Talk:Mensch

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Looking to the German Wikipedia

The Mensch article over at the German Wikipedia seems not to acknowledge that Mensch is a Jiddisch word. Isn't that a little suspect? __meco 16:08, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but it could be due to mere ignorance, not necessarily prejudice. Erudil 17:08, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

The German Mensch article is the equivalent of Human, and neither of both focuses on etymology. I'm not sure where exactly it should be mentioned anyway, since the Yiddish (and, apparently, American) meaning of the word is virtually unknown among Germans. 80.108.198.141 23:59, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it is known in Norwegian, which is both culturally and linguistically somewhat close to German language and culture. __meco 00:12, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So what does it mean in Norwegian? (By the way, Norwegian is a North Germanic language, closely but not very closely related to German. German, along with Dutch, Frisian, and English, is a West Germanic language.)

*siiiiiighs* I went through 13 years of school in Germany and never heard of it. It's not something that comes up often in American pop songs, and at least in my experience the English taught at school is mostly British/Commonwealth English.

I changed the link from this article to the German disambiguation page, since, as the anonymous commenter above said, the "homo sapiens" article didn't correspond to this article here, and added an explanation of the Yiddish/AE meaning. Anke 19:24, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It would not be feasible for the German Wikipedia to mention every German word that is also a Yiddish word, since Yiddish is derived from German. According to the Urban Dictionary, which granted is not particularly scholarly, the word "mensch", as I suspected, has the same primary meaning in Yiddish that it has in German, i.e., "human being." Yiddish also gives it a 2nd, figurative meaning, and that is the one that is borrowed into English.

I also went to college in Germany, and I heard the word used frequently, but only to mean "human."

Well "Menschlichkeit" and "Unmensch" are very common in Standard German! And there are idiomatic expressions like "Man ist Mensch." or "Sei kein Unmensch!". I doubt that Yiddish and German interpretation are so different, it's the English interpretation emphasizing a special connotation. Anyway I'm no expert of Yiddish but I doubt that some other contributors here are! --Popolfi (talk) 11:43, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A little check in German Wikipedia shows that "Menschlichkeit" is etymologically just the translation of the 2000 year old philosophical concept of humanitas by Cicero !!! --Popolfi (talk) 18:13, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Huh? why is the parenthetical taking center stage?

Mentch is a YIDDISH word with a certain meaning that has since become popular in English. The fact that the word's etymological roots trace to the German is wholly irrelevant. How about tracing it back further through the word's earlier incarnations? How's about providing a history lesson on the letter 'M' - which is required in order to spell the word 'mentch'? I realize that I'm showing little mentchlichkeit in the manner in which I'm writing this but when you take a beautiful JEWISH concept and paint it in a way that at first blush appears to credit GERMANS, I think I have a right to be disgusted. If anything we see within this word an example of how vastly different unzere are from yenem, The word most literally simply means "man" but the Germans found inspiration within it for the uber-mentch who can kill, enslave and exploit all others for his own uber self, while MY ancestors decided to define the word "Man" as one who is caring and thoughtful about others.

Umm, Yiddish is a dialect of German.-jackbrown (talk) 00:30, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Anu ameilim v'heim ameilim... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.206.180.16 (talk) 05:24, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The word is a German word. Yiddish is mostly based on German. You cannot separate the two, your racism not withstanding. It is also worth noting that the word 'mensch' in German, does not simply mean 'Man', as there are other words to that affect, but specifically with the connotations of a person. This would be at odds with how the Nazis considered Jews, and is just one example of their corrupting a previous German sentiment, as would be their twisting of the ideal of the übermensch. Alexander (talk) 11:21, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Uh, what a nice example of racism. The beautiful "JEWISH" concept goes back to Cicero's humanitas. And the OP doesn't even seem to speak Yiddish... how do they say "stupid chauvinist" in Hebrew?--Popolfi (talk) 18:24, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The GERMANS and the JEWISH: That comment is just over-the-top. V-Day was 67 years ago; let us hope we do not ever have to fight that war again! Not one of us humans would survive! Anyways, I have never heard of Yiddish mentch and while it certainly deserves mention, I do not think it is sufficiently notable to subsume this entire article; there is no denying that Mensch is a beautiful Jewish concept, but it far pre-dates German or Yiddish or even Cicero's Latin: the first book of Moses was in Hebrew. However, I would say that Mensch himself is not so beautiful since his eyes were opened when he ate the forbidden fruit. Mensch who knows good and evil is in fact capable of unspeakable unmenschlich evil. I've certainly heard of Übermensch; this is övermänniska in Swedish, and I believe to this day the Swedish prefix över- carries the connotation of an egregious, atrocious overreach, e.g. överdåd, cognate of the apparently quite rare German word 'Übertat'. In any case övermänniska (or Übermensch) is a tyrant far "over" and above any reasonable concept of what a human ought to be.

By the way I am quite curious how it came to be that German Mensch is masculine, while Swedish människa is feminine, and Norwegian menneske is neuter, when all three words share the same root and the same meaning. 71.32.252.132 (talk) 05:15, 19 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Old High German mennisk was an adjective meaning 'human'. The original adjective, which did not have a fixed gender, developed independently into nouns in several Germanic languages, with different genders.--Schreiber91 (talk) 19:04, 4 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Etymology

I added an etymology tracing this meaning of Mensch back to German "Menschlichkeit" and Latin "Humanitas" by Cicero. I think some Yiddish patriots may object and preferre a purely Hebrew philosophical root. Could they please give references that show that "Menschlichkeit" was used differently in European(!) Yiddish than in other German variations? The sources given are from an American perspective and don't seem to analyze European Yiddish literature. For me this meaning is an abbreviation of German "anständiger Mensch" for a "decent fellow". Anständig also has the meaning of "real", e.g. "ein anständiges Bier" means "a real (or fair) beer", so being a "real man" means being a "decent man".

It also astonishes me that the orthography of "Mensch" is Standard German not Yiddsih "mentsh".

Please don't misunderstand me, I have no problem to credit something to Jewish philosophy, but the resemblances to Cicero are too evident for me and WP shouldn't be a place of patriotic rumors. If there is a special Ashkenazim influx I'd like to see references.

--Popolfi (talk) 13:07, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mensch ärgere dich nicht

Editor Cssiitcic (talk · contribs) extended the hatnote of this article, claiming that "Mensch" is also used as an abbreviation for the board game Mensch ärgere dich nicht. That claim was added as an unsourced assertion to that article by the same editor. The German article makes no such claim, so I reverted both changes. Cssiitcic and her/his alias 24.154.61.183 have now reverted my reversals.

Unless a source can be provided for this claim, it should be removed from this article's hatnote and from the article about the board game where I started a discussion on the same topic. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:00, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion of section on Mensch on the Bench

An editor deleted (it has been restored) as "off-topic trivia" the section on Mensch on the Bench. That section is entirely appropriate. It is properly RS sourced -- indeed, better sourced than the rest of the article, by articles from around the world (entire articles, for example, by NPR, and the New York Post, and the New York Daily News, and the Times of Israel, and USA Today). It need not be a standalone article to be included as a section here. The relevance is clear - rex ipsa. If the editor disagrees, he should indicate why here, and we should involve other appropriate editors. But his deletion is not appropriate. --2604:2000:E016:A700:74E3:5CBF:500C:CF92 (talk) 01:14, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@2604:2000:E016:A700:74E3:5CBF:500C:CF92: It probably should be a third-level heading (or a footnote), not a full second-level heading. At least one of the references to it should be added to that section itself. And you really need to add a direct mention of its use by the Israel team in the WBC; without that, it's just a toy with no independent notability. StevenJ81 (talk) 15:34, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I have to agree. It looks like a good candidate for Wikipedia:"In popular culture" content. I'll concede that the toy has some notability due to the baseball team, but learning about the toy does not enhance one's understanding of the word or the concepts behind it. However, according to the manual, "Short cultural references sections should usually be entirely reworked into the main flow of the article." I will re-work it a bit. Fordsfords (talk) 15:33, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, looking closer at this whole article makes me wonder if the Mensch on the Bench guy might have some kind of financial interest in it, or perhaps is simply an over-enthusiastic superfan; let's be non-cynical and assume the latter. The initial main sentence, 'In Yiddish, mentsh roughly means "a good person"' has three supporting references, all three of which are simply articles about how the Israeli baseball team has the mascot. Now granted, the first article does briefly define "mensch" as "a person of integrity or honor", so I guess it is a valid (albeit weak) supporting reference. But the other two are superfluous. I guess I'm not dedicated enough to find really good references, so I'll just trim the really bad ones. Fordsfords (talk) 16:49, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified (January 2018)

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Mensch in Jewish culture

Surprised that there is no mention of Jewish culture, considering the word mensch comes from Yiddish and the concept is a significant aspect of adulthood and ideals of masculinity in Jewish culture. 2601:8C:C102:DD00:75F7:FF7E:4158:8919 (talk) 01:08, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Also; given that we are talking about a word from Jewish culture, I am surprised that there is no mention of the word being used humorously as in "What a Mensch!" (for somebody who does something well received or noble), or sarcastically (for somebody who doesn't). 2A02:C7F:6A56:9D00:19AB:AC9F:72E8:A74A (talk) 21:04, 26 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]