Name der Mischpoche

[pne]

I was a little amused to see this image of the data page of an Israeli passport, when I read that "Surname" was translated as "שם משפחה".

Not knowing how exactly it was read, since I didn't know the vowels, I tried to puzzle out the consonants and added some vowels half at random—and with those consonants, what came out was "Shem Mishpokha".

The amusing thing being that "Mischpoche" is a slang (and slightly derogatory) word in German for "family", presumably from Yiddish, possibly via Rotwelsch. So seeing that word on an official document seemed a bit incongruous to me, though I'm sure the word is perfectly normal in Hebrew.

Comments

[liv]

Yeah, there are lots of words which are neutral in Hebrew but vulgar in Yiddish. I did not know about Rotwelsch though; there are bits of Yiddish in some English cants too, so it's not that surprising, but cool.