Language Evolves, but Kinship Words Like “Uncle” and “Grandchild” are Surprisingly Durable

Jacob Schlitt writes from Brookline, Massachusetts:

My mother, when speaking Yiddish, always called grandchildren kindskinder, “child’s-children,” yet every other Yiddish speaker whom I know calls them eyniklekh. Are you familiar with my mother’s word?

I am, although kindskinder in ordinary Yiddish has the sense of “descendants” or “progeny.” In German, Kindeskind does mean “grandchild,” and perhaps Mr. Schlitt’s mother came from a part of Eastern Europe close to a German-speaking area. Yet in German, too, the common word for a grandchild is Enkel. It comes from Old High German eninchili, Yiddish eynikl, the singular of eyniklekh, Yiddish having preserved the intermediate vowel that modern German has lost.