Bargoens & Yiddish loans

From secret language to everyday slang

• Bargoens was the secret language of vagrants, travelling traders and criminals, recorded since the late Middle Ages. Many of its words reached it through Yiddish, and many Yiddish words have Hebrew roots.
• Amsterdam, with its large Jewish community, was a gateway: Mokum (Amsterdam, from Hebrew makom, “place”), de bajes (prison, from bajis, “house”), het lef (guts, from lev, “heart”), tof (great, from tov, “good”).
• Some are now ordinary informal Dutch: mazzel (luck), lef, smoes (excuse — usually een smoesje), jatten (to nick). De mazzel! is an Amsterdam way of saying goodbye.
• Others are clearly marked: de smeris (cop) and het gajes (riff-raff) are pejorative; de penoze (the underworld) mostly appears in crime journalism. Use them knowingly, or just recognise them.