[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Nix vs: Nicht

[Annegret Krause]

"Nix" is a German word for "nichts". It means "nothing"
Annegret

-----Original Message-----
From: ger-poland-volhynia-bounces at eclipse.sggee.org
[mailto:ger-poland-volhynia-bounces at eclipse.sggee.org] On Behalf Of
Lloyd Friedrick
Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2004 6:53 PM
To: ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org
Cc: Ger-Rus-HER
Subject: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Nix vs: Nicht

I received the following question from a young relative and I provided
an
answer [copied below]

After I sent it to him, I realized that I probably did not provide the
correct
answer to him and now I appeal to the many linguists on our listserve to
assist me in providing the correct explanations.

His question:

Judy and I went to an antique sale last night, there I opened an old set
of
books
on the top of the page was the word " NIX",  a German word for sea siren
or
"Nixie for female siren.

Yet I found it in my Webster's Dictionary, meaning  "To forbid"

My mother always said "NIX"  meaning "NO WAY"  I always thought it was a
German word.

Interesting...What is your comment,  did your family use it?

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My reply to him

You must remember that our parents and your grandparents spoke different
variations of German.

Karl and my Dad spoke a Vohynian German which over the years became what
people describe as a  "softer" version of the guttural German. This
happened
because they were partially integrated with Russian, Ukrainian, Polish
and
Jewish [Yiddish, which is very old German] languages and culture . My
Dad
could almost carry on a conversation in Yiddish with some Jews who lived
in
Maidstone Saskatchewan. But, this is another whole field of interest.

Your grandmother who lived all her life in Dortmund spoke a different
German.
I don't know if it was high or low German. I must get into this subject
of
language change someday.

Dad did fairly well in learning English but Karl struggled with it all
his
life in Canada.

Now to get to your question about the word    NIX

It was also used in our household as either a mispronunciation or the
development of German/English slang that many reverted to during their
learning of English. Bert Winter was a good example of this.

The original word in German is NICHT.  Literal translation to English
NOT

So with your [and mine] untrained ear to nuisances of the German
language we
would perhaps hear it spoken as NIX. It was perhaps easier for the
elders to
simply say NICHT which covered a lot more ground than the simple NEIN
[NO].

There statement of NICHT prob meant that it was forbidden, don't bother
with
it  and of course our favourite Canadian expression "Forget about it"

lloyd friedrick

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