haimish

[elainegrey]

Today in my NYTimes reading, twice, the word "haimish," which i don't recall ever seeing before.

From Wikipedia: Haimish (also Heimish): Home-like, friendly, folksy (Yiddish היימיש heymish, cf. German heimisch)

Comments

[weofodthignen]

Yes, Yiddish is still a mammaloschen in NYC, although I didn't realize till I came to the US how few of the Yiddishisms I'd picked up from old movies were current in normal American slang.

[elainegrey]

And another word looked up....

[zyzyly]

There is someone that calls me Haimish in Second Life, for some random reason.

[elainegrey]

As in a name or a description?

The word seems to follow a similar growing trend to hygge, Norwegian for cozy:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=hygge%2Chaimish%2C+heimish&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Chygge%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bhygge%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BHygge%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Chaimish%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bhaimish%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BHaimish%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Cheimish%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bheimish%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BHeimish%3B%2Cc0

[zyzyly]

As a name.

[didotwite]

Yeah that was my thought too. (Danish)

In tough/polarized times prior to the early unified Germany (pre1850s) the aesthetic and political sense ran towards Biedermeier. Everything goes in cycles...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biedermeier

Yet it seems like few use that word for obvs reasons plus the oddness/extra syllables

[elainegrey]

Looks like hygge is both Norwegian and Danish. Thanks for an introduction to Biedermeier!

[warriorsavant]

Being ethnically (although not religiously) Jewish, there are a few Yiddish words I use almost at part of being the English language (although less than I used to). I was 25 before I realized that capisce was Italian, not Yiddish. Still, I somehow thought that hamish was English.

[elainegrey]

Thinking of the Catskills, i wondered if "hamming it up" came from the same root. But no, ham as in acting apparently comes from "amateur."