Yiddish inflections have been fastened upon most of these loanwords. Thus, “Er hat ihm abgefaked” is “He cheated him,” zubunt is the American gone to the bad, fix’n is to fix, usen is to use, and so on. The feminine and diminutive suffix -ké is often added to nouns. Thus bluffer gives rise to bluff erké (hypocrite), and one also notes dresské, hatké, watchké and bummerké. “Oi! is sie a blufferké!” is good American Yiddish for “Isn’t she a hypocrite!” The suffix -nick, signifying agency, is also freely applied. Allrightnick means an upstart, an offensive boaster, one of whom his fellows would say “He is all right” with a sneer. Similarly, consumptionick means a victim of tuberculosis. Other suffixes are -chick and -ige, the first exemplified in boychick, a diminutive of boy, and the second in next-doorige, meaning the woman next door, an important person in Jewish social life. Some of the loan-words, of course, undergo changes on Yiddish-speaking lips. Thus landlord becomes lendler, certificate becomes stiff-ticket, lounge becomes lunch, tenant becomes tenner, and whiskers loses its final s. “Wie gefällt dir sein whisker?” (How do you like his beard?) is good Yiddish, ironically intended. Fellow, of course, changes to the American fella, as in “Rosie hat schon a fella” (Rosie has got a fella, i.e., a sweetheart). Show, in the sense of chance, is used constantly, as in “Git ihm a show” (Give him a chance). Bad boy is adopted bodily, as in “Er is a bad boy.” To shut up is inflected as one word, as in “Er hat nit gewolt shutup’n” (He wouldn’t shut up). To catch is used in the sense of to obtain, as in catch’n a gmilath chesed (to raise a loan). Here, by the way, gmilath chesed is excellent Biblical Hebrew. To bluff, unchanged in form, takes on the new meaning of to lie: a bluffer is a liar. Scores of American phrases are in constant use, among them, all right, never mind, I bet you, no sir and I’ll fix you. It is curious to note that sure Mike, borrowed by the American vul-gate from Irish-English, has also gone over into American-Yiddish. Finally, to make an end, here are two complete American-Yiddish sentences: “Sie wet clear’n die rooms, scruh’n dem floor, wash’n die windows, dress’n dem boy und gehn in butcher-store und in grocery. Dernoch vet sie machen dinner und gehn in street für a walk.”50
For some time past there has been a movement among the New York Jews for the purification of Yiddish, and it has resulted in the establishment of a number of Yiddish schools. Its adherents do not propose, of course, that English be abandoned, but simply that the two languages be kept separate, and that Jewish children be taught Yiddish as well as English. The Yiddishists insist that it is more dignified to say a gooten tog than good-bye, and billet instead of ticket. But the movement makes very poor progress. “The Americanisms absorbed by the Yiddish of this country,” says Abraham Cahan, “have come to stay. To hear one say ‘Ich hob a billet für heitige vorschtellung’ would be as jarring to the average East Side woman, no matter how illiterate and ignorant she might be, as the intrusion of a bit of Chinese in her daily speech.” Yiddish, as everyone knows, has produced a very extensive literature during the past two generations; it is, indeed, so large and so important that I can do no more than refer to it here.51 Much of it has come from Jewish authors living in New York. In their work, and particularly their work for the stage, there is extensive and brilliant evidence of the extent to which American-English has influenced the language.52
2. LATIN
a. French
Ever since the close of the Eighteenth Century patriotic French-Canadians have been voicing fears that the French language would be obliterated from their country, soon or late, by the growth of English, but so far it has not happened. At the present moment probably 25% of all the Canadians continue to speak French and to think of it as their mother-tongue, though most of them, of course, also speak more or less English. But the French they speak is by no means that of Paris. Dr. E. C. Hills, who spent five Summers in a French-speaking community near Montreal, studying the local speechways, came away convinced that “a Parisian would not understand the common language of the district.”53 It differs considerably from place to place, but all over Canada it is heavily shot with English, and especially with American. “The effect of English on the French,” says A. Marshall Elliott,54 “has been immeasurably greater than that of French on the English.… The French has made use of all the productive means — suffixes, prefixes — at its disposal to incorporate the English vocables in its word-supply … and to adapt them by a skilful use of the inflectional apparatus to all the requirements of a rigid grammatical system.” On one page of N. E. Dionne’s “Le Parler Populaire des Canadiens Français”55 I find barkeeper, bargaine, barroom, bullseye, buckwheat, buggy, buckboard, bugle, bully, bum, business and bus — most of them, it will be observed, American rather than English, and one of them, bum, an American loan from the German. In Sylva Chapin’s “Dictionnaire Canadien-Français”56 are many more, e.g., lager (another German loan), overalls, cracker, gerrymander, baseball, blizzard, blue-nose, bluff, boodle (from the Dutch originally), boss (also from the Dutch), brakeman, cocktail, C.O.D., cowboy, greenback, johnny-cake, peanut, sleigh (a third Dutch loan), squatter, teetotaler, township and trolley. A larger number have been Gallicized, e.g., boodlage (boodle), boodleur (boodler), conducteur, lyncher (to lynch), elevateur and engin (locomotive), and some appear in two forms, e.g., bum and bommeur, which have produced the verb bommer, and loafer and lôfeur, which have produced the verb lôfer. Here are some quotations from current Canadian-French newspapers: “sur le scrîne” (screen), “les effets du vacouomme-clîneaur,” “Le typewriter empêche d’embrouiller les textes,” “Les Goglus sont wise” (a headline), and “Hold-up de M. Houde” (another).57 Louvigny de Montigny, in “La Langue Française au Canada”58 complains bitterly that American words and phrases are driving out French words and phrases, even when the latter are quite as clear and convenient. Thus, un patron, throughout French Canada, is now un boss, petrole is l’huile de charbon (coal-oil), une bonne à tout faire is une servante générate, and un article d’occasion is un article de seconde main! “Vous regardez bien, Monsieur,” which means “Your eyesight is good,” or “You look in the right direction” in Standard French, means “You are looking well” in Canadian-French. The latter is full of French dialect words inherited from the early settlers, and unknown in Standard French, e.g., the Norman verbs chouler (to tease a dog), fafiner (to hesitate) and; aspiner (to gossip). The influence of the dialects is also responsible for numerous differences in grammatical gender between the two languages, e.g., hôtel, examen, arc and éclair, which are masculine in Standard French, are feminine in Canada, and garantie and écritoire, which are feminine in Standard French, are masculine. It has also produced some peculiarities in phonology, e.g., a for elle, i for il, ils, lui and y, ah for e, aw for ah, and dz for d. The final d, r, s and t are often sounded where they are now mute in Standard French.59
“Two varieties of French, different yet closely related,” says Dr. William A. Read of Louisiana State University, “are spoken in Louisiana. The first variety is represented by a dialect which is not far removed from Standard French in syntax, vocabulary and pronunciation. This is the speech of most Creoles and of many cultivated Acadians. Naturally, some new words are used and various old words have acquired senses unknown in Standard French.”60 The Acadians (Cajuns), who are descendants of the French colonists expelled from Nova Scotia by the English in 1755, speak a dialect brought from their former home and showing kinship with the dialects of the North, West and Center of France. There is yet a third variety of Louisiana-French. It is the Négre spoken by the Negroes, or, as they often call it, Congo or Gumbo — a vulgate based on the speech of the white Creoles, but much debased.61 It is, says Dr. George S. Lane of the Catholic University, “the usual speech not only between Negroes, but also between white and Negro. In fact, few Negroes understand Standard French, hardly any speak it. Negro-French … is often the only type of French known to the children, especially to those under fifteen years of age.”62 It is composed, says Dr. Read, “of a highly corrup
t French vocabulary, some native African words, and a syntax for the most part essentially African.” He gives the following specimen of it:
Lendenmain matin Médo di moin,
Mo chien apé mégri.
Dépi milat-lá rentré dans la cou-là,
Ye na pi des os pu chats.
There is a large literature of this Gumbo-French, chiefly in the form of songs, and readers of Lafcadio Hearn, George W. Cable, Kate Chopin and Grace Elizabeth King will recall it. The written literature of the educated Creoles, now fading out in the face of the advance of English, was wholly in Standard French. Rather curiously, most of it was produced, not during the days of French rule, but after the American occupation in 1803. “It was not until after the War of 1812,” says a recent historian,63 “that letters really flourished in French Louisiana. The contentment and prosperity that filled the forty years between 1820 and 1860 encouraged the growth of a vigorous and in some respects a native literature, comprising plays, novels, and poems.” The chief dramatists of the period were Placide Canonge, A. Lussan, Oscar Dugué, Le Blanc de Filleneufve, P. Pérennes and Charles Testut; today all their works are dead, and they themselves are but names. Testut was also a poet and novelist; other novelists were Canonge, Alfred Mercier, Alexandre Barde, Adrien Rouquette, Jacques de Roquigny and Charles Lemaître. The principal poets were Dominique Rouquette, Tullius Saint-Céran, Constant Lepouzé, Felix de Courmont, Alexandre Latil, A. Lussan and Armand Lanusse. But the most competent of all the Creole authors was Charles E. A. Gayerré (1805–95), who was at once historian, dramatist and novelist. Today the Creole literature is only a memory. “The time will inevitably come,” says Dr. Read, “when French will no longer be spoken in Louisiana; for Creoles and Aca-dians alike are prone to discard their mother-tongue, largely because they are compelled in their youth to acquire English in the public-schools of the State.” Even in St. Martinville, le petit Paris, says Dr. Lane, “most native residents between twenty-five and forty, while able to speak French, use it only among close associates or in addressing older people. Few under twenty-five make use of it at all, though they understand it readily and are able to speak it. Today, one hears ordinarily on the street either bad English or the Negro-French dialect spoken by white and black alike.”64
b. Italian
Rémy de Gourmont, the French critic, was the first to call attention to the picturesque qualities of the Americanized Italian spoken by Italian immigrants to the United States. This was in 1899.65 Nineteen years later Dr. Arthur Livingston, of the Italian department of Columbia University, published an instructive and amusing study of it, under the title of “La Merica Sanemagogna” (The American Son-of-a-Gun), in the Romanic Review (New York).66 Since then it has attracted other scholars in the United States, and a growing literature deals with it;67 in addition, it is not infrequently discussed in the books which Italian visitors write about their adventures and observations in this country.68 Finally, it has produced some interesting writing of its own, ranging from such eloquent pieces as Giovanni Pascoli’s “Italy”69 to the Rabelaisian buffooneries of Carlo Ferrazzano. Ferrazzano, who died in 1926, wrote many macchiette coloniali for the cheap Italian theaters of New York. The macchietta coloniale was an Americanized variety of the Neapolitan macchietta, which Dr. Livingston describes as “a character-sketch — etymologically, a character-‘daub’ — most often constructed on rigorous canons of ‘ingenuity’: there must be a literal meaning, accompanied by a double sense, which, in the nature of the tradition, inclines to be pornographic.” The macchietta was brought to New York by Edoardo Migliaacio (Farfariello),70 purged of its purely Neapolitan materials, and so adapted to the comprehension of Italians from other parts of Italy. For nearly a generation it was the delight of the Italians of New York, but in late years it has gradually succumbed to the decline in Italian immigration and the competition of the movies and talkies. Farfariello wrote fully five hundred macchiette and Ferrazzano probably as many more; some of the latter were printed. They were commonly in verse, with now and then a descent to prose. I take from Dr. Livingston’s study a specimen of the latter:
Ne sera dentro na barra americana dove il patrone era americano, lo visco era americano, la birra era americana, ce steva na ghenga de loffari tutti ameri-cani; solo io non ero americano; quanno a tutto nu mumento me mettono mmezzo e me dicettono: Alò spaghetti; iu mericano men? No! no! mi Italy men! Iu blacco enze? No, no! Iu laíco chistu contri? No, no! Mi laìco mio contry! Mi laíco Italy! A questa punto me chiavaieno lo primo fait! “Dice: Orré for America!” Io tuosto: Orré for Italy! Un ato fait. “Dice: Orré for America!” Orré for Italy! N’ato fait e n’ ato fait, fino a che me facetteno addur-mentare; ma però, orré for America nun o dicette!
Quanno me scietaie, me trovaie ncoppa lu marciepiedi cu nu pulizio vicino che diceva; Ghiroppe bomma! Io ancora stunato alluccaie: America nun gudde! Orré for Italy! Sapete li pulizio che facette? Mi arrestò!
Quanno fu la mattina, lu giorge mi dicette: Wazzo maro laste naite? Io risponette: No tocche ngles! “No? Tenne dollar.” E quello porco dello giorge nun scherzava, perchè le diece pezze se le pigliaie!…
The Americanisms here are obvious enough: barra for bar, visco for whiskey, blacco enze for black-hand, laico for like, chistu for this, contri for country, fait for fight (it is also used for punch, as in chiaver nu fait, give a punch, and nato fait, another punch), loffari for loafers, ghiroppe for get up, bomma for bum, pulizio for police, nun gudde for no good, orré for hurray, giorge for judge, wazzo maro for what’s the matter, laste for last, naite for night, toccho for talk, tenne for ten, dollari for dollars. All of the surviving macchiette coloniali are heavy with such loan-words; one of them, Farfariello’s “A lingua ’nglese,” is devoted almost wholly to humorous attempts to represent English words and phrases as the more ignorant Italians of New York hear and employ them. There has also been some attempt to make use of American-Italian on higher literary levels. Pascoli’s “Italy” I have mentioned. A satirical poem by Vincenzo Campora, entitled “Spaghetti House” and well known to most literate Italians in the United States, embodies tomato sauce, luncheonette, drug-store and other characteristic Americanisms.71 Others appear in the following sonetto by Rosina Vieni:
Vennero i bricchellieri a cento a cento,
tutta una ghenga coi calli alle mani
per far la casa di quaranta piano (1)
senza contare il ruffo e il basamento
Adesso par che sfidi il firmamento
a onore e gloria degli americani;
ma chi pensa ai grinoni, ai paesani
morti d’un colpo, senza Sacramento?
che val, se per disgrazia o per mistecca
ti sfracelli la carne in fondo al floro —
povero ghinni, disgraziato dego?
Davanti a mezzo ponte di bistecca
il bosso ghigna e mostra i denti d’oro:
— chi è morto è morto … io vivo e me ne frego.72
Relatively few of the Italians who came to the United States during the great migration before the World War brought any genuine command of Standard Italian with them. Those who had been to school at home had more or less acquaintance with it, but in the family circle and among their neighbors they spoke their local dialects, some of which were mutually unintelligible. In the main, the immigrants from a given section of Italy flocked together — New York, for example, got mostly Neapolitans and Sicilians, and the Pacific Coast a preponderance of Piedmontese and Genoese — but there was still a sufficient mixture to make intercommunication difficult. If all of the newcomers had been fluent in Standard Italian it would have served them, but not many had an adequate vocabulary of it, so resort was had to an amalgam of Standard Italian, the various Italian dialects, and the common English of the country, with the latter gradually prevailing. The result, says Mr. Anthony M. Turano, was “a jargon which may be called American-Italian, a dialect no less distinct from both English and Italian than any provincial dialect is distinct from
the Italian language.”73 Mr. Turano believes that American loan-words now comprise “as much as one-fourth of the spoken language of Little Italy.” He divides them into three categories, as follows:
1. “Words for which a true Italian equivalent is lacking or remote, because of the absence of absolute identity between the American thing or act and its Italian counterpart,” e.g., gliarda (yard), visco (whiskey), pichinicco (picnic), ais-crima (ice-cream), ghenga (gang), rodomastro (road-master).
2. “Words whose Italian equivalents were generally unknown or unfamiliar to the immigrant before his arrival,” e.g., morgico (mortgage), lista (lease), bosso (boss), fensa (fence).
3. “Words that win the honors of Italianization by the sheer force of their repetition by the American natives, despite the fact that the Italian language affords familiar and ample equivalents,” e.g., stritto (street), carro (car), gam-bolo or gambolino (gambler), loncio (lunch), cotto (coat), bucco (book), storo (store), checca (cake), loya (lawyer), trampo (tramp).
Mr. Turano continues:
Once an American word has been borrowed, its transformation does not end with its first changes. It is drafted for full service and made to run through all the genders, tenses and declensions of Italian grammar, until it presents the very faintest image of its former self. Thus the word fight, which was first changed into faiti, can be seen in such unrecognizable forms as faitare, faitato, faitava, faito, faitasse, and many more.
Sometimes Italian and English words are combined in a grotesque manner. Thus, Dr. Livingston reports hearing canabuldogga in New York, from the Italian cane, meaning a dog, and the English bulldog. A half-time barber, working only on Saturdays, is a mezzo-barbiere, a half-time bartender is a mezzo-barritenne, and presser’s helpers are sotto-pressatori, sotto being the common Italian designation for inferiority. The Italians in New York use andara a flabussce as a verb meaning to die: it depends for its significance on the fact that the chief Italian cemetery is in Flatbush. Similarly, they have made a word, temneniollo, meaning a large glass of beer, out of Tammany Hall. Not infrequently a loan-word collides with a standard Italian word of quite different meaning. Thus, cecca (check) means magpie in Italian, intrepido (interpreter) means fearless, beccharia (bakery) means butcher-shop, rendita (rent) means income, libreria (library) means bookstore, tronco (trunk) means cut off, and sciabola (shovel) means saber.74 “I was both puzzled and amused during my first week in America,” says Mr. Turano, “when I heard a laborer say quite casually that his daily work involved the use of a pico and a sciabola — that is to say, a pick and a saber!” Among the Sicilians, gaddina, meaning a chicken, is a common euphemism for the borrowed goddam.75 There are, of course, some differences in the loanwords in use in different parts of the United States. The Italians of the West are all familiar with ranchio (ranch) but it is seldom heard in the East; similarly, livetta (elevated) is hardly known in the West. Among the Neapolitans d and t in loan-words sometimes change to r, so that city becomes siri, suri or zuri, and city hall becomes siriollo. But the following forms, like most of the terms quoted above, are in general use:76
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