yodel

Yodeling is associated with Alps, so it’s no surprise that the English word is borrowed from German. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the verb to yodel as “to sing or call using a distinctive style of vocalization characterized by repeated rapid alternations of pitch between the low chest voice and the high falsetto or head voice.” The German jodeln dates to at least the eighteenth century, and the form jodln in Swiss/Austrian dialect is undoubtedly older still. In Middle High German the word was jölen (to sing loudly and wildly), with jö being an interjection akin to the English yo.

The word starts appearing in English in the first half of the nineteenth century. The earliest citation of the noun yodeling in the Oxford English Dictionary Online is from an 18 August 1827 journal entry by Irish diarist Martha Wilmot:

The Archduke quitted the town to the wild yodling of two young girls, who suddenly begun [sic] to sing their mountain melody, and we all followed, after spending one of the most original and amusing days possible.

The English appearance of the verb can be traced to a 4 September 1838 letter by Harriet Countess Granville (Harriet Leveson-Gower) written from Bern, Switzerland:

I wish you to imagine me coming down a steep rocky path, fit only for goats, in a chair carried by two men, quite at my ease, looking at a glacier or a snow mountain, or a cascade, or a châlet, listening to three little peasant girls, all youdling to perfection in parts; dining in clean, excellent inns, looking upon all these glories, sunsets, full moon.

A century later, yodeling would become a feature of American country music. This tradition was introduced by Jimmie Rodgers who from 1927–33 recorded a series of songs titled Blue Yodel.

Sources:

Leveson-Gower, Harriet (Countess Granville). Letter, 4 September 1838. Letters of Harriet Countess Granville, vol. 2 of 2. London: Longmans, Green, 1894, 266. HathiTrust Digital Library.

Oxford English Dictionary Online, September 2016, s.v. yodel, v., yodel, n., yodelling, n.

Wilmot, Martha. Journal entry, 18 August 1827. More Letters from Martha Wilmot Impressions of Vienna 1819–1829. Edith Chaplin, Marchioness of Londonderry and H. M. Hyde, eds. London: Macmillan, 1935, 288.

Photo credit: Evan-Amos, 2012. Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.