Yid
Encyclopedia
The word Yid is a slang
Jewish ethnonym
. Its usage may be controversial in modern English language
. It is not usually considered offensive when pronounced ˈ (rhyming with deed), the way Yiddish speakers say it, though some may deem the word offensive nonetheless. When pronounced ˈ (rhyming with did), it can generally be perceived as a pejorative
—and is used as a derogatory epithet
by antisemites.
Supporters of Tottenham Hotspur F.C.
adopted the nickname
"Yid" (or "Yiddo") and often identify as "Yid Army
". Used as a badge of pride by the Jewish communities based near to the North London football club, such usage is not without controversy.
The term Yid has its origins in the Middle High German
word (the contemporary German
word is ).
Leo Rosten
provides the following etymology
:
in 1874. Hotten noted that "The Jews use these terms very frequently."
After World War II
, most examples of the word Yid are found in the writing of Jewish authors. These occurrences are usually either attempts to accurately portray antisemitic speech, or self-deprecating
Jewish humor
. In his 1968 bestseller The Joys of Yiddish
, Leo Rosten offers a number of anecdotes from the "Borscht Belt
" to illustrate such usage.
In Yiddish, a polite way to address a fellow Jew whose name one does not know is Reb Yid, meaning "Sir." The Yiddish words yidish or yiddisher (from Middle High German jüdisch) is an adjective derived from the noun Yid, and thus means "Jewish".
adopted "Yid" (or "Yiddo") as a nickname
and "Yiddo, Yiddo!" as a battle cry
and often identify themselves as "Yid Army". While such usage remains controversial, for the overwhelming majority of Tottenham supporters, it is used with pride. Some Jewish Tottenham supporters use it with a political consciousness of the club as a bastion against racism and antisemitism. Others use it simply because many of the fans and owners of the club are Jews. However, the name was first given to the supporters as an insult, due to the large Jewish following at the club. This following started in the 1890s and 1900s when the club was the team of choice for "East-enders" - including large numbers of Jewish immigrants - who could easily get cheap buses and trams to Tottenham, heading north along the road later designated the A10. East-end Jews have mostly moved to the north and east London suburbs and Herts and Essex, but support for Tottenham Hotspur continues to run in families (a famous example is Alan Sugar). For visiting teams' supporters the Jewish connection continues to be bolstered by the large numbers of - easily identifiable - Hassidic Orthodox Jews living in South Tottenham and Stamford Hill; but in practice there is no evidence of Hassidic Jews attending soccer matches.
Slang
Slang is the use of informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's language or dialect but are considered more acceptable when used socially. Slang is often to be found in areas of the lexicon that refer to things considered taboo...
Jewish ethnonym
Jewish ethnonym
This article lists the ethnonyms of the Jewish people in various linguistic contexts. See the article Jew, Jew and the Footnotes for etymological and other information...
. Its usage may be controversial in modern English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. It is not usually considered offensive when pronounced ˈ (rhyming with deed), the way Yiddish speakers say it, though some may deem the word offensive nonetheless. When pronounced ˈ (rhyming with did), it can generally be perceived as a pejorative
Pejorative
Pejoratives , including name slurs, are words or grammatical forms that connote negativity and express contempt or distaste. A term can be regarded as pejorative in some social groups but not in others, e.g., hacker is a term used for computer criminals as well as quick and clever computer experts...
—and is used as a derogatory epithet
Epithet
An epithet or byname is a descriptive term accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, divinities, objects, and binomial nomenclature. It is also a descriptive title...
by antisemites.
Supporters of Tottenham Hotspur F.C.
Tottenham Hotspur F.C.
Tottenham Hotspur Football Club , commonly referred to as Spurs, is an English Premier League football club based in Tottenham, north London. The club's home stadium is White Hart Lane....
adopted the nickname
Nickname
A nickname is "a usually familiar or humorous but sometimes pointed or cruel name given to a person or place, as a supposedly appropriate replacement for or addition to the proper name.", or a name similar in origin and pronunciation from the original name....
"Yid" (or "Yiddo") and often identify as "Yid Army
Yid Army
This article is about the Yid Army hooligan firm. For the general supporters, see Tottenham Hotspur Yid Army.The Yid Army is the name of a football hooligan firm associated with English football club Tottenham Hotspur...
". Used as a badge of pride by the Jewish communities based near to the North London football club, such usage is not without controversy.
Etymology
Middle High German
Middle High German , abbreviated MHG , is the term used for the period in the history of the German language between 1050 and 1350. It is preceded by Old High German and followed by Early New High German...
word (the contemporary German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
word is ).
Leo Rosten
Leo Rosten
Leo Calvin Rosten was born in Łódź, Russian Empire and died in New York City. He was a teacher and academic, but is best known as a humorist in the fields of scriptwriting, storywriting, journalism and Yiddish lexicography.-Early life:Rosten was born into a Yiddish-speaking family in what is now...
provides the following etymology
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
:
From the GermanGerman languageGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
: Jude: 'Jew.' And 'Jude' is a truncated form of Yehuda, which was the name given to the Jewish CommonwealthIsraeliteAccording to the Bible the Israelites were a Hebrew-speaking people of the Ancient Near East who inhabited the Land of Canaan during the monarchic period .The word "Israelite" derives from the Biblical Hebrew ישראל...
in the period of the Second TempleSecond TempleThe Jewish Second Temple was an important shrine which stood on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem between 516 BCE and 70 CE. It replaced the First Temple which was destroyed in 586 BCE, when the Jewish nation was exiled to Babylon...
. That name, in turn, was derived from the name of one of JacobJacobJacob "heel" or "leg-puller"), also later known as Israel , as described in the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, the New Testament and the Qur'an was the third patriarch of the Hebrew people with whom God made a covenant, and ancestor of the tribes of Israel, which were named after his descendants.In the...
's sons, Yehuda (Judah, in EnglishEnglish languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
), whose descendants constituted one of the tribes of Israel and who settled in that portion of CanaanCanaanCanaan is a historical region roughly corresponding to modern-day Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and the western parts of Jordan...
from Jerusalem south to Kadesh-Barnea (50 miles south of BeershebaBeershebaBeersheba is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Often referred to as the "Capital of the Negev", it is the seventh-largest city in Israel with a population of 194,300....
) and from JerichoJerichoJericho ; is a city located near the Jordan River in the West Bank of the Palestinian territories. It is the capital of the Jericho Governorate and has a population of more than 20,000. Situated well below sea level on an east-west route north of the Dead Sea, Jericho is the lowest permanently...
westwards to the Mediterranean.
History
The earliest mention of the word Yid in print was in The Slang Dictionary published by John Camden HottenJohn Camden Hotten
John Camden Hotten was an English bibliophile and publisher.Hotten was born in Clerkenwell, London to a family of Cornish origins. He spent the period 1848–1856 in America and on his return opened a small bookshop in London at 151a Piccadilly, and founded the publishing firm later known as Chatto...
in 1874. Hotten noted that "The Jews use these terms very frequently."
After World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, most examples of the word Yid are found in the writing of Jewish authors. These occurrences are usually either attempts to accurately portray antisemitic speech, or self-deprecating
Self-deprecation
Self-deprecation, or Self-depreciation, is the act of belittling or undervaluing oneself. It can be used in humor and tension release.-In comedy:...
Jewish humor
Jewish humor
Jewish humour is the long tradition of humour in Judaism dating back to the Torah and the Midrash from the ancient mid-east, but generally refers to the more recent stream of verbal, self-deprecating, crude, and often anecdotal humour originating in Eastern Europe and which took root in the United...
. In his 1968 bestseller The Joys of Yiddish
The Joys of Yiddish
The Joys of Yiddish is a book containing the lexicon of common words and phrases in the Yiddish language, primarily focusing on those words that had become known to speakers of American English due to the influence of American Ashkenazi Jews...
, Leo Rosten offers a number of anecdotes from the "Borscht Belt
Borscht Belt
Borscht Belt, or Jewish Alps, is a colloquial term for the mostly defunct summer resorts of the Catskill Mountains in parts of Sullivan, Orange and Ulster counties in upstate New York that were a popular vacation spot for New York City Jews from the 1920s through the 1960s.-Name:The name comes from...
" to illustrate such usage.
Usage in Yiddish
In Yiddish, the word "Yid" is neutral or even complimentary, and in Ashkenazi Yiddish-speaking circles it is frequently used to mean simply "fellow," "chap," "buddy," "mate," etc., with no expressed emphasis on Jewishness (although this may be implied by the intra-Jewish context). Plural is [jidn].In Yiddish, a polite way to address a fellow Jew whose name one does not know is Reb Yid, meaning "Sir." The Yiddish words yidish or yiddisher (from Middle High German jüdisch) is an adjective derived from the noun Yid, and thus means "Jewish".
Usage in European football
Both Jewish and non-Jewish fans of Tottenham Hotspur F.C.Tottenham Hotspur F.C.
Tottenham Hotspur Football Club , commonly referred to as Spurs, is an English Premier League football club based in Tottenham, north London. The club's home stadium is White Hart Lane....
adopted "Yid" (or "Yiddo") as a nickname
Nickname
A nickname is "a usually familiar or humorous but sometimes pointed or cruel name given to a person or place, as a supposedly appropriate replacement for or addition to the proper name.", or a name similar in origin and pronunciation from the original name....
and "Yiddo, Yiddo!" as a battle cry
Battle cry
A battle cry is a yell or chant taken up in battle, usually by members of the same military unit.Battle cries are not necessarily articulate, although they often aim to invoke patriotic or religious sentiment....
and often identify themselves as "Yid Army". While such usage remains controversial, for the overwhelming majority of Tottenham supporters, it is used with pride. Some Jewish Tottenham supporters use it with a political consciousness of the club as a bastion against racism and antisemitism. Others use it simply because many of the fans and owners of the club are Jews. However, the name was first given to the supporters as an insult, due to the large Jewish following at the club. This following started in the 1890s and 1900s when the club was the team of choice for "East-enders" - including large numbers of Jewish immigrants - who could easily get cheap buses and trams to Tottenham, heading north along the road later designated the A10. East-end Jews have mostly moved to the north and east London suburbs and Herts and Essex, but support for Tottenham Hotspur continues to run in families (a famous example is Alan Sugar). For visiting teams' supporters the Jewish connection continues to be bolstered by the large numbers of - easily identifiable - Hassidic Orthodox Jews living in South Tottenham and Stamford Hill; but in practice there is no evidence of Hassidic Jews attending soccer matches.