Observation ·
Some Rare Words for Rare-Word Buffs
By PhilologosLet us sing of rodomont, Sinon, proditomania, and, in particular, grobian.
German
Latest Mosaic Content for German
Observation ·
Mies van der Rohe’s Misbegotten Change of Name
By PhilologosBefore becoming linked to the famous architect who was trying to escape it, the German word mies (rotten) made its way from Hebrew, to Yiddish, to a thieves' argot called Rotwelsch.
Observation ·
Help: My Husband Passed Away, and I Want to Reconstruct the Bedtime Prayer He Taught our Children
By PhilologosPhilologos is quite certain the words of the prayer are in German, not Yiddish. But beyond that?
Observation ·
The Yiddish–Dutch–German “Smallpox” Exchange
By PhilologosWhich language was patient zero for the old expression, "We've been smallpoxed and measled"?
Observation ·
How Did Yiddish Words Make Their Way into German?
By PhilologosA centuries-old tale of complicated, ambivalent, and, sometimes, covertly intimate relationships between a largely anti-Semitic Christian society and its Jewish minority.
Observation ·
The Walter Benjamin Brigade
By Walter LaqueurHow an original but maddeningly opaque German Jewish intellectual became a thriving academic industry.
