# Hungarian, or Slavic etymology? - joj



## sokol

Well, "Joj!" is well-known in Austria as _Hungarian_ but people only understand it here, they wouldn't use it (except ironically).
This "Joj!" became especially famous through the Sissi-films where it clearly is identified as being a Hungarian word.

So I really think that it is Hungarian and not Slavic, in origin.

Posting as moderator: moved from Other Slavic, this thread.


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## DenisBiH

sokol said:


> Well, "Joj!" is well-known in Austria as _Hungarian_ but people only understand it here, they wouldn't use it (except ironically).
> This "Joj!" became especially famous through the Sissi-films where it clearly is identified as being a Hungarian word.
> 
> So I really think that it is Hungarian and not Slavic, in origin.




Hmm...at least twenty million South Slavs using it vs ten million Hungarians? It sounds completely natural to my ear, not a foreign exclamation...but who knows.


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## sokol

DenisBiH said:


> Hmm...at least twenty million South Slavs using it vs ten million Hungarians? It sounds completely natural to my ear, not a foreign exclamation...but who knows.


It's not numbers that count, not always.  Etymology is not about majority use but about origin.

Apart from that I _*said*_ that I'm not sure, I think it is Hungarian (I always thought so) but I've got no source at hand.


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## DenisBiH

sokol said:


> It's not numbers that count, not always.  Etymology is not about majority use but about origin.
> 
> Apart from that I _*said*_ that I'm not sure, I think it is Hungarian (I always thought so) but I've got no source at hand.




Well yes, obviously it depends on our point of view.  Isn't it natural that an Austrian would ascribe it to Hungarian simply due to sheer geographical proximity and more contacts? Me personally, I didn't even know it was used in Hungarian until reading this thread.

How would you trace the etymology of joj?


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## sokol

DenisBiH said:


> How would you trace the etymology of joj?


It is always difficult to tell with words like that (it should be onomatopoetic); usually you try and establish first use (and frequency of use).

And no, we wouldn't attribute this to Hungarians at all if they wouldn't use it. 

Anyway, I've finally found a link to a pdf of a flyer of the band JOJ (please do not click if you're not interested  quality of it is actually very low) which begins with "joj ... kommt aus dem Ungarischen ..." = "joj comes from Hungarian": this seems to be common knowlege around here.

(Sorry but I didn't find anything better on the web.)

And as a guess it is just as good as your guess, I guess.  We really need more sources here.


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## DenisBiH

Yes definitely. Some more search would be needed here. 

As for Schmerz / Freude (pain / joy, from your link), at least we can say it is used with both meanings in BCMS as well:

http://hjp.srce.hr/index.php?show=search_by_id&id=el9mXxU%3D



> izražava jak osjećaj: *1. **boli* [_joj, nemoj!_] *2. *straha, žalosti, *radosti* [_joj, stigli ste!_] *3. *divljenja [_joj, krasno!_]; jao


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## Awwal12

In Russian, where the Hungarian influence is almost out of the question, it is just "ой" [oj], the first consonant is absent. I hope that could help. )


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## marco_2

My problem is as following: why "joj" is / was used in Eastern Galicia and not in other parts of Poland (they rather use "ojej!")?


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## Encolpius

My Etymology dictionary says almost nothing about the etymology of the Hungarian *jaj *[jɒj]and *juj*. It mentions it, but as Sokol says, I think it must be very difficult to find the origin of words like that. 

I find it more interesting it is used in South Slavic languages, too. And since that influence was really great I can imagine it's origin is from there, too. 

The Slovak dictionary contains jaj, joj and juj, too, but not the Czech or Polish one. Czechs use ach instead.


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## The Machine of Zhu

Encolpius said:


> My Etymology dictionary says almost nothing about the etymology of the Hungarian *jaj *[jɒj]and *juj*. It mentions it, but as Sokol says, I think it must be very difficult to find the origin of words like that.
> 
> I find it more interesting it is used in South Slavic languages, too. And since that influence was really great I can imagine it's origin is from there, too.
> 
> The Slovak dictionary contains jaj, joj and juj, too, but not the Czech or Polish one. Czechs use ach instead.



The online Czech dictionary (Příruční slovník a databáze lexikálního archivu) does contain "joj". 

The expression "joj" does remind me a little of the Yiddish expression "Oy" or "Oy vey".


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## marco_2

Encolpius said:


> The Slovak dictionary contains jaj, joj and juj, too, but not the Czech or Polish one.


 
_I am not amazed that the Polish dictionary may not contain "joj"  because__this word is / was restricted to the area of South-Eastern border dialects which weren't mentioned in a Comunist era due to some political reasons. And Polish Jews used "oj!" or "aj waj!", exactly as The Machine of Zhu" mentioned._


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## sokol

The Machine of Zhu said:


> The expression "joj" does remind me a little of the Yiddish expression "Oy" or "Oy vey".


Yes, I also thought about a possible Yiddish origin but as this was only a wild guess I thought better not mention it, it might only complicate things.

It is interesting that Encolpius' Hungarian dictionary does not mention the etymology either; this will make the task even more difficult.

Of course both a loan from Hungarian to Slavic languages as well as one from Slavic (South Slavic?) to Hungarian is possible, or a Yiddish loan to Hungarian and Slavic.

The fact that it isn't going (much?) further north than Galicia (in Polish I think it is also "ach" in standard language, isn't it?) might be a good indicator that it is either a "Habsburg Monarchy" (possibly Hungarian kingdom) word, or one that originated south from it, or from Jews. Note that Croatia and Serbian Vojvodina too was part of the Hungarian Kingdom.  So this observation (and it isn't much mure, mind) still does not give preference for either etymology.


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## Maroseika

Can't _joj _be a result of dupliciation of the Slavic interjection?
oj-oj > ojoj > joj


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## sokol

Maroseika said:


> Can't _joj _be a result of dupliciation of the Slavic interjection?
> oj-oj > ojoj > joj


That's indeed a possibility.

And to continue this kind of brainstorming: it is even thinkable that "joj" developed from German "ja" loaned to Hungarian (it is "jo" in Austria anyway, and even when loaned as "ja" Hungarians would have transformed that into a Hungarian dark /ɒ/ which a Slav would hear as "jo"), also possibly duplicated to "jojo" > "joj", and then loaned to Slavic languages.

All kinds of developments are thinkable.

As I said above, very difficult to establish etymologies of words like that which could have onomatopoetic origin (or not). One would have to study first attested occurence, distribution of its use (if possible, distribution as was common in the past - as far past as possible), etc.

The fact that a Hungarian etymological dictionary does not even offer a guess however is somewhat discouraging.


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## marco_2

So, as we can see, it is really difficult to find the origin of such a word, though its usage is restricted to a certain area. I am very grateful to all the users, who tried to solve this riddle (because I am to blame for beginning this dispute ) I can only add that in inhabitants' of Eastern Galicia speech *joj  *can express pain, fear, pity, joy and amazement (so the same as BCMS users said), it was often preceded by a particle *ta  (ta joj!)  *- obviously a Ukrainian influence, and it is / was a "visiting card" of inhabitants of Lvov, that's why they were called  *tajojki  *by the Poles coming from the other regions of the country.


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