Goy and Onomatopoeia

“Onomatopoeia” is one of those words we learned about in middle school English class only to never use again. However, it appears that my middle school English teacher is turning over in her grave because that word is the focus of this blog entry. The definition of Onomatopoeia is a literary device where a word imitates the natural sound it describes. Many of them have to do with animals and this is one such instance. We’re going to jump around a bit.

Oink and meow are pretty commonly understood to be good examples of onomatopoeia, but a lesser known one is “goy.” When we were exploring churches in Cusco, there were two things I really wanted to see: the Peruvian painting of the Last Supper and the Black Jesus. Both were in the same church and although photography was discouraged I was able to get a picture of the Peruvian Last Supper (scroll down).

I can’t resist my favorite Last Supper joke: Jesus and the Disciples come into a restaurant and Jesus says, “Table for 26 please.” The maitre ‘d looks at him and says, “But there’s only 13 of you.” Jesus replies, “True, but we’re only going to sit on one side.” 

If you look closely at the painting (below) in the middle of the table there is the food they are about to eat. It is a goy. In Peru, Guinea Pigs got the name “goy” because that is the sound they make. We did have “goy” in one of the restaurants in Cusco, and it wasn’t that bad. They served it with the head and tail cut off so that helped. In America I think nothing of an image of a chicken serving as the advertisement for eating chicken, but it was a little strange seeing images of guinea pigs dressed as chefs advertising goy specials. There’s a lot more about Peru and llamas, but that will have to wait for another entry.