There is significant
phonological
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
variation among the various
Yiddish dialects
Yiddish dialects are variants of the Yiddish language and are divided according to the region in Europe where each developed its distinctiveness. Linguistically, Yiddish is divided in distinct Eastern and Western dialects. While the Western diale ...
. The description that follows is of a modern Standard Yiddish that was devised during the early 20th century and is frequently encountered in pedagogical contexts.
Consonants
* are
bilabial
In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a labial consonant articulated with both lips.
Frequency
Bilabial consonants are very common across languages. Only around 0.7% of the world's languages lack bilabial consonants altogether, including Tlingi ...
, whereas are
labiodental
In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants Place of articulation, articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.
Labiodental consonants in the IPA
The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:
The IPA c ...
.
* The contrast has collapsed in some speakers.
* The palatalized coronals appear only in Slavic loanwords. The phonemic status of these palatalised consonants, as well as any other affricates, is unclear.
* and are
velar
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum).
Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive an ...
, whereas are
palatal
The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity.
A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly separ ...
.
** is an allophone of after , and it can only be syllabic .
** is an allophone of before .
* The phonetic realization of and is unclear:
** In the case of , puts it in the "velar" column, but consistently uses a symbol denoting a voiceless ''uvular'' fricative to transcribe it. It is thus safe to assume that is phonetically uvular .
** In the case of , puts it in the "palatalized" column. This can mean that it is either palatalized alveolar or alveolo-palatal . may actually also be alveolo-palatal , rather than just palatal.
* The rhotic can be either alveolar or uvular, either a trill or, more commonly, a flap/tap .
* The glottal stop appears only as an intervocalic separator.
As in the
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the Ear ...
with which Yiddish was long in
contact
Contact may refer to:
Interaction Physical interaction
* Contact (geology), a common geological feature
* Contact lens or contact, a lens placed on the eye
* Contact sport, a sport in which players make contact with other players or objects
* ...
(Russian,
Belarusian,
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
, and
Ukrainian
Ukrainian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Ukraine
* Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe
* Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine
* So ...
), but unlike German,
voiceless
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...
stops have little to no
aspiration; unlike many such languages, voiced stops are not devoiced in final position. Moreover, Yiddish has regressive
voicing assimilation, so that, for example, ('says') is pronounced and ('foreword') is pronounced .
Vowels
The
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
phonemes of Standard Yiddish are:
* are typically
near-close respectively, but the height of may vary freely between a higher and lower allophone.
* appears only in
unstressed
In linguistics, and particularly phonology, stress or accent is the relative emphasis or prominence given to a certain syllable in a word or to a certain word in a phrase or sentence. That emphasis is typically caused by such properties as i ...
syllables.
* The last two diphthongs may be realized as and , respectively.
In addition, the
sonorant
In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant or resonant is a speech sound that is produced with continuous, non-turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; these are the manners of articulation that are most often voiced in the world's languages. Vowels are ...
s and can function as
syllable nuclei:
*אײזל 'donkey'
*אָװנט 'evening'
and appear as syllable nuclei as well, but only as allophones of , after bilabial consonants and
dorsal consonant
Dorsal consonants are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue (the dorsum). They include the palatal, velar and, in some cases, alveolo-palatal and uvular consonants. They contrast with coronal consonants, articulated with the flexibl ...
s, respectively.
The syllabic sonorants are always unstressed.
Dialectal variation
Stressed vowels in the
Yiddish dialects
Yiddish dialects are variants of the Yiddish language and are divided according to the region in Europe where each developed its distinctiveness. Linguistically, Yiddish is divided in distinct Eastern and Western dialects. While the Western diale ...
may be understood by considering their common origins in the Proto-Yiddish sound system. Yiddish linguistic scholarship uses a system developed by
Max Weinreich
Max Weinreich ( yi, מאַקס ווײַנרײַך ''Maks Vaynraych''; russian: Мейер Лазаревич Вайнрайх, ''Meyer Lazarevich Vaynraykh''; 22 April 1894, Goldingen, Russian Empire – 29 January 1969, New York City) was a Russ ...
in 1960 to indicate the descendent
diaphoneme
A diaphoneme is an abstract phonological unit that identifies a correspondence between related sounds of two or more varieties of a language or language cluster. For example, some English varieties contrast the vowel of ''late'' () with that of ...
s of the Proto-Yiddish stressed vowels.
Each Proto-Yiddish vowel is given a unique two-digit identifier, and its reflexes use it as a subscript, for example Southeastern ''o
11'' is the vowel /o/, descended from Proto-Yiddish */a/.
The first digit indicates Proto-Yiddish ''quality'' (1-=*
2-=*
3-=*
4-=*
5-=*
, and the second refers to ''quantity or diphthongization'' (−1=short, −2=long, −3=short but lengthened early in the history of Yiddish, −4=diphthong, −5=special length occurring only in Proto-Yiddish vowel 25).
Vowels 23, 33, 43 and 53 have the same reflexes as 22, 32, 42 and 52 in all Yiddish dialects, but they developed distinct values in
Middle High German
Middle High German (MHG; german: Mittelhochdeutsch (Mhd.)) is the term for the form of German spoken in the High Middle Ages. It is conventionally dated between 1050 and 1350, developing from Old High German and into Early New High German. High ...
; Katz (1987) argues that they should be collapsed with the −2 series, leaving only 13 in the −3 series.
Comparison with German
In vocabulary of Germanic origin, the differences between Standard German and Yiddish pronunciation are mainly in the
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
s and
diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech o ...
s. All varieties of Yiddish lack the German
front rounded vowel
A front rounded vowel is a particular type of vowel that is both front and rounded.
The front rounded vowels defined by the IPA include:
* , a close front rounded vowel (or "high front rounded vowel")
* , a near-close front rounded vowel (or "n ...
s and , having merged them with and , respectively.
Diphthongs have also undergone divergent developments in German and Yiddish. Where Standard German has merged the
Middle High German
Middle High German (MHG; german: Mittelhochdeutsch (Mhd.)) is the term for the form of German spoken in the High Middle Ages. It is conventionally dated between 1050 and 1350, developing from Old High German and into Early New High German. High ...
diphthong ''ei'' and long vowel ''î'' to , Yiddish has maintained the distinction between them; and likewise, the Standard German corresponds to both the MHG diphthong ''öu'' and the long vowel ''iu'', which in Yiddish have merged with their unrounded counterparts ''ei'' and ''î'', respectively. Lastly, the Standard German corresponds to both the MHG diphthong ''ou'' and the long vowel ''û'', but in Yiddish, they have not merged. Although Standard Yiddish does not distinguish between those two diphthongs and renders both as , the distinction becomes apparent when the two diphthongs undergo
Germanic umlaut
The Germanic umlaut (sometimes called i-umlaut or i-mutation) is a type of linguistic umlaut in which a back vowel changes to the associated front vowel ( fronting) or a front vowel becomes closer to (raising) when the following syllable conta ...
, such as in forming plurals:
The
vowel length
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, f ...
distinctions of German do not exist in the Northeastern (Lithuanian) varieties of Yiddish, which form the phonetic basis for Standard Yiddish. In those varieties, the vowel qualities in most long/short vowel pairs diverged and so the phonemic distinction has remained.
Yiddish has some coincidental resemblances to
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
in vowel phonology, which extend even to orthography, such as Dutch ''ij'' versus Yiddish ''tsvey judn'', both pronounced /ɛɪ/; and Dutch ''ui'' (pronounced /œy/) versus Yiddish ''vov yud'' (/ɔj/). For example, the Yiddish "to be" is זיין, which orthographically matches Dutch ''zijn'' more than German ''sein'', or Yiddish הויז, "house", versus Dutch ''huis'' (plural ''huizen''). Along with the pronunciation of Dutch ''g'' as /ɣ/, Yiddish is said to sound closer to Dutch than to German because of that even though its structure is closer to High German.
There are consonantal differences between German and Yiddish. Yiddish
deaffricates the Middle High German
voiceless labiodental affricate
The voiceless labiodental affricate ( in IPA) is a rare affricate consonant that is initiated as a labiodental stop and released as a voiceless labiodental fricative .
The XiNkuna dialect of Tsonga has this affricate, as in "hippopotamuses" ...
to initially (as in ''funt'', but this pronunciation is also quasi-standard throughout northern and central Germany); /pf/ surfaces as an
unshifted medially or finally (as in and ). Additionally, final voiced stops appear in Standard Yiddish but not Northern Standard German.
Comparison with Hebrew
The pronunciation of vowels in Yiddish words of
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
origin is similar to
Ashkenazi Hebrew
Ashkenazi Hebrew ( he, הגייה אשכנזית, Hagiyya Ashkenazit, yi, אַשכּנזישע הבֿרה, Ashkenazishe Havara) is the pronunciation system for Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew favored for Jewish liturgical use and Torah study by Ashk ...
but not identical. The most prominent difference is ''
kamatz
Kamatz or qamatz ( he, label=Modern Hebrew, קָמָץ, ; alternatively ) is a Hebrew niqqud (vowel) sign represented by two perpendicular lines (looking like an uppercase T) underneath a letter. In modern Hebrew, it usually indicates the pho ...
gadol'' in closed syllables being pronounced same as ''
patah
Pataḥ ( he, פַּתָּח ', , Biblical Hebrew: ') is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign represented by a horizontal line underneath a letter. In modern Hebrew, it indicates the phoneme which is close to the " sound in the English word ''far'' and ...
'' in Yiddish but the same as any other ''kamatz'' in Ashkenazi Hebrew. Also, Hebrew features no reduction of unstressed vowels and so the given name
Jochebed
According to the Bible, Jochebed (; hbo, יוֹכֶבֶד, translit=Yōḵeḇeḏ, lit=YHWH is glory) was a daughter of Levi and mother of Miriam, Aaron and Moses. She was the wife of Amram, as well as his aunt. No details are given concerning h ...
would be in Ashkenazi Hebrew but in Standard Yiddish.
''
Patah
Pataḥ ( he, פַּתָּח ', , Biblical Hebrew: ') is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign represented by a horizontal line underneath a letter. In modern Hebrew, it indicates the phoneme which is close to the " sound in the English word ''far'' and ...
'' in open syllable, as well as ''hataf patah'', are unpredictably split between A
1 and A
2: ; .
References
Bibliography
*
Birnbaum, Solomon A., ''Yiddish: A Survey and a Grammar'', University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1979, .
*
Herzog, Marvin, et al. ed., YIVO, ''The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry'', 3 vols., Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen, 1992–2000, .
*
*
*
Further reading
*
External links
Jewish Language Research Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yiddish Phonology
Phonology
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
Germanic phonologies