Yiddish humor, it’s often said, is about laughing to keep the darkness away. I’m sure I’m not the first to make this connection, which is funny (in the classic Yiddish manner) but requires explanation. (How can a joke be funny if you have to explain it? I don’t know; ask a comedian.)

First, you need to know that a very important word in Hebrew is כבוד – pronounced “kaVOD” – and typically translated as “honor,” “respect” or sometimes “glory.” If someone has done something praiseworthy, if you’re in a Jewish context you might hear the words “kol ha-kavod” directed at that person — literally meaning “all honor” or “all respect.” Sort of a shorthand “for he’s a jolly good fellow” but with a bit more gravitas.

Second, over the 1,000 years they lived in Europe, Ashkenazic Jews shifted the way they pronounced many Hebrew words, including those they adopted into Yiddish, the fusion tongue that became the language of daily life. For reasons too complicated to go into here, when Hebrew was revived as a modern language in the 20th century, Ashkenazic pronunciation was largely abandoned; most Israelis pronounce Hebrew closer to the way it was historically in Spain and North Africa.

You can hear the difference in how an Israeli expresses congratulations after a wedding or birth – “maZAL tov!” – where a typical American Jew, with roots in Ashkenazic Europe, says “MAzel-tov!”

The same stress-shift variation exists with the word for “respect / honor.”

See where this is going yet?

You could hear it if you caught last year’s off-Broadway, Yiddish-language production of “Fiddler on the Roof.” Early in the play, Tevye the milkman takes the Lord of the Universe to task for his (Tevye’s) poverty, just before breaking into the song “If I Were a Rich Man.” The line, which many will remember, goes something like: “Lord, I know it’s no great shame to be poor; but it’s no great honor either.”

The last phrase, in Yiddish, goes: “… ober a groyser KOvid is dos oykh nit.”

So, in Yiddish or Ashkenazic Hebrew, to honor your elders, you give them kovid.  Enough said.

Except, pace Rodney Dangerfield, I got no respect. And hope to keep it that way.

UPDATE:  If you want an even more bizarre linguistic coincidence, consider that a Hebrew word for “sin” — עבירות – while pronounced more or less as “a-vey-rot” by Israelis, comes from the mouths of many Yiddish-speaking Haredim as “a-virus.” I can’t even.

A very different (and less humorous) take on this can be found here.