FW: Mauscheln

[Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky <reyzl...>]

The discussion on mauscheln turned out to be very interesting.  Thanks Josh 
and Heiko.  I am sorry that I didn't get a chance to comment on it before. 
 I don't know about the Rotwelsh connection, but I did learn in my Yiddish 
linguistics studies that the term, meaning to jabber and to speak Yiddish, 
persisted in the German language for some centuries and was independent of 
Rotwelsh.   Since I am not a Germanist, I can't say anymore about it.


Reyzl




-----Original Message-----
From:   Joshua Horowitz [SMTP:horowitz (at) styria(dot)com]
Sent:   Saturday, February 19, 2000 2:02 PM
To:     World music from a Jewish slant
Subject:        Re: Mauscheln

Well, okay Heiko, admittedly, the theories of Rotwelsh etymology are
full of obscure connections and convoluted hypotheses.This is because
the people who gathered the terms were from the ruling class, and never
penetrated the substrata they were studying. One of the collectors of
Rotwelsh terms, for instance, was an Investigative judge (Kajetan
Karmeyer), who gathered his words from the protocoll of a gang of
illegal distillers (Branntweinbrenner) who were caught redhanded. Hans
Oswald came up with the Berlin connection in 1906, though his ideas were
sometimes considered "suspicious". Since Rotwelsh was a purely spoken,
and not written jargon, spelling differences carry little weight in
defining their origins, like "Ratten" (rats) and Raten (payment by
installments). Especially homonyms (words which sound alike but have
different meanings, like the example above) were used in Rotwelsh as
source terms very commonly. To be exact, the development of the word
"mause" to designate money  was explained in 1956 as follows:

The word Mause began as a by product in Berlin from the Rotwelsh term
"Moos" (money). The term Moos formed as an analogy to the term "Ratten"
(pl.) or "Rat" (sing.), the meaning of which was no longer understood.

In that explanation, there is no connection to the word Mauscheln,
though at some point you could probably find a common "root". In
Rotwelsh, finding "roots" can be confusing though, because it is a
manipulated jargon. But comparing the basic concept-images of the words,
there is a connection:

Moyshe-Mauscheln-Mause = Jew:Yiddish:secretive language: cheating at
cards:money gained from cheating

In Rotwelsh you get many words that have multiple roots and lots of
offspring words. Also, its an ambiguous argot.

So, what's the connection of Mause to mauscheln then? Josh

Heiko Lehmann wrote:
>
> I hate to disagree with Josh, but there might be a slight mistake in his
> explanations on "mauscheln".
>
> 1) I doubt that the term "mouse" is a substitute word for "Ratten" (rats) 
in
> this case.
> 2) The term "Ratten" (rats) has nothing to do with the term "Raten" 
(payment
> in installments; from Latin: reri [ratum]).
> 3) I also strongly doubt that the term "Moos" for money (which is not 
just
> in use in the Berlin area) is a dialect pronounciation for "Maus"; I 
rather
> believe that it comes directly (as "mauscheln") from Hebrew/Yiddish (and 
its
> German translation): Moyshe (Moses).
>
> Heiko Lehmann.
>
> Von: Joshua Horowitz <horowitz (at) styria(dot)com>
> An: World music from a Jewish slant <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
> Gesendet: Samstag, 19. Februar 2000 00:50
> Betreff: Mauscheln
>
> > Right on the mark...
> >
> > The term Mauscheln in Rotwelsh came from the word for a poor Jew, who
> > was called a Mauschel, which had two etymological sources: first from a
> > nickname slang pronunciation of the word Moshe, the second from a
> > cynical use of
> > the word Mauschel (meaning the head of a government). In the 19th
> > century, poking fun at the regional dialect of Frankfurt, Heinrich 
Heine
> > wrote: "What we call Mauscheln in Northern Germany is nothing more than
> > the regional language of Frankfurt."
> >
> > In Rotwelsh the term had another meaning - illegal card playing. From
> > this came a collection of German expressions all expressing something
> > forbidden:
> >
> > 1) vermauscheln (to put into circulation counterfeit money)
> > 2) tauscheln und mauscheln (to deal with illegal or clandestine
> > business  - This expression is used mostly in Bavaria- i.e. southern
> > Germany)
> > 3) muscheln ( to cheat silently - especially in a card game while
> > shuffling cards. This variant is probably related to the word mischen -
> > to mix, but also has a crossroad connection to Mauscheln - to speak
> > Yiddish, i.e. to do something which others don't understand). In north
> > Thuringen the "muschele" means clandestine activity and cheating.
> >
> > The latter two of these became integral to what is known in German as
> > "Mundart" which is very specific regional dialect pronunication and
> > differs from place to place throughout the German speaking countries.
> >
> > Still in use in all the German speaking countries is the slang word for
> > money - "Mause" (mice, pronounced Moyse, the source of which may also 
be
> > Moyshe). In Berlin, the term Moos is used, which is a dialect
> > pronunciation of the word for Maus (mouse) and is a substitute word for
> > the term "Ratten" (which means both rats, as well as "payment in
> > installments"). Complex enough? Josh
> >
> >
> > > it's "mauscheln", still a common word, which today means to jabber, 
or
> > > talking about something better not to be heard by others.
> > > My German-English dictionary translates it as "talk Yiddish", but it
> lost
> > > this specific meaning in German.
> > > According to Salcia Landmann it goes back to "mashal" (parabel) and 
came
> from
> > > Yiddish via Rotwelsch into German.
> > >
> > > Christian



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