Antisemitismus

[Robert St Devil]

With nearly 10,000 posts on this particular subject, i’m NOT going to parse through them all to determine IF this idea has been suggested before or NOT. If it has WELL THEN… pfft!

A working hypothesis of…. The Goulston Street Graffito.

1. English was NOT the [first|primary] language of the author of the graffito; English was his secondary language.
2. The graffitist’s [first|primary] language was German or Swedish.

1.
The baffling aspect of the graffito arises from its’ uncommon sentence structure. Our mind works at odds against itself while attempting to decodify the double-negative of NOT and NOTHING. We speculate that this chalk-vandal must have been a simpleton by way of a poor English elementary education. However, my alternate [postulation|suggestion] being, the sentence makes perfect sense IF the wall-scribe was translating from a foreign language into English in his mind before he wrote it out. It’s a common phenomenon for multilingual people, we translate in our minds from our primary language into a secondary language (limited as that may be!) before we speak ALL WHILE maintaining the characteristics of the primary language. It’s why native Spanish speakers of North America (at times) offer me quizzical looks whenever i engage them with my secondary language of Spanish; even though i am speaking IN Spanish, I am thinking around how i would say it IN English first WHICH leads to uncommon phrasings for native speakers. That’s NOT to say that i’m not adept with Spanish, simply that i have only reached the conversational level, ripe with its’ limitations. (Of course, this fluency problem disappears once a person can immerse his or her thoughts within that secondary language without need of any internal translation)

In this case, this brick-despoiler may have been translating the idea in his head from German or Swedish into English… as best he could!


2.
Why German or Swedish? Because the German and Swedish word for JEW is JUDE, spelled J-U-D-E… and someone who spoke English as a second language might know that the word JEW was pronounced with a W in English HOWEVER he might expect to spell the word akin to the spelling of the word in his native language; thus, JEWS becomes JUWES.

Again citing multilingual phenomenon, we attempt to spell foreign words phonetically while basing our spelling habits within our primary language.


********************

German leanings:

Take Google Translate for what you will, i had to because i don’t read/write/speak German

SO plugging in the GSG results in…


die juden sind die männer denen man nichts vorwerfen kann


… which no doubt is a clunky translation STILL transferring the above Germanic sentence into Google Search results in several site options containing a German word that is so obvious that it doesn’t require a Rosetta Stone, that being ANTISEMITISMUS. One particular site imparted the following variation:


Juden, denen man nicht trauen kann


Or, in English:


The Jews are the men who CANNOT be trusted.


…which holds a very strong probability for what this archway-tagger would round-about be attempting to express in English.


********************

Swedish leanings:

There’s NO saying that Jack the Ripper absolutely 100% wrote the grafitto, it’s well documented how walls and facades in East End ‘88 were defaced with antisemitic remarks, it’s placement along Goulston Street may NOT have been uncommon in this era, those ripperologists opposing the assertion that he did (in fact) write the grafitto have as much a legitimate claim as the ripperologists who believe that (yes, in fact) he did write it.

THEN AGAIN… if we go against forum etiquette by way of entertaining ‘speculative possibilities’ that Jack the Ripper DID write the graffito… one of the victims that night of the double-event WAS a Swede.

AND IF James Brown is to have heard Elizabeth Stride saying “No, not tonight, some other night” THEN we might conclude that she was talking with someone familiar to her (a chap from church, for example)… someone she had seen seen before [and|or] someone she might see again (regardless of the activity)… a fellow Swede, possibly.

[c.d.]

The Jews are the men who CANNOT be trusted.

Hello Robert,

Interesting, so thanks for that. The problem is that while that translation can lend itself to a connection with Stride, Berner Street and Eddowes it could also be a sentiment expressed by an unhappy Whitechapel customer who caught a Jewish butcher with his thumb on the scale.

c.d.

[Robert St Devil]

… it could also be a sentiment expressed by an unhappy Whitechapel customer who caught a Jewish butcher with his thumb on the scale.

c.d.

Precisely!

first things first, thank you c.d. , all replies are always welcomed

and yes, it very well could have been the expression of ill-sentiment of a jilted Whitechapel customer.

My slant being, the intent of the message - whoever wrote it out - was antisemitic by nature ONLY THAT it was muddled in the translation. I feel safely certain that there were plenty of Germans or Swedes walking about the East End who harboured their resentments within chalk statements.


as an aside…
i’m reserved, making the leap that Jack the Ripper was the de facto scribe of the graffito because when it comes to that point of the discussion I am {shrugs shoulders}…

AND ALSO i am cautious of how far i venture down that assumption because i know that it will stoke my speculations that Jack the Ripper was targeting prostitutes who serviced Jewish clients.

still…



the mind wanders and ponders now & again

[Geddy2112]

Great thread thank you.

My very flawed observations from what I can remember off the top of my head. This is the only time in Ripper Circles I've every heard the word 'graffito' being used the plural is much more common place. They must have been sticklers for the correct words back then like 'many independent data' instead of datum.
Anyway. Another point is one of the victims referred herself to the Police as 'Nothing' so that could get rid of the double negative. However how would the killer know this etc.
Juwes is the sticking point for me. I'd love it to be the Freemason reference but I presume that has been discredited many times. Makes a good story though.
My good lady is Polish and she says she always thinks in the language she is speaking and does not tend to 'cross-translate.'

My experiment would be to write the sentence word for word as we know it and find the foreign language that it matches underneath then you have found the correct order and language.

The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing.

A B C D E F G H I J K L

Find the language that words match A to L and make perfect sense position wise in that language. Good luck.

[c.d.]

Another point is one of the victims referred herself to the Police as 'Nothing'

I seem to recall that the way that it was stated could also imply that she did not respond rather than actually gave her name as "nothing."

c.d.

[Geddy2112]

I seem to recall that the way that it was stated could also imply that she did not respond rather than actually gave her name as "nothing."

Thank you c.d. for correcting my memory. I just remembered that some folk thought she gave her name as 'Nothing' hence the 'nothing' in the chalk was a direct reference to her. Thanks

[c.d.]

Thank you c.d. for correcting my memory. I just remembered that some folk thought she gave her name as 'Nothing' hence the 'nothing' in the chalk was a direct reference to her. Thanks

Actually, I don't think it is clear the way it was stated and hence could be interpreted either way. If my memory serves me correctly.

c.d.

[JeffHamm]

Great thread thank you.

... They must have been sticklers for the correct words back then like 'many independent data' instead of datum. ...

Just an aside, but I can assure you that in the scientific literature, reviewers are still very alert to the fact that data is plural and will point out for minor corrections in a manuscript verb tense problems if you say things like "The data is clear ..." rather than "The data are clear ...". It is rare to single out one particular measurement in a scientific study, but should one do so then you would be expected to refer to that singular point as the datum. However, that is a specialist area of language use, and in everyday language data is used for both the singular and plural, but I just thought I would mention that there are still times when that distinction is made (to my chagrin as it is a mistake I quite often make when writing up papers and have to specifically remember to scan a manuscript before submitting for all instances of "data" to ensure I've used the proper verb form!

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

Thank you c.d. for correcting my memory. I just remembered that some folk thought she gave her name as 'Nothing' hence the 'nothing' in the chalk was a direct reference to her. Thanks

Hi Geddy2112,

I've seen that idea tossed about as well. My problem with it is that for the GSG to use "Nothing" as referring to Eddowes because she responded with "Nothing" when booked for public drunkenness would require that the writer of the chalk message be aware that she did that. And that would require that the writer of the GSG either be at the police station when she was booked in, or that for some reason the police who booked her in for some reason spread that information and it somehow travelled to the writer through the "rumor mill" and the writer also somehow was able to link that information to Eddowes (despite the police at the time not knowing her actual name), or a third option of Eddowes being in the habit of telling punters her name was "Nothing".

Personally, I find all three of those possibilities to be stretching the requirement to "suspend disbelief" beyond acceptability. Opinions may vary.

- Jeff

[Geddy2112]

Personally, I find all three of those possibilities to be stretching the requirement to "suspend disbelief" beyond acceptability. Opinions may vary.

Hi Jeff, and I think you'd be perfectly correct in that assumption. It does give it a nice 'story' though. I mean that is what it seems to be about nowadays, not solving the crimes but making up good stories...

[Michael W Richards]

With nearly 10,000 posts on this particular subject, i’m NOT going to parse through them all to determine IF this idea has been suggested before or NOT. If it has WELL THEN… pfft!

A working hypothesis of…. The Goulston Street Graffito.

1. English was NOT the [first|primary] language of the author of the graffito; English was his secondary language.
2. The graffitist’s [first|primary] language was German or Swedish.

1.
The baffling aspect of the graffito arises from its’ uncommon sentence structure. Our mind works at odds against itself while attempting to decodify the double-negative of NOT and NOTHING. We speculate that this chalk-vandal must have been a simpleton by way of a poor English elementary education. However, my alternate [postulation|suggestion] being, the sentence makes perfect sense IF the wall-scribe was translating from a foreign language into English in his mind before he wrote it out. It’s a common phenomenon for multilingual people, we translate in our minds from our primary language into a secondary language (limited as that may be!) before we speak ALL WHILE maintaining the characteristics of the primary language. It’s why native Spanish speakers of North America (at times) offer me quizzical looks whenever i engage them with my secondary language of Spanish; even though i am speaking IN Spanish, I am thinking around how i would say it IN English first WHICH leads to uncommon phrasings for native speakers. That’s NOT to say that i’m not adept with Spanish, simply that i have only reached the conversational level, ripe with its’ limitations. (Of course, this fluency problem disappears once a person can immerse his or her thoughts within that secondary language without need of any internal translation)

In this case, this brick-despoiler may have been translating the idea in his head from German or Swedish into English… as best he could!


2.
Why German or Swedish? Because the German and Swedish word for JEW is JUDE, spelled J-U-D-E… and someone who spoke English as a second language might know that the word JEW was pronounced with a W in English HOWEVER he might expect to spell the word akin to the spelling of the word in his native language; thus, JEWS becomes JUWES.

Again citing multilingual phenomenon, we attempt to spell foreign words phonetically while basing our spelling habits within our primary language.


********************

German leanings:

Take Google Translate for what you will, i had to because i don’t read/write/speak German

SO plugging in the GSG results in…


die juden sind die männer denen man nichts vorwerfen kann


… which no doubt is a clunky translation STILL transferring the above Germanic sentence into Google Search results in several site options containing a German word that is so obvious that it doesn’t require a Rosetta Stone, that being ANTISEMITISMUS. One particular site imparted the following variation:


Juden, denen man nicht trauen kann


Or, in English:


The Jews are the men who CANNOT be trusted.


…which holds a very strong probability for what this archway-tagger would round-about be attempting to express in English.


********************

Swedish leanings:

There’s NO saying that Jack the Ripper absolutely 100% wrote the grafitto, it’s well documented how walls and facades in East End ‘88 were defaced with antisemitic remarks, it’s placement along Goulston Street may NOT have been uncommon in this era, those ripperologists opposing the assertion that he did (in fact) write the grafitto have as much a legitimate claim as the ripperologists who believe that (yes, in fact) he did write it.

THEN AGAIN… if we go against forum etiquette by way of entertaining ‘speculative possibilities’ that Jack the Ripper DID write the graffito… one of the victims that night of the double-event WAS a Swede.

AND IF James Brown is to have heard Elizabeth Stride saying “No, not tonight, some other night” THEN we might conclude that she was talking with someone familiar to her (a chap from church, for example)… someone she had seen seen before [and|or] someone she might see again (regardless of the activity)… a fellow Swede, possibly.

Some issues with the above. The apron section reveals that the killer of mitre square left it there, the fact that writing appears directly above it, and prominently mentions Jews, it would seem that although we only have verification that the author is Kates killer, the writing may be connected to the same person. The reference to Jews in the writing might refer to the Jewish overtones of the first murder site that night, so the author may be communicating his thoughts on that murder. The location itself leads to the Model Homes which were at the time almost completely occupied by Jewish immigrants.

The Brown sighting is almost certainly not Stride and someone, its far too close to her cut time and she is too far from the location its done on, she does not have a flower on her jacket, and if you believe Israel Schwartz, Liz is in front of the gates of the club being assaulted. All of which Fanny Mortimer apparently just misses seeing or hearing, and something the young couple didnt mention seeing. That last line is likely the key here....they didnt see a young couple at the end of the street because they were that young couple.

[Michael W Richards]

I do recall reading that one or more of the International Club members had family living in those Model Homes, maybe thats why that location and why we see a disparaging message towards Jews. One thing that irks me about the GSG...the fact that not one of these Keystone Cops thought enough of it to write it exactly as it was written. So we have 3 or 4 versions, all which could change the messages context. Washing it off....probably a good idea. Not writing it down exactly first...one wonders if the reason no single version is recorded is because they concealed the true context and meaning from the public. Only semi ambiguous messages are submitted.

For me the spelling, "The Jews are the men that will not be blamed for nothing" is suggestive of Jews denial of guilt, maybe running for help when a woman is just cut once yelling "ANOTHER murder has been committed" falls into that realm. That seems to suggest they were blaming the murder on the man terrorizing the East End. Though he never cut only once other than that night, if it was him.

The killer in MItre Square, at that point in time, would be the only man anywhere who knew whether he killed Stride, and that apron piece from the square coupled with the denial accusation towards Jews suggests to me he was not the man in Berner Street.