Blessings, curses, hopes, and fears. Psycho-ostensive expressions in Yiddish

Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000. - 200 p.
ISBN 0804733937In this book professor James A. Matisoff enumerates and classifies the formulas Yiddish speakers use to express their emotions. It is a rarity among scholarly books, for it brings joy while it teaches; it makes us smile, sometimes roar with laughter, while it develops the most rigorous linguistic argumentation. The author analyzes the many kinds of Yiddish psycho-ostensives—ranging from blessings and thanks to lamentations and curses. To a person who mentions something horrible you can say: Zalts dir in di oygn, fefer dir in noz! (Salt into your eyes, and pepper into your nose!). Or to a child you might tenderly murmur: A gezúnt dir in yeder éyverl! (A health to all your little body-parts!). The author illustrates how these formulas can be used to fulfill social conventions, to keep away evil, to show off—or even to deceive the listener.As psycho-ostensive expressions that are highly characteristic formulaic utterances in Yiddish, blessings and curses are typically inserted parenthetically into longer statements and purport to reflect the speaker’s emotional attitude to the topic of conversation. Yiddish psycho-ostensives, like those in other languages (e.g., Greek, Turkish, Arabic, Irish) fall into several categories according to the psychic stance of the speaker toward the good or evil that may befall either the person talking or others. The passive acceptance of good or evil may be called recognitive; the active attitude of seeking or desiring is petitive; while that of shunning or fearing is fugitive. This terminology, along with the Greek roots for 'self' and 'others' (auto- and allo-), and the Latin roots for 'good' and 'evil' (bono- and malo-), allows us to classify all the speech acts expressed by Yiddish psycho-ostensives.To give thanks is to recognize that good has come to oneself (auto-bono-recognition). Yiddish expressions of this sort often take the form of blessing God’s name:Ikh bin, borkhashem, gezunt, un di gesheftn geyen gut
(I am, bless God, healthy, and business is good.)To express sympathy is to recognize that evil has come to another (allo-malo-recognition):Er hot farlorn beyde hent in der milkhome, az okh un vey tsu im!
(He lost both his hands in the war, alas and alack to him!)