Doing two different things at the same time, my genealogy and Old Testament research, I’ve become exposed to the curiosity of many Old Testament Hebrew names ending in “el” (Michael, Joel, Ezekiel, Israel, Gabriel, Raphael, etc.), meaning “God,” and many contemporary Yiddish names ending in “el” (Velvel, Moishel, Hershel, etc.) which is a diminutive–i.e., my cousin Moishel’s name means “little Moses,” my cousin Velvel’s name means “little Wolf,” etc.) I assume this is just a coincidence, because I don’t see the connection between “Creator of the Universe” and “little one,” but is it?
Hebrew and Yiddish come from completely different language families. Hebrew is Afro-Asiatic and Yiddish Indo-European. It’s coincidence.
Yiddish gets its “el” ending from German which does the same thing:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-el#Etymology_5
Suffix
-el
- suffix in diminutives
*Kind* (“child”) + *-el* → *Kindel* (“little child, darling”)
*Haus* (“house”) + *-el* → *Häusel* (“little house”)
- suffix in nouns indicating appurtenance
*Arm* (“arm”) + *-el* → *Ärmel* (“sleeve”)
*Eiche* (“oak”) + *-el* → *Eichel* (“acorn”)
- suffix in agent and instrumental nouns
One well-known example not mentioned in this article : Hansel - “little Hans”
Ok. But pretty cool coincidence, right?
I don’t see it’s “cool”, it’s just coincidence.
Would it be more accurate to say that Yiddish and German get it from the same place?
That question has me looking up the structure of the Germanic language families.
If Yiddish is placed as an offshoot of German it would be accurate in saying that “it get’s its morphological structure from German” however if it split off from a precursor to German then it would be appropriate to say that “they both get it from an older language” (plus we should try to name the precursor if we know it)
Interesting.
I think Yiddish developed in Central Europe well aftwr features of Germanic languages like a diminutive ending had been established, but I could be wrong
Ish?
Yiddish is a German dialect, yes, but it does have other language influences, especially Hebrew, and especially on vocabulary.
Sure, all languages have influences from other languages, but at heart Yiddish is a variety of German, and I would expect its diminutives to be from German and not some other language.
I think it unlikely that the “El” that means “God” or related to God in Hebrew morphed into a diminutive in Yiddish.
Which is why ice cream comes in more flavors than just vanilla.
According to Wikipedia (Never checked any citation so God help me if it is accurate), Yiddish is a High-German language and shares it’s features with other High-German languages. Modern German is also a High-German language but I’m uncertain if old High-German is considered continuous to Modern German itself.
Either way, it might be safe to say that Yiddish and Modern German both get their features from Old High-German (the closest mutually shared precursor that I can find at a casual search).
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And especially on names in particular, so it doesn’t sound outlandish that linguistic features relating to names would show a high degree of Hebrew influence.
Speaking of such… If a Yiddish youth has a Hebrew name that already has the Hebrew divine -el ending, how is that name diminutized? What would one call little Samuel, or Rachael?
In this case I am sure that is correct. But my understanding is that to dismiss the contribution of Hebrew to Yiddish as of the same sort as “all languages have influences on other languages” is very much under appreciating the huge impact Hebrew vocabulary in particular played in Yiddish, even if not in this particular case. They could fill a book.
Upon furthwr thought, I suspect that German and Yiddish were in such close contact throughout their development that their diminutive endings evolved together.
Well here’s where language family structuring gets interesting. If the diminutive ending “-el” existed in written records of old High-German then we know exactly where Modern German and Yiddish both got it from (their shared precursor who, itself, got it from…? somewhere, needs further study).
It’s all a matter of looking at the written records and tracing usage. It’s a practice that could’ve been adopted by one language then spread to the other (Middle German → Old Yiddish) or it appeared in isolation and spread across many different distinct languages due to popular cultural influence (like Chinese -unlikely but a good demonstration of this concept-).
These are questions that can (ideally) be traced if we have the written records.
If we don’t have the written records then it would be helpful to look at other Germanic languages in nearby language groupings. Does English (or Dutch, Frisian, Norse, etc) also use “-el”? If so, then the morpheme is probably of a very older progenitor to the Germanic language family itself.
There are other diminutives that can be used. In fact, wikipedia has a list of such:
(I was somewhat surprised Wikipedia has such a list, but not by how many Yiddish has.)
Some of my Yiddish-speaking female relatives had names that ended -erl, which I have assumed was diminutive and related to -el in their dislect.
On the other hand, just because Hebrew had an enormous impact on Yiddish is not proof of a particular feature being from Hebrew, as opposed to from another language.
Yiddish and German split at some point and simultaneously drifted apart. Presumably German isn’t the same as it was in the 9th Century when the split began. Just because one is much more widely spoken and prevalent doesn’t make it the parent.