The menchy thing to do
The last couple of days I've been watching movies, in the hopes of improving my German. I watched Munich yesterday and today I watched Das Leben Die Anderen. I admit I watched Munich with subtitles (that is in English with German subtitles) but Das Leben Die Anderen didn't have language options or subtitles so I watched it in German with no titles which means I understood, maybe, half of the dialogue. However, viewing both movies brought up interesting things about the language for me. One thing which I noticed before, because of a conversation I overheard in a cafe here in Munich, is the word Der Mench. Der Mench means man in the global sense, more like human being and it's the base for a bunch of other words. Menchheit: mankind or humanity, Menchenfreund: philanthropist, Menchenkraft: human power, menchenmoeglich: humanly possible, and most notably menchlich: humane. The irony of the word "humane" (in English) and "menchlich" (auf Deutsch) is probably not lost on a lot of people. It's easy to look around at some of the hideous things human beings are capable of and wonder how humane came to mean what it does as human beings are often decidedly inhumane.
The word "mench" has a slightly different meaning in Yiddish. In Yiddish it is a great compliment and the word has carried over into English speaking pop culture so most (English speaking) people are at least peripherally familiar with it's Yiddish meaning. It's what you call a kind, generous, charitable person, someone who does the right and honorable thing. In Yiddish it doesn't just mean a man it means a good man, the best kind of man. Yiddish and German share a lot of things in common, so many, in fact, that someone who didn't understand either (as I have been and still sort of am) could easily mistake one for the other when hearing them spoken. Linguistically speaking Yiddish is a "Germanic" language. Presumably, it started out as a Jewish dialect of German and elements of Hebrew were incorporated and bits and pieces of other languages mixed with it and it evolved like all languages do so now it is distinct.
What I'm getting at here is where the idea comes from that to do the right thing is "humane" or "menchlich". These variants on the word "human" (or Der Mench) and the meaning for "mench" gained by its evolution from German to Yiddish indicate a general faith in humanity. A belief that men are basically good. Now that these languages (German, English and Yiddish) are all well established, and the study of linguistics abounds, we can look at these words and see irony there, but when people were first ascribing meaning to sounds there had to be a general belief that the human race is essentially good or the words wouldn't have the meanings they do. I wonder where we lost that belief (and I'm using the global we here because I personally have, obviously, not lost it)? There's a theory about the power of positive thinking (and of course the inverse, the power of negative thinking), simply put, that if you expect a positive result then a positive result is more likely (and if you expect a negative result then a negative result is more likely). Maybe the more we expect men not to be basically good then the less good they are.
So, when you hear someone say that something was humane (or inhumane), or when you hear someone call another man a mench, or if you're watching Sports Night and Dan says that something is "the menchy thing to do", just keep in mind the roots of those words, where they take their meaning from, that being from humanity.
As long as I've brought up Sports Night, Dan, Yiddish, and menchiness, and because everything, and I do mean everything can be illustrated with an example from Sports Night, I'll leave you with this quote from the Passover episode:
"It seems to me that more and more we've come to expect less and less of each other and I'd like to be the first to start bucking that trend" - Dan (Sports Night)
The word "mench" has a slightly different meaning in Yiddish. In Yiddish it is a great compliment and the word has carried over into English speaking pop culture so most (English speaking) people are at least peripherally familiar with it's Yiddish meaning. It's what you call a kind, generous, charitable person, someone who does the right and honorable thing. In Yiddish it doesn't just mean a man it means a good man, the best kind of man. Yiddish and German share a lot of things in common, so many, in fact, that someone who didn't understand either (as I have been and still sort of am) could easily mistake one for the other when hearing them spoken. Linguistically speaking Yiddish is a "Germanic" language. Presumably, it started out as a Jewish dialect of German and elements of Hebrew were incorporated and bits and pieces of other languages mixed with it and it evolved like all languages do so now it is distinct.
What I'm getting at here is where the idea comes from that to do the right thing is "humane" or "menchlich". These variants on the word "human" (or Der Mench) and the meaning for "mench" gained by its evolution from German to Yiddish indicate a general faith in humanity. A belief that men are basically good. Now that these languages (German, English and Yiddish) are all well established, and the study of linguistics abounds, we can look at these words and see irony there, but when people were first ascribing meaning to sounds there had to be a general belief that the human race is essentially good or the words wouldn't have the meanings they do. I wonder where we lost that belief (and I'm using the global we here because I personally have, obviously, not lost it)? There's a theory about the power of positive thinking (and of course the inverse, the power of negative thinking), simply put, that if you expect a positive result then a positive result is more likely (and if you expect a negative result then a negative result is more likely). Maybe the more we expect men not to be basically good then the less good they are.
So, when you hear someone say that something was humane (or inhumane), or when you hear someone call another man a mench, or if you're watching Sports Night and Dan says that something is "the menchy thing to do", just keep in mind the roots of those words, where they take their meaning from, that being from humanity.
As long as I've brought up Sports Night, Dan, Yiddish, and menchiness, and because everything, and I do mean everything can be illustrated with an example from Sports Night, I'll leave you with this quote from the Passover episode:
"It seems to me that more and more we've come to expect less and less of each other and I'd like to be the first to start bucking that trend" - Dan (Sports Night)
posted by Beth at
1:12 AM
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