Speaking Hebrish

This blog was first posted May 29, 2005, on Haaretz Underground.

Hebrew has a strange way of absorbing English words. Some of them get swallowed whole, like "bye" and "okay." It's a little funny to hear one Israeli saying to another, "See yoo toomorrrrow," but at least the appropriate meaning gets transmitted in the linguistic jump.

The phenomenon I find more interesting is when Hebrew steals English words and uses it for its own ends. One of the more ubiquitous such words is "happening." Native English speakers generally use this word as an intransitive verb, as in: "What's going on? I don't know, but something's happening." This usage falls into Merriam-Webster's second definition of "happen": "to come into being or occur as an event, process, or result."

But Israelis go straight to the noun form, preferring the little-used meaning of "occurrence," as in, "There's a major happening in town tonight." This word is particularly beloved of advertisers, I guess because it sounds oh so much hipper than "eru'a," the Hebrew word for event. There's even a store called Happening that sells greeting cards, gifts and other party-related items, in case you happen to be going to a happening happening.

My new favorite Hebrish adaptation, though, is the one I learned before I moved into my new apartment, when the landlord told me he was replacing the broken toilet tank.

Don't get flushed if you thought the word for that was "aslah," the Hebrew for toilet bowl. If you're North American, the word you're looking for is actually much closer to home. That's right, it's a Niagara. But my landlord will have no idea what you're talking about if you pronounce it like the Falls, so be Israeli and call it a Nee-ah-gah-ra.

The lesson here is that even when it comes to words that have their roots in English, native Hebrish speakers have simply got us over a barrel.