettos are villages inside urban cities. City life is usually about people living side-by-side without knowing each other. Village life is about people living side-by-side with no chance of not knowing each other – including aunts, uncles, cousins, and family histories stretching back for generations.
Everybody’s business is everybody else’s business.
That‘s likely why Yiddish has so many words that describe characters and situations common to most every family. It’s a language for everyman, except perhaps, for the high and mighty. Isaac Bashevis Singer has said, ”It’s the only language never spoken by men in power”.
It’s also the only language that makes fun of itself while speaking seriously.
English has gained useful opportunity for nuance through Yiddish words we’ve taken as our own; words that manage to laugh, cry, or imply, with a serious economy of expression, Sometimes one word covers it all.
Oftentimes the word sounds like what it describes. Klutz has the sound of something being dropped by a clumsy person. Schmaltz has the greasy implication of its literal meaning, - chicken fat. Schlep has the sticky sound of the effort.
All language informs; Yiddish entertains as it informs.
I admire the trick.
I hope my amateur schlep through Yiddish has been worth the schlepin’.