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epitome of incomprehensibility
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First German class on Tuesday, the prof began with a game: group yourselves according to row and list English-German cognates. Cognates? Cognates.
She defined them, but the definition seemed too narrow: words that are the same in both languages. I raised my hand. "The same or related?"
She nodded to acknowledge the sense-ness of the question and went, "Closely enough related that they sound similar."
Apfel/apple she accepted. Same with psychology and Psychologie, which sound quite different (sai-CAH-luh-jee, psoo-co-lo-GHEE).
Phonetics sidenote: in German, "y" is often pronounced the same as "ü" with an umlaut. That's like the French sound in "tu" but not "vous." Not everyone knows that...hmm. It's like the English long u but with the tongue raised instead of lowered. So you get sort of a narrower sound, like you're pronouncing "ee" with your tongue and "u" with your lips.
Anyway, she rejected "father/Vater" because the student didn't spell Vater right. "Though they are cognates, if you study linguistics," she said (at least three of us there major in LING).
My row, the front, was one of the winners. Tied at thirteen. Stereotypically front-row-ish in that we all seem to be committed students, though only one of us is confident in speaking German. Confession: it ain't me.
Ah, to be an extrovert! Sometimes.
Today we went over a fill-in-the-blanks exercise arranged in a dialogue. First one tested the modal verb möchten (to want, politely; in requests and such, where you'd use "would like" in English). Mother/Mutter is talking to her two kinder/kids, Annika and Juliane (Yoo-li-an(eh)).
Condensed, translated, dramatified:
Mom: What do you two want for supper?
Annika: Spaghetti.
Juliane: Pizza.
Mom: I don't want to cook two meals. So what do you both want?
Annika and Juliane, in chorus (have they planned this? do they have some secret non-verbal code?): ICE CREAM!
Mom: Oh sure, the kids want ice cream. (I can imagined the tone - mild exasperation, good-natured eye-rolling.)
The last line again, in German: "Mutter: Oh weh, die Kinder möchten Eis!"
Now, the two-word phrase beginning it had me puzzled. I felt like it should have some English cognate. I didn't know "weh," but I thought of "way" - whose cognate was "Weg," I remembered. What was this weh-pronounced-veh?
Then: ah! Or rather, oy_vey! As in: Oy vey, Kirsten, took you long enough. Now, it's not a direct English cognate, being borrowed from Yiddish, but the relationship makes sense, since Yiddish is closer to German. Same pronunciation, just "oh" changed to "oy" sometime.
Merriam-Webster concurs:
"History and Etymology for oy vey
borrowed from Yiddish, from oy, interjection expressing surprise or dismay + vey, interjection expressing distress or grief, going back to Middle High German wē, going back to Old High German wah, wē, going back to Germanic *wai (whence Old English wā) — more at WOE entry 1"
Ah yes, it has an English cognate too. But we don't say "oh woe." We should. Not just "woe is me" and "oh no"! Oh no, we need Oh Woe!!
("Stop trying to make 'fetch' happen" - the dog to me, probably.)
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