The Language of Thieves: My Family's Obsession with a Secret Code the Nazis tried to Eliminate
Published by W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2020
- First Edition
- Hardcover
- Used
Seller: Book Happy Booksellers, Portland, OR, U.S.A.Book Happy Booksellers
AbeBooks seller since April 30, 2001
Association member: CBA
Condition: Used - Near fine
£ 19.46
Quantity: 1 available
Add to basketItem description from seller
Hardcover in DJ; 278pp; DJ clean & bright, boards square, clean & bright, small remainder mark to bottom edge, text unmarked, binding is tight, Near Fine/Near Fine condition. Memoir of investigating the author's German family and its obsession with Rotwelsch, a hybrid language used by outcasts and thieves in Europe. Illustrated with photos.
Seller Inventory # 019314
- Title
- The Language of Thieves: My Family's Obsession with a Secret Code the Nazis tried to Eliminate
- Author
- Puchner, Martin
- Publisher
- W. W. Norton & Company, New York
- Publication year
- 2020
- Condition
- Near Fine
- Dust jacket
- Near Fine
- Binding
- Hardcover
- ISBN 10
- 1324005912
- ISBN 13
- 9781324005919
- Edition
- First Edition.
- Seller catalogs
- History
Tracking an underground language and the outcasts who depended on it for their survival.
Centuries ago in middle Europe, a coded language appeared, scrawled in graffiti and spoken only by people who were "wiz" (in the know). This hybrid language, dubbed Rotwelsch, facilitated survival for people in flight―whether escaping persecution or just down on their luck. It was a language of the road associated with vagabonds, travelers, Jews, and thieves that blended words from Yiddish, Hebrew, German, Romani, Czech, and other European languages and was rich in expressions for police, jail, or experiencing trouble, such as "being in a pickle." This renegade language unsettled those in power, who responded by trying to stamp it out, none more vehemently than the Nazis.
As a boy, Martin Puchner learned this secret language from his father and uncle. Only as an adult did he discover, through a poisonous 1930s tract on Jewish names buried in the archives of Harvard’s Widener Library, that his own grandfather had been a committed Nazi who despised this "language of thieves." Interweaving family memoir with an adventurous foray into the mysteries of language, Puchner crafts an entirely original narrative. In a language born of migration and survival, he discovers a witty and resourceful spirit of tolerance that remains essential in our volatile present.
28 illustrations"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Book Happy Booksellers
Portland, OR, U.S.A.
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World of Weird Books
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extreme viewpoints, unusual and rare, conspiracy, flying saucers, kook books, UFOs, occultism and metaphysics, books that defy all categories, weirdAssociation member
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Book Happy Booksellers
OR, U.S.A.
Terms of sale
Donna Kossy
Book Happy Booksellers
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Portland, OR 97286
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