![BelohnteTugend](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/BelohnteTugend.jpg)
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a
West Germanic
The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages). The West Germanic branch is classically subdivided into ...
language historically spoken by
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...
. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a
vernacular
A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...
based on
High German
The High German dialects (german: hochdeutsche Mundarten), or simply High German (); not to be confused with Standard High German which is commonly also called ''High German'', comprise the varieties of German spoken south of the Benrath and ...
fused with many elements taken from
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 ...
(notably
Mishnaic
The Mishnah or the Mishna (; he, מִשְׁנָה, "study by repetition", from the verb ''shanah'' , or "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first major written collection of the Jewish oral traditions which is known as the Oral Torah ...
) and to some extent
Aramaic
The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...
. Most varieties of Yiddish include elements of
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 ...
and the vocabulary contains traces of
Romance languages
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language fam ...
.
[Aram Yardumian]
"A Tale of Two Hypotheses: Genetics and the Ethnogenesis of Ashkenazi Jewry".
University of Pennsylvania. 2013. Yiddish is primarily written in the
Hebrew alphabet
The Hebrew alphabet ( he, wikt:אלפבית, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew languag ...
.
Prior to
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, its worldwide peak was 11 million,
with the number of speakers in the United States and Canada then totaling 150,000. Eighty-five percent of the approximately six million Jews who were murdered in the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
were Yiddish speakers,
Solomon Birnbaum Solomon Asher Birnbaum, also ''Salomo Birnbaum'' ( yi, שלמה בירנבוים ''Shloyme Birnboym'', December 24, 1891 in Vienna – December 28, 1989 in Toronto) was a Yiddishist movement, Yiddish linguist and Hebrew palaeography, palaeographer.< ...
, ''Grammatik der jiddischen Sprache'' (4., erg. Aufl., Hamburg: Buske, 1984), p. 3. leading to a massive decline in the use of the language. Assimilation following
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
and ''
aliyah
Aliyah (, ; he, עֲלִיָּה ''ʿălīyyā'', ) is the immigration of Jews from Jewish diaspora, the diaspora to, historically, the geographical Land of Israel, which is in the modern era chiefly represented by the Israel, State of Israel ...
'' (immigration to Israel) further decreased the use of Yiddish among survivors after adapting to
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 ...
in Israel. However, the number of Yiddish-speakers is increasing in Hasidic communities. In the 1990s, there were around 1.5–2 million speakers of Yiddish, mostly
Hasidic and
Haredi Jews
Haredi Judaism ( he, ', ; also spelled ''Charedi'' in English; plural ''Haredim'' or ''Charedim'') consists of groups within Orthodox Judaism that are characterized by their strict adherence to ''halakha'' (Jewish law) and traditions, in oppos ...
. A 2021 estimate from
Rutgers University
Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...
was that there were 250,000 American speakers, 250,000 Israeli speakers, and 100,000 in the rest of the world (for a total of 600,000).
The earliest surviving references date from the 12th century and call the language (''loshn-ashknaz'', "language of Ashkenaz") or (''taytsh''), a variant of ''tiutsch'', the contemporary name for
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. Hig ...
. Colloquially, the language is sometimes called (''mame-loshn'', lit. "mother tongue"), distinguishing it from (''
loshn koydesh'', "holy tongue"), meaning Hebrew and Aramaic. The term "Yiddish", short for ''Yidish Taitsh'' ("Jewish German"), did not become the most frequently used designation in the literature until the 18th century. In the late 19th and into the 20th century, the language was more commonly called "Jewish", especially in non-Jewish contexts, but "Yiddish" is again the most common designation today.
Modern Yiddish has
two major forms. Eastern Yiddish is far more common today. It includes Southeastern (Ukrainian–Romanian), Mideastern (Polish–Galician–Eastern Hungarian) and Northeastern (Lithuanian–Belarusian) dialects. Eastern Yiddish differs from Western both by its far greater size and by the extensive inclusion of words of Slavic origin. Western Yiddish is divided into Southwestern (Swiss–Alsatian–Southern German), Midwestern (Central German), and Northwestern (Netherlandic–Northern German) dialects. Yiddish is used in a number of Haredi Jewish communities worldwide; it is the first language of the home, school, and in many social settings among many Haredi Jews, and is used in most
Hasidic yeshiva
A yeshiva (; he, ישיבה, , sitting; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish philosophy are s ...
s.
The term "Yiddish" is also used in the adjectival sense, synonymously with "Ashkenazi Jewish", to designate attributes of
Yiddishkeit
Yiddishkeit ( yi, ייִדישקייט ) literally means "Jewishness", i.e. "a Jewish way of life". It can refer to Judaism or forms of Orthodox Judaism when used by religious or Orthodox Jews. In a more general sense, it has come to mean the "Je ...
("Ashkenazi culture"; for example,
Yiddish cooking and "Yiddish music" –
klezmer).
History
Origins
By the 10th century, a distinctive Jewish culture had formed in Central Europe.
By the high medieval period, their area of settlement, centered on the
Rhineland
The Rhineland (german: Rheinland; french: Rhénanie; nl, Rijnland; ksh, Rhingland; Latinised name: ''Rhenania'') is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section.
Term
Historically, the Rhinelands ...
(
Mainz
Mainz () is the capital and largest city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
Mainz is on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite to the place that the Main (river), Main joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-we ...
) and the
Palatinate (notably
Worms Worms may refer to:
*Worm, an invertebrate animal with a tube-like body and no limbs
Places
*Worms, Germany
Worms () is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, situated on the Upper Rhine about south-southwest of Frankfurt am Main. It had ...
and
Speyer
Speyer (, older spelling ''Speier'', French: ''Spire,'' historical English: ''Spires''; pfl, Schbaija) is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany with approximately 50,000 inhabitants. Located on the left bank of the river Rhine, Speyer li ...
), came to be known as ''
Ashkenaz
Ashkenaz ( he, ''ʾAškənāz'') in the Hebrew Bible is one of the descendants of Noah.
Ashkenaz is the first son of Gomer, and a Japhetic patriarch in the Table of Nations. In rabbinic literature, the descendants of Ashkenaz were first ass ...
'', originally a term used of
Scythia
Scythia (Scythian: ; Old Persian: ; Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) or Scythica (Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ), also known as Pontic Scythia, was a kingdom created by the Scythians during the 6th to 3rd centuries BC in the Pontic–Caspian steppe.
Hi ...
, and later of various areas of Eastern Europe and Anatolia.
In the
medieval Hebrew of
Rashi
Shlomo Yitzchaki ( he, רבי שלמה יצחקי; la, Salomon Isaacides; french: Salomon de Troyes, 22 February 1040 – 13 July 1105), today generally known by the acronym Rashi (see below), was a medieval French rabbi and author of a compre ...
(d. 1105), ''Ashkenaz'' becomes a term for Germany, and ''
Ashkenazi'' for the Jews settling in this area.
Ashkenaz bordered on the area inhabited by another distinctive Jewish cultural group, the
Sephardi Jews
Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefar ...
, who ranged into
southern France
Southern France, also known as the South of France or colloquially in French language, French as , is a defined geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Marais Poitevin,Louis Papy, ''Le midi ...
. Ashkenazi culture later spread into Eastern Europe with large-scale population migrations.
Nothing is known with certainty about the vernacular of the earliest Jews in Germany, but several theories have been put forward. As noted above, the first language of the Ashkenazim may have been
Aramaic
The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...
, the vernacular of the Jews in
Roman-era Judea and ancient and early medieval
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...
.
The widespread use of Aramaic among the large non-Jewish
Syrian trading population of the Roman provinces, including those in Europe, would have reinforced the use of Aramaic among Jews engaged in trade. In Roman times, many of the Jews living in
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
and
Southern Italy
Southern Italy ( it, Sud Italia or ) also known as ''Meridione'' or ''Mezzogiorno'' (), is a macroregion of the Italian Republic consisting of its southern half.
The term ''Mezzogiorno'' today refers to regions that are associated with the peop ...
appear to have been
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
-speakers, and this is reflected in some Ashkenazi personal names (e.g., ''Kalonymos'' and Yiddish ''Todres''). Hebrew, on the other hand, was regarded as a holy language reserved for ritual and spiritual purposes and not for common use.
The established view is that, as with other
Jewish languages
Jewish languages are the various Language, languages and Dialect, dialects that developed in Jewish communities in the Jewish diaspora, diaspora. The original Jewish language is Hebrew, supplanted as the primary vernacular by Aramaic following th ...
, Jews speaking distinct languages learned new co-territorial vernaculars, which they then Judaized. In the case of Yiddish, this scenario sees it as emerging when speakers of
Zarphatic
Zarphatic, or Judeo-French (Zarphatic: ''Tzarfatit''), is an extinct Jewish language that was spoken by the French Jews of northern France and in parts of west-central Germany, such as Mainz, Frankfurt am Main and Aix-la-Chapelle. It was ...
(Judeo-French) and other Judeo-Romance languages began to acquire varieties of
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. Hig ...
, and from these groups the Ashkenazi community took shape.
Exactly what German substrate underlies the earliest form of Yiddish is disputed.
The Jewish community in the Rhineland would have encountered 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. Hig ...
dialects from which the
Rhenish German dialects of the modern period would emerge.
Jewish communities of the high medieval period would have been speaking their own versions of these German dialects, mixed with linguistic elements that they themselves brought into the region, including many Hebrew and Aramaic words, but there is also Romance, Slavic, Turkic and Iranian influence.
In
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 ...
's model, Jewish speakers of
Old French
Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intelligib ...
or
Old Italian
Italian (''italiano'' or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. Together with Sardinian, Italian is the least divergent language from Latin. Spoken by about 85 m ...
who were literate in either liturgical
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 ...
or
Aramaic
The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...
, or both, migrated through Southern Europe to settle in the
Rhine Valley
), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source1_coordinates=
, source1_elevation =
, source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein
, source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland
, source2_coordinates=
, source ...
in an area known as
Lotharingia
Lotharingia ( la, regnum Lotharii regnum Lothariense Lotharingia; french: Lotharingie; german: Reich des Lothar Lotharingien Mittelreich; nl, Lotharingen) was a short-lived medieval successor kingdom of the Carolingian Empire. As a more durable ...
(later known in Yiddish as ''Loter'') extending over parts of Germany and France. There, they encountered and were influenced by Jewish speakers of
High German languages and several other German dialects. Both Weinreich and
Solomon Birnbaum Solomon Asher Birnbaum, also ''Salomo Birnbaum'' ( yi, שלמה בירנבוים ''Shloyme Birnboym'', December 24, 1891 in Vienna – December 28, 1989 in Toronto) was a Yiddishist movement, Yiddish linguist and Hebrew palaeography, palaeographer.< ...
developed this model further in the mid-1950s. In Weinreich's view, this Old Yiddish substrate later bifurcated into two distinct versions of the language, Western and Eastern Yiddish.
They retained the Semitic vocabulary and constructions needed for religious purposes and created a Judeo-German form of speech, sometimes not accepted as a fully autonomous language.
Later linguistic research has refined the Weinreich model or provided alternative approaches to the language's origins, with points of contention being the characterization of its Germanic base, the source of its Hebrew/Aramaic
adstrata, and the means and location of this fusion. Some theorists argue that the fusion occurred with a Bavarian dialect base.
The two main candidates for the germinal matrix of Yiddish, the Rhineland and Bavaria, are not necessarily incompatible. There may have been parallel developments in the two regions, seeding the Western and Eastern dialects of Modern Yiddish.
Dovid Katz
Dovid Katz (Yiddish: , also , Hirshe-Dovid Kats, , born 9 May 1956) is an American-born, Vilnius-based scholar, author and educator, specializing in Yiddish language and literature, Lithuanian Jewish culture, and the Holocaust in Eastern Europe. ...
proposes that Yiddish emerged from contact between speakers of High German and Aramaic-speaking Jews from the Middle East.
The lines of development proposed by the different theories do not necessarily rule out the others (at least not entirely); an article in ''
The Forward
''The Forward'' ( yi, פֿאָרווערטס, Forverts), formerly known as ''The Jewish Daily Forward'', is an American news media organization for a Jewish American audience. Founded in 1897 as a Yiddish-language daily socialist newspaper, ' ...
'' argues that "in the end, a new 'standard theory' of Yiddish's origins will probably be based on the work of Weinreich and his challengers alike."
Paul Wexler proposed a model in 1991 that took Yiddish, by which he means primarily eastern Yiddish,
not to be genetically grounded in a Germanic language at all, but rather as "
Judeo-Sorbian" (a proposed
West Slavic language
The West Slavic languages are a subdivision of the Slavic language group. They include Polish, Czech, Slovak, Kashubian, Upper Sorbian and Lower Sorbian. The languages have traditionally been spoken across a mostly continuous region encompa ...
) that had been
relexified by High German.
In more recent work, Wexler has argued that Eastern Yiddish is unrelated genetically to Western Yiddish. Wexler's model has been met with little academic support, and strong critical challenges, especially among historical linguists.
Das et al. (2016, co-authored by Wexler) use
human genetics
Human genetics is the study of inheritance as it occurs in human beings. Human genetics encompasses a variety of overlapping fields including: classical genetics, cytogenetics, molecular genetics, biochemical genetics, genomics, population gene ...
in support of the hypothesis of "a Slavic origin with strong Iranian and weak Turkic substrata".
Written evidence
Yiddish orthography
Yiddish orthography is the writing system used for the Yiddish language. It includes Yiddish spelling rules and the Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew script, which is used as the basis of a full vocalic alphabet. Letters that are silent or represent glott ...
developed towards the end of the high medieval period. It is first recorded in 1272, with the oldest surviving literary document in Yiddish, a blessing found in the Worms ''
machzor
The ''machzor'' ( he, מחזור, plural ''machzorim'', and , respectively) is the prayer book which is used by Jews on the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Many Jews also make use of specialized ''machzorim'' on the three pilgr ...
'' (a Hebrew prayer book).
This brief rhyme is decoratively embedded in an otherwise purely Hebrew text. Nonetheless, it indicates that the Yiddish of that day was a more or less regular Middle High German written in the Hebrew alphabet into which Hebrew words – מַחֲזוֹר,
''makhazor'' (prayerbook for the
High Holy Days
The High Holidays also known as the High Holy Days, or Days of Awe in Judaism, more properly known as the Yamim Noraim ( he, יָמִים נוֹרָאִים, ''Yāmīm Nōrāʾīm''; "Days of Awe")
#strictly, the holidays of Rosh HaShanah ("Jew ...
) and , "synagogue" (read in Yiddish as ''beis hakneses'') – had been included. The
niqqud
In Hebrew orthography, niqqud or nikud ( or ) is a system of diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Several such diacritical systems were developed in the ...
appears as though it might have been added by a second scribe, in which case it may need to be dated separately and may not be indicative of the pronunciation of the rhyme at the time of its initial annotation.
Over the course of the 14th and 15th centuries, songs and poems in Yiddish, and
macaronic
Macaronic language uses a mixture of languages, particularly bilingual puns or situations in which the languages are otherwise used in the same context (rather than simply discrete segments of a text being in different languages). Hybrid words ...
pieces in Hebrew and German, began to appear. These were collected in the late 15th century by Menahem ben Naphtali Oldendorf. During the same period, a tradition seems to have emerged of the Jewish community's adapting its own versions of German secular literature. The earliest Yiddish epic poem of this sort is the ''
Dukus Horant
''Dukus Horant'' is a 14th-century narrative poem in Judeo-German (Proto-Yiddish).
Importance
''Dukus Horant'' is the best known of a number of works which survive in the Cambridge Codex T.-S.10.K.22. This manuscript was discovered in the Cairo ...
'', which survives in the famous Cambridge Codex T.-S.10.K.22. This 14th-century manuscript was discovered in the
Cairo Geniza
The Cairo Geniza, alternatively spelled Genizah, is a collection of some 400,000 Jewish manuscript fragments and Fatimid administrative documents that were kept in the ''genizah'' or storeroom of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat or Old Cairo, ...
in 1896, and also contains a collection of narrative poems on themes from the
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;["Tanach"](_blank)
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...
and the
Haggadah
The Haggadah ( he, הַגָּדָה, "telling"; plural: Haggadot) is a Jewish text that sets forth the order of the Passover Seder. According to Jewish practice, reading the Haggadah at the Seder table is a fulfillment of the mitzvah to each J ...
.
Printing
The advent of the
printing press
A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a printing, print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in wh ...
in the 16th century enabled the large-scale production of works, at a cheaper cost, some of which have survived. One particularly popular work was
Elia Levita
Elia Levita (13 February 146928 January 1549) ( he, אליהו בן אשר הלוי אשכנזי), also known as Elijah Levita, Elias Levita, Élie Lévita, Elia Levita Ashkenazi, Eliahu Levita, Eliyahu haBahur ("Elijah the Bachelor"), Elye Bok ...
's ''
Bovo-Bukh
The ''Bovo-Bukh'' ("Bovo book"; also known as ''Baba Buch'', etc.; Yiddish: ), written in 1507–1508 by Elia Levita, was the most popular chivalric romance in Yiddish. It was first printed in 1541, being the first non-religious book to be p ...
'' (), composed around 1507–08 and printed several times, beginning in 1541 (under the title ''Bovo d'Antona''). Levita, the earliest named Yiddish author, may also have written ''Pariz un Viene'' (''Paris and
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
''). Another Yiddish retelling of a chivalric romance, װידװילט ''Vidvilt'' (often referred to as "Widuwilt" by Germanizing scholars), presumably also dates from the 15th century, although the manuscripts are from the 16th. It is also known as ''Kinig Artus Hof'', an adaptation of the Middle High German romance ''Wigalois'' by
Wirnt von Grafenberg Wirnt von Grafenberg was a Middle High German poet of the thirteenth century.
Biography
Grafenberg was a Bavarian nobleman who between 1202 and 1205 wrote an epic, entitled ''Wigalois'', which describes the adventures of Gawain's son, the name bein ...
. Another significant writer is Avroham ben Schemuel Pikartei, who published a paraphrase on the
Book of Job
The Book of Job (; hbo, אִיּוֹב, ʾIyyōḇ), or simply Job, is a book found in the Ketuvim ("Writings") section of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and is the first of the Poetic Books in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. Scholars ar ...
in 1557.
Women in the Ashkenazi community were traditionally not literate in Hebrew but did read and write Yiddish. A body of literature therefore developed for which women were a primary audience. This included secular works, such as the ''Bovo-Bukh'', and religious writing specifically for women, such as the ''
Tseno Ureno
The ''Tz'enah Ur'enah'' ( ''Ṣʼenā urʼenā'' "Go forth and see"), also spelt Tsene-rene and Tzeno Ureno, sometimes called the ''Women's Bible'', is a Yiddish-language prose work of c.1590s whose structure parallels the weekly Torah portions a ...
'' and the ''
Tkhine
''Tkhines'' or ''teḥinot'' (, or Hebrew: ) may refer to Yiddish prayers and devotions, usually personal and from a female viewpoint, or collections of such prayers. They were written for Ashkenazi Jewish women who, unlike the men of the time, ...
s''. One of the best-known early woman authors was
Glückel of Hameln, whose memoirs are still in print.
![Page from Yiddish-Hebrew-Latin-German dictionary by Elijah Levita](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Page_from_Yiddish-Hebrew-Latin-German_dictionary_by_Elijah_Levita.jpg)
The segmentation of the Yiddish readership, between women who read ''mame-loshn'' but not ''loshn-koydesh'', and men who read both, was significant enough that distinctive
typeface
A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font.
There are list of type ...
s were used for each. The name commonly given to the semicursive form used exclusively for Yiddish was (''
vaybertaytsh
''Vaybertaytsh'' () or ''mashket'' (), is a semi-cursive script typeface for the Yiddish alphabet. From the 16th until the early 19th century, the ''mashket'' font distinguished Yiddish publications, whereas Hebrew square script were used for cl ...
'', 'women's ''taytsh'', shown in the heading and fourth column in the ''Shemot Devarim''), with square Hebrew letters (shown in the third column) being reserved for text in that language and Aramaic. This distinction was retained in general typographic practice through to the early 19th century, with Yiddish books being set in ''vaybertaytsh'' (also termed ''mesheyt'' or ''mashket''—the construction is uncertain).
An additional distinctive semicursive typeface was, and still is, used for rabbinical commentary on religious texts when Hebrew and Yiddish appear on the same page. This is commonly termed
Rashi script
Rashi script or Sephardic script (), is a typeface for the Hebrew alphabet based on 15th-century Sephardic semi-cursive handwriting. It is named for the rabbinic commentator Rashi, whose works are customarily printed in the typeface (though Ra ...
, from the name of the most renowned early author, whose commentary is usually printed using this script. (Rashi is also the typeface normally used when the Sephardic counterpart to Yiddish,
Judaeo-Spanish
Judaeo-Spanish or Judeo-Spanish (autonym , Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew script: , Cyrillic script, Cyrillic: ), also known as Ladino, is a Romance languages, Romance language derived from Old Spanish language, Old Spanish. Originally spoken in Spain ...
or ''Ladino'', is printed in Hebrew script.)
Secularization
The Western Yiddish dialect—sometimes pejoratively labeled ''Mauscheldeutsch'', i. e. "Moses German"—declined in the 18th century, as the
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...
and the ''
Haskalah
The ''Haskalah'', often termed Jewish Enlightenment ( he, השכלה; literally, "wisdom", "erudition" or "education"), was an intellectual movement among the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, with a certain influence on those in Western Euro ...
'' led to a view of Yiddish as a corrupt dialect. A ''
Maskil
The ''Haskalah'', often termed Jewish Enlightenment ( he, השכלה; literally, "wisdom", "erudition" or "education"), was an intellectual movement among the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, with a certain influence on those in Western Eur ...
'' (one who takes part in the ''Haskalah'') would write about and promote acclimatization to the outside world.
Jewish children began attending secular schools where the primary language spoken and taught was German, not Yiddish.
Owing to both assimilation to German and the
revival of Hebrew
The revival of the Hebrew language took place in Europe and Palestine toward the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century, through which the language's usage changed from the sacred language of Judaism to a spoken and written language ...
, Western Yiddish survived only as a language of "intimate family circles or of closely knit trade groups". (
Liptzin 1972).
In eastern Europe, the response to these forces took the opposite direction, with Yiddish becoming the cohesive force in a
secular culture (see the
Yiddishist movement
Yiddishism (Yiddish: ײִדישיזם) is a cultural and linguistic movement which began among Jews in Eastern Europe during the latter part of the 19th century. Some of the leading founders of this movement were Mendele Moykher-Sforim (1836–191 ...
). Notable Yiddish writers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries are Sholem Yankev Abramovitch, writing as
Mendele Mocher Sforim
Mendele Mocher Sforim ( yi, , he, מנדלי מוכר ספרים, also known as Moykher, Sfarim; lit. "Mendele the book peddler"; January 2, 1836, Kapyl – December 8, 1917 .S. Odessa), born Sholem Yankev Abramovich ( yi, , russian: Соло ...
; Sholem Rabinovitsh, widely known as
Sholem Aleichem
)
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Pereiaslav, Russian Empire
, death_date =
, death_place = New York City, U.S.
, occupation = Writer
, nationality =
, period =
, genre = Novels, sh ...
, whose stories about (''Tevye der milkhiker'', "
Tevye
Tevye the Dairyman, also translated as Tevye the Milkman ( yi, טבֿיה דער מילכיקער, ''Tevye der milkhiker'' ) is the fictional narrator and protagonist of a series of short stories by Sholem Aleichem, and various adaptations of th ...
the Dairyman") inspired the Broadway musical and film ''
Fiddler on the Roof''; and
Isaac Leib Peretz
Isaac Leib Peretz ( pl, Icchok Lejbusz Perec, yi, יצחק־לייבוש פרץ) (May 18, 1852 – April 3, 1915), also sometimes written Yitskhok Leybush Peretz was a Polish Jewish writer and playwright writing in Yiddish. Payson R. Stevens, Cha ...
.
20th century
![Yiddish WWI poster2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Yiddish_WWI_poster2.jpg)
In the early 20th century, especially after the Socialist
October Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...
in Russia, Yiddish was emerging as a major Eastern European language. Its rich literature was more widely published than ever,
Yiddish theatre
Yiddish theatre consists of plays written and performed primarily by Jews in Yiddish, the language of the Central European Ashkenazi Jewish community. The range of Yiddish theatre is broad: operetta, musical comedy, and satiric or nostalgic revu ...
and
Yiddish cinema
Yiddish cinema ( yi, יידישע קינא, יידיש-שפראכיגע קינא; trans. ''Idish-Sprakhige Kino'', ''Idishe Kino'') refers to the Yiddish language film industry which produced some 130 full-length motion pictures and 30 short durin ...
were booming, and for a time it achieved the status of one of the
official language
An official language is a language given supreme status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically the term "official language" does not refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government (e.g. judiciary, ...
s of the short-lived
Galician Soviet Socialist Republic
The Galician Soviet Socialist Republic was a short-lived, self-declared Bolshevik political entity that existed from 15 July to formally 21 September 1920 with the capital in the city of Tarnopol. The communist state was established during a suc ...
. Educational autonomy for Jews in several countries (notably
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
) after
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
led to an increase in formal Yiddish-language education, more uniform orthography, and to the 1925 founding of the Yiddish Scientific Institute,
YIVO
YIVO (Yiddish: , ) is an organization that preserves, studies, and teaches the cultural history of Jewish life throughout Eastern Europe, Germany, and Russia as well as orthography, lexicography, and other studies related to Yiddish. (The word '' ...
. In
Vilnius
Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urb ...
, there was debate over which language should take primacy, Hebrew or Yiddish.
Yiddish changed significantly during the 20th century.
Michael Wex writes, "As increasing numbers of Yiddish speakers moved from the Slavic-speaking East to Western Europe and the Americas in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they were so quick to jettison Slavic vocabulary that the most prominent Yiddish writers of the time—the founders of modern Yiddish literature, who were still living in Slavic-speaking countries—revised the printed editions of their oeuvres to eliminate obsolete and 'unnecessary' Slavisms." The vocabulary used in Israel absorbed many Modern Hebrew words, and there was a similar but smaller increase in the English component of Yiddish in the United States and, to a lesser extent, the United Kingdom. This has resulted in some difficulty in communication between Yiddish speakers from Israel and those from other countries.
Phonology
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 Tli ...
, whereas are
labiodental
In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants 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 chart shades out ''labio ...
.
* 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 a ...
, whereas are
palatal.
** 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
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...
, 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 ...
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 , respectivel
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 flexi ...
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. Hig ...
; 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 " ...
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. Hig ...
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, 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 Ash ...
but not identical. The most prominent difference is ''
kamatz 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'' an ...
'' 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 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'' an ...
'' in open syllable, as well as ''hataf patah'', are unpredictably split between A
1 and A
2: ; .
Grammar
Yiddish grammar can vary slightly depending on the dialect. The main article focuses on standard form of Yiddish grammar while also acknowledging some dialectal differences. Yiddish grammar has similarities to the German grammar system, as well as grammatical elements from Hebrew and other Slavic languages.
Writing system
Yiddish is written in the
Hebrew alphabet
The Hebrew alphabet ( he, wikt:אלפבית, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew languag ...
, but its
orthography
An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation.
Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mos ...
differs significantly from
that of Hebrew. Whereas, in Hebrew, many vowels are represented only optionally by
diacritical marks
A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
called
niqqud
In Hebrew orthography, niqqud or nikud ( or ) is a system of diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Several such diacritical systems were developed in the ...
, Yiddish uses letters to represent all vowels. Several Yiddish letters consist of another letter combined with a niqqud mark resembling a Hebrew letter-niqqud pair, but each of those combinations is an inseparable unit representing a vowel alone, not a consonant-vowel sequence. The niqqud marks have no phonetic value on their own.
In most varieties of Yiddish, however, words borrowed from Hebrew are written in their native forms without application of Yiddish orthographical conventions.
Numbers of speakers
![Yiddish](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/Yiddish.png)
On the eve of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, there were 11 to 13 million Yiddish speakers.
[ ]The Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
, however, led to a dramatic, sudden decline in the use of Yiddish, as the extensive Jewish communities, both secular and religious, that used Yiddish in their day-to-day life were largely destroyed. Around five million of those killed85 percent of the Jews murdered in the Holocaustwere speakers of Yiddish. Although millions of Yiddish speakers survived the war (including nearly all Yiddish speakers in the Americas), further assimilation in countries such as the United States and the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, in addition to the strictly monolingual stance of the Zionist movement, led to a decline in the use of Eastern Yiddish. However, the number of speakers within the widely dispersed Haredi (mainly Hasidic) communities is now increasing. Although used in various countries, Yiddish has attained official recognition as a minority language only in Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Netherlands, and Sweden.
Reports of the number of current Yiddish speakers vary significantly. ''Ethnologue'' estimates, based on publications through 1991, that there were at that time 1.5 million speakers of Eastern Yiddish, of which 40% lived in Ukraine, 15% in Israel, and 10% in the United States. The Modern Language Association agrees with fewer than 200,000 in the United States. Western Yiddish is reported by ''Ethnologue'' to have had an ethnic population of 50,000 in 2000, and an undated speaking population of 5,000, mostly in Germany. A 1996 report by the Council of Europe estimates a worldwide Yiddish-speaking population of about two million. Further demographics, demographic information about the recent status of what is treated as an Eastern–Western dialect continuum is provided in the YIVO ''Language and Cultural Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry''.
In the Hasidic communities of Israel, boys speak more Yiddish amongst themselves, while girls use Hebrew more often. This is probably due to the fact that girls tend to learn more secular subjects, thus increasing contact with the Hebrew language, and boys are usually taught religious subjects in Yiddish.
Status as a language
There has been frequent debate about the extent of the linguistic independence of Yiddish from the languages that it absorbed. There has been periodic assertion that Yiddish is a dialect of German, or even "just broken German, more of a linguistic mishmash than a true language". Even when recognized as an autonomous language, it has sometimes been referred to as Judeo-German, along the lines of other Jewish languages like Judeo-Persian, Judeo-Spanish or Judeo-French. A widely cited summary of attitudes in the 1930s was published 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 ...
, quoting a remark by an auditor of one of his lectures: (''a shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot'' — "A language is a dialect with an army and navy").
Israel and Zionism
The national language of Israel is Hebrew. The debate in Zionist circles over the use of Yiddish in Israel and in the diaspora in preference to Hebrew also reflected the tensions between religious and secular Jewish lifestyles. Many secular Zionists wanted Hebrew as the sole language of Jews, to contribute to a national cohesive identity. Traditionally religious Jews, on the other hand, preferred use of Yiddish, viewing Hebrew as a respected holy language reserved for prayer and religious study. In the early 20th century, Zionist activists in the Mandatory Palestine, Mandate of Palestine tried to eradicate the use of Yiddish among Jews in preference to Hebrew, and make its use socially unacceptable.
This conflict also reflected the opposing views among secular Jews worldwide, one side seeing Hebrew (and Zionism) and the other Yiddish (and internationalism (politics), Internationalism) as the means of defining Jewish nationalism. In the 1920s and 1930s, , "Battalion for the Defence of the Language", whose motto was " ", that is, "Hebrew [i.e. Jew], speak Hebrew!", used to tear down signs written in "foreign" languages and disturb Yiddish theatre gatherings. However, according to linguist Ghil'ad Zuckermann, the members of this group in particular, and the Hebrew revival in general, did not succeed in uprooting Yiddish patterns (as well as the patterns of other European languages Jewish immigrants spoke) within what he calls "Israeli", i.e. Modern Hebrew. Zuckermann believes that "Israeli does include numerous Hebrew elements resulting from a conscious revival but also numerous pervasive linguistic features deriving from a subconscious survival of the revivalists’ mother tongues, e.g. Yiddish."
After the founding of the State of Israel, a massive wave of Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries, Jewish immigrants from Arab countries arrived. In short order, these Mizrahi Jews and their descendants would account for nearly half the Jewish population. While all were at least familiar with Hebrew as a liturgical language, essentially none had any contact with or affinity for Yiddish (some, of Sephardi Jews, Sephardic origin, spoke Judeo-Spanish, others various Judeo-Arabic dialects, Judeo-Arabic varieties). Thus, Hebrew emerged as the dominant linguistic common denominator between the different population groups.
Despite a past of marginalization and anti-Yiddish government policy, in 1996 the Knesset passed a law founding the "National Authority for Yiddish Culture", with the aim of supporting and promoting contemporary Yiddish art and Yiddish literature, literature, as well as preservation of Yiddish culture and publication of Yiddish classics, both in Yiddish and in Hebrew translation.
In religious circles, it is the Ashkenazi Haredi Jews
Haredi Judaism ( he, ', ; also spelled ''Charedi'' in English; plural ''Haredim'' or ''Charedim'') consists of groups within Orthodox Judaism that are characterized by their strict adherence to ''halakha'' (Jewish law) and traditions, in oppos ...
, particularly the Hasidic Jews and the Lithuanian yeshiva world (see Lithuanian Jews), who continue to teach, speak and use Yiddish, making it a language used regularly by hundreds of thousands of Haredi Jews today. The largest of these centers are in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem.
There is a growing revival of interest in Yiddish culture among secular Israelis, with the flourishing of new proactive cultural organizations like YUNG YiDiSH, as well as Yiddish theatre
Yiddish theatre consists of plays written and performed primarily by Jews in Yiddish, the language of the Central European Ashkenazi Jewish community. The range of Yiddish theatre is broad: operetta, musical comedy, and satiric or nostalgic revu ...
(usually with simultaneous translation to Hebrew and Russian) and young people are taking university courses in Yiddish, some achieving considerable fluency.
South Africa
In the early years of the 20th century Yiddish was classified as a 'Semitic Language'. After much campaigning, in 1906 the South African legislator Morris Alexander won a parliamentary fight to have Yiddish reclassified as a European language, thereby permitting the immigration of Yiddish-speakers to South Africa.
Former Soviet Union
In the Soviet Union during the era of the New Economic Policy (NEP) in the 1920s, Yiddish was promoted as the language of the Jewish proletariat. At the same time, 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 ...
was considered a bourgeois and reactionary language and its use was generally discouraged. Yiddish was one of the "recognized" languages of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. Until 1938, the Emblem of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic included the motto ''Workers of the world, unite!'' in Yiddish. Yiddish was also an official language in several agricultural districts of the Galician Soviet Socialist Republic
The Galician Soviet Socialist Republic was a short-lived, self-declared Bolshevik political entity that existed from 15 July to formally 21 September 1920 with the capital in the city of Tarnopol. The communist state was established during a suc ...
.
The use of Yiddish as the primary spoken language by Jews was heavily encouraged by multiple Jewish political groups at the time. The Evsektsiia, Evsketsii, the Jewish Communist Group, and The Bund, the Jewish Socialist Group, both heavily encouraged the use of Yiddish. During the Bolshevik Era these political groups worked alongside the government to encourage the widespread Jewish use of Yiddish. Both the Evsketsii and the Bund supported the Jewish movement towards assimilation and saw Yiddish as a way to encourage it. They saw the use of Yiddish as a step away from the religious aspects of Judaism, instead favoring the cultural aspects of Judaism.
A public educational system entirely based on the Yiddish language was established and comprised kindergartens, schools, and higher educational institutions (technical schools, rabfaks and other university departments). These were initially created to stop Jewish children from taking too many spots in regular Soviet schools. The Soviets feared that the Jewish children were both taking spots from non-Jews as well as spreading revolutionary ideas to their non-Jewish peers. As a result, in 1914 laws were passed that guaranteed Jews the right to a Jewish education and as a result the Yiddish education system was established. After the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 even more Yiddish schools were established. These schools thrived with government, specifically Bolshevik, and Jewish support. They were established as part of the effort to revitalize the Soviet Jewish Community. Specifically, the Bolsheviks wanted to encourage Jewish assimilation. While these schools were taught in Yiddish, the content was Soviet. They were created to attract Jews in to getting a Soviet education under the guise of a Jewish institution.
While schools with curriculums taught in Yiddish existed in some areas until the 1950s, there was a general decline in enrollment due to preference for Russian-speaking institutions and the declining reputation of Yiddish schools among Yiddish speaking Soviets. As the Yiddish schools declined, so did overall Yiddish culture. The two were inherently linked and with the downfall of one, so did the other. General Soviet denationalization programs and secularization policies also led to a further lack of enrollment and funding; the last schools to be closed existed until 1951. It continued to be spoken widely for decades, nonetheless, in areas with compact Jewish populations (primarily in Moldova, Ukraine, and to a lesser extent Belarus).
In the former Soviet states, recently active Yiddish authors include Josef Burg (writer), Yoysef Burg (Chernivtsi 1912–2009) and Olexander Beyderman (b. 1949, Odessa). Publication of an earlier Yiddish periodical ( – der fraynd; lit. "The Friend"), was resumed in 2004 with (''der nayer fraynd''; lit. "The New Friend", Saint Petersburg).
Russia
According to the Russian Census (2010), 2010 census, 1,683 people spoke Yiddish in Russia, approximately 1% of all the Jews of the Russian Federation. According to Mikhail Shvydkoy, former Minister of Culture of Russia and himself of Jewish origin, Yiddish culture in Russia is gone, and its revival is unlikely.
= Jewish Autonomous Oblast
=
The Jewish Autonomous Oblast was formed in 1934 in the Russian Far East, with its capital city in Birobidzhan and Yiddish as its official language. The intention was for the Soviet Jewish population to settle there. Jewish cultural life was revived in Birobidzhan much earlier than elsewhere in the Soviet Union. Yiddish theaters began opening in the 1970s. The newspaper (Birobidzhaner Shtern, ''Der Birobidzhaner Shtern''; lit: "The Birobidzhan Star") includes a Yiddish section. In modern Russia, the cultural significance of the language is still recognized and bolstered. The First Birobidzhan International Summer Program for Yiddish Language and Culture was launched in 2007.
, according to data provided by the Russian Census Bureau, there were 97 speakers of Yiddish in the JAO. A November 2017 article in The Guardian, titled, "Revival of a Soviet Zion: Birobidzhan celebrates its Jewish heritage", examined the current status of the city and suggested that, even though the Jewish Autonomous Region in Russia's far east is now barely 1% Jewish, officials hope to woo back people who left after Soviet collapse and to revive the Yiddish language in this region.
Ukraine
Yiddish was an official language of the Ukrainian People's Republic (1917–1921).
Council of Europe
Several countries that ratified the 1992 European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages have included Yiddish in the list of their recognized minority languages: the Netherlands (1996), Sweden (2000), Romania (2008), Poland (2009), Bosnia and Herzegovina (2010). In 2005, Ukraine did not mention Yiddish as such, but "the language(s) of the Jewish ethnic minority".[European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. List of declarations made with respect to treaty No. 148](_blank)
Status as of: April 29, 2019
Sweden
In June 1999, the Swedish Parliament enacted legislation giving Yiddish legal status as one of the country's official minority languages of Sweden, official minority languages (entering into effect in April 2000). The rights thereby conferred are not detailed, but additional legislation was enacted in June 2006 establishing a new governmental agency, The Swedish National Language Council, the mandate of which instructs it to "collect, preserve, scientifically research, and spread material about the national minority languages", naming them all explicitly, including Yiddish. When announcing this action, the government made an additional statement about "simultaneously commencing completely new initiatives for... Yiddish [and the other minority languages]".
The Swedish government has published documents in Yiddish detailing the national action plan for human rights. An earlier one provides general information about national minority language policies.
On September 6, 2007, it became possible to register Internet domains with Yiddish names in the national top-level domain .se.
The first Jews were permitted to reside in Sweden during the late 18th century. The Jewish population in Sweden is estimated at 20,000. Of these, according to various reports and surveys, between 2,000 and 6,000 claim to have at least some knowledge of Yiddish. In 2009, the number of native speakers among these was estimated by linguist Mikael Parkvall to be 750–1,500. It is believed that virtually all native speakers of Yiddish in Sweden today are adults, and most of them elderly.
United States
In the United States, at first most Jews were of Sephardi Jews, Sephardic origin, and hence did not speak Yiddish. It was not until the mid-to-late 19th century, as first German Jews, then Central and Eastern European Jews, arrived in the nation, that Yiddish became dominant within the immigrant community. This helped to bond Jews from many countries. (''Forverts'' – ''The Forward
''The Forward'' ( yi, פֿאָרווערטס, Forverts), formerly known as ''The Jewish Daily Forward'', is an American news media organization for a Jewish American audience. Founded in 1897 as a Yiddish-language daily socialist newspaper, ' ...
'') was one of seven Yiddish daily newspapers in New York City, and other Yiddish newspapers served as a forum for Jews of all European backgrounds. In 1915, the circulation of the daily Yiddish newspapers was half a million in New York City alone, and 600,000 nationally. In addition, thousands more subscribed to the numerous weekly papers and the many magazines.
The typical circulation in the 21st century is a few thousand. The ''Forward'' still appears weekly and is also available in an online edition. It remains in wide distribution, together with (''der algemeyner zhurnal'' – ''Algemeiner Journal, Algemeyner Journal''; ''algemeyner'' = general), a Chabad newspaper which is also published weekly and appears online. The widest-circulation Yiddish newspapers are probably the weekly issues ( "The Jew"), (; ''blat'' "paper") and ( "the newspaper"). Several additional newspapers and magazines are in regular production, such as the weekly אידישער טריביון ''Yiddish Tribune'' and the monthly publications (''Der Shtern'' "The Star") and (''Der Blik'' "The View"). (The romanized titles cited in this paragraph are in the form given on the masthead of each publication and may be at some variance both with the literal Yiddish title and the Yiddish orthography#Transliteration, transliteration rules otherwise applied in this article.) Thriving Yiddish theater, especially in the New York City Yiddish Theatre District, kept the language vital. Interest in klezmer music provided another bonding mechanism.
Most of the Jewish immigrants to the New York metropolitan area during the years of Ellis Island considered Yiddish their native language; however, native Yiddish speakers tended not to pass the language on to their children, who assimilated and spoke English. For example, Isaac Asimov states in his autobiography ''In Memory Yet Green'' that Yiddish was his first and sole spoken language, and remained so for about two years after he emigrated to the United States as a small child. By contrast, Asimov's younger siblings, born in the United States, never developed any degree of fluency in Yiddish.
Many "Yiddishisms", like "Italianisms" and "Spanishisms", entered New York City English, often used by Jews and non-Jews alike, unaware of the linguistic origin of the phrases. Yiddish words used in English were documented extensively by Leo Rosten in ''The Joys of Yiddish''; see also the list of English words of Yiddish origin.
In 1975, the film ''Hester Street (film), Hester Street'', much of which is in Yiddish, was released. It was later chosen to be on the Library of Congress National Film Registry for being considered a "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" film.
In 1976, the Canadian-born American author Saul Bellow received the Nobel Prize in Literature. He was fluent in Yiddish, and translated several Yiddish poems and stories into English, including Isaac Bashevis Singer's "Gimpel the Fool". In 1978, Singer, a writer in the Yiddish language, who was born in Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
and lived in the United States, received the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Legal scholars Eugene Volokh and Alex Kozinski argue that Yiddish is "supplanting Latin as the spice in American legal argot".
Present U.S. speaker population
In the 2000 United States Census, 178,945 people in the United States reported speaking Yiddish at home. Of these speakers, 113,515 lived in New York (state), New York (63.43% of American Yiddish speakers); 18,220 in Florida (10.18%); 9,145 in New Jersey (5.11%); and 8,950 in California (5.00%). The remaining states with speaker populations larger than 1,000 are Pennsylvania (5,445), Ohio (1,925), Michigan (1,945), Massachusetts (2,380), Maryland (2,125), Illinois (3,510), Connecticut (1,710), and Arizona (1,055). The population is largely elderly: 72,885 of the speakers were older than 65, 66,815 were between 18 and 64, and only 39,245 were age 17 or lower.
In the six years since the 2000 census, the 2006 American Community Survey reflected an estimated 15 percent decline of people speaking Yiddish at home in the U.S. to 152,515. In 2011, the number of persons in the United States above the age of five speaking Yiddish at home was 160,968. 88% of them were living in four metropolitan areas – New York City and another metropolitan area Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown metropolitan area, just north of it, Miami, and Los Angeles.
There are a few predominantly Hasidic communities in the United States in which Yiddish remains the majority language including concentrations in the Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Crown Heights, Borough Park, Brooklyn, Borough Park, and Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Williamsburg neighborhoods of Brooklyn. In Kiryas Joel, New York, Kiryas Joel in Orange County, New York, in the 2000 census, nearly 90% of residents of Kiryas Joel reported speaking Yiddish at home.
United Kingdom
There are well over 30,000 Yiddish speakers in the United Kingdom, and several thousand children now have Yiddish as a first language. The largest group of Yiddish speakers in Britain reside in the Stamford Hill district of North London, but there are sizable communities in northwest London, Leeds, Manchester and Gateshead. The Yiddish readership in the UK is mainly reliant upon imported material from the United States and Israel for newspapers, magazines and other periodicals. However, the London-based weekly ''Jewish Tribune (UK), Jewish Tribune'' has a small section in Yiddish called ''Yidishe Tribune''. From the 1910s to the 1950s, London had a daily Yiddish newspaper called די צײַט (''Di Tsayt'', ; in English, ''The Time''), founded, and edited from offices in Whitechapel Road, by Romanian-born Morris Myer, who was succeeded on his death in 1943 by his son Harry. There were also from time to time Yiddish newspapers in Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Leeds. Bilingual Yiddish and English café the Pink Peacock opened in Glasgow in 2021.
Canada
Montreal had, and to some extent still has, one of the most thriving Yiddish communities in North America. Yiddish was Montreal's third language (after French and English) for the entire first half of the twentieth century. ''Der Keneder Adler'' ("The Canadian Eagle", founded by Hirsch Wolofsky), Montreal's daily Yiddish newspaper, appeared from 1907 to 1988. The Monument-National was the center of Yiddish theater from 1896 until the construction of the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts (now the Segal Centre for Performing Arts), inaugurated on September 24, 1967, where the established resident theater, the Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre, remains the only permanent Yiddish theatre in North America. The theatre group also tours Canada, US, Israel, and Europe.
Even though Yiddish has receded, it is the immediate ancestral language of Montrealers like Mordecai Richler and Leonard Cohen, as well as former interim city mayor Michael Applebaum. Besides Yiddish-speaking activists, it remains today the native everyday language of 15,000 Montreal Hasidim.
Religious communities
Major exceptions to the decline of spoken Yiddish are found in Haredi Judaism, Haredi communities all over the world. In some of the more closely knit such communities, Yiddish is spoken as a home and schooling language, especially in Hasidic, Lithuanian Jews, Litvish, or Yeshivish communities, such as Brooklyn's Borough Park, Brooklyn, Borough Park, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Williamsburg, and Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Crown Heights, and in the communities of Monsey, New York, Monsey, Kiryas Joel, New York, Kiryas Joel, and New Square, New York, New Square in New York (over 88% of the population of Kiryas Joel is reported to speak Yiddish at home.) Also in New Jersey, Yiddish is widely spoken mostly in Lakewood Township, New Jersey, Lakewood Township, but also in smaller towns with yeshiva
A yeshiva (; he, ישיבה, , sitting; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish philosophy are s ...
s, such as Passaic, New Jersey, Passaic, Teaneck, New Jersey, Teaneck, and elsewhere. Yiddish is also widely spoken in the Jewish community in History of the Jews in Antwerp, Antwerp, and in Haredi communities such as the ones in London, Manchester, and Montreal. Yiddish is also spoken in many Haredi communities throughout Israel. Among most Ashkenazi Haredim, Hebrew is generally reserved for prayer, while Yiddish is used for religious studies, as well as a home and business language. In Israel, however, Haredim commonly speak modern Hebrew, with the notable exception of many Hasidic communities. However, many Haredim who use Modern Hebrew also understand Yiddish. There are some who send their children to schools in which the primary language of instruction is Yiddish. Members of anti-Zionist Haredi groups such as the Satmar (Hasidic dynasty), Satmar Hasidim, who view the commonplace use of Hebrew as a form of Zionism, use Yiddish almost exclusively.
Hundreds of thousands of young children around the globe have been, and are still, taught to translate the texts of the Torah into Yiddish. This process is called (''taytshn'') – "translating". Many Ashkenazi yeshivas' highest level lectures in Talmud and Halakha are delivered in Yiddish by the rosh yeshivas as well as ethical talks of the Musar movement. Hasidic rebbes generally use only Yiddish to converse with their followers and to deliver their various Torah talks, classes, and lectures. The linguistic style and vocabulary of Yiddish have influenced the manner in which many Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox Jews who attend yeshivas speak English. This usage is distinctive enough that it has been dubbed "Yeshivish".
While Hebrew remains the exclusive language of Jewish prayer, the Hasidim have mixed some Yiddish into their Hebrew, and are also responsible for a significant secondary religious literature written in Yiddish. For example, the tales about the Baal Shem Tov were written largely in Yiddish. The Torah Talks of the late Chabad leaders are published in their original form, Yiddish. In addition, some prayers, such as "God of Abraham", were composed and are recited in Yiddish.
Modern Yiddish education
There has been a resurgence in Yiddish learning in recent times among many from around the world with Jewish ancestry. The language which had lost many of its native speakers during the Holocaust has been making something of a comeback. In Poland, which traditionally had Yiddish speaking communities, a museum has begun to revive Yiddish education and culture. Located in Kraków, the Galicia Jewish Museum offers classes in Yiddish Language Instruction and workshops on Yiddish Songs. The museum has taken steps to revive the culture through concerts and events held on site.
There are various universities worldwide which now offer Yiddish programs based on the YIVO
YIVO (Yiddish: , ) is an organization that preserves, studies, and teaches the cultural history of Jewish life throughout Eastern Europe, Germany, and Russia as well as orthography, lexicography, and other studies related to Yiddish. (The word '' ...
Yiddish standard. Many of these programs are held during the summer and are attended by Yiddish enthusiasts from around the world. One such school located within Vilnius University (Vilnius Yiddish Institute) was the first Yiddish center of higher learning to be established in post-Holocaust Eastern Europe. Vilnius Yiddish Institute is an integral part of the four-century-old Vilnius University. Published Yiddish scholar and researcher Dovid Katz is among the Faculty.
Despite this growing popularity among many American Jews, finding opportunities for practical use of Yiddish is becoming increasingly difficult, and thus many students have trouble learning to speak the language. One solution has been the establishment of a farm in Goshen, New York, for Yiddishists.
Yiddish is the medium of instruction in many Hasidic חדרים ''khadoorim,'' Jewish boys' schools, and some Hasidic girls' schools.
Sholem Aleichem College, a secular Jewish primary school in Melbourne teaches Yiddish as a second language to all its students. The school was founded in 1975 by the Bundism, Bund movement in Australia, and still maintains daily Yiddish instruction today, and includes student theater and music in Yiddish.
Internet
Google Translate includes Yiddish as one of its languages, as does Yiddish Wikipedia, Wikipedia. Hebrew alphabet keyboards are available and right-to-left writing recognised. Google Search accepts queries in Yiddish.
Over ten thousand Yiddish texts, estimated as over half of all the published works in Yiddish, are now online based on the work of the Yiddish Book Center, volunteers, and the Internet Archive.
There are many websites on the Internet in Yiddish. In January 2013, ''The Forward'' announced the launch of the new daily version of their newspaper's website, which has been active since 1999 as an online weekly, supplied with radio and video programs, a literary section for fiction writers and a special blog written in local contemporary Hasidic dialects.
Computer scientist Raphael Finkel maintains a hub of Yiddish-language resources, including a searchable dictionary and spell checker.
In late 2016, Motorola, Inc. released its smartphones with keyboard access for the Yiddish language in its foreign language option.
On 5 April 2021, Duolingo added Yiddish to its courses.
Influence on other languages
As this article has explained, Yiddish has influenced Modern Hebrew and New York English, especially as spoken by yeshivah students (sometimes known as Yeshivish). It has also influenced Cockney English, Cockney in England. French language, French argot has some words coming from Yiddish.[Nahon, Peter. 2017. Notes lexicologiques sur des interférences entre yidich et français moderne. ''Revue de linguistique romane'' 81, 139-155.]
Paul Wexler proposed that Esperanto was not an arbitrary pastiche of major European languages but a Latinate relexification of Yiddish, a native language of its L. L. Zamenhof, founder.[
] This model is generally unsupported by mainstream linguists.[Bernard Spolsk]
''The Languages of the Jews: A Sociolinguistic History,''
Cambridge University Press, 2014 pp.157,180ff. p.183
Language examples
Here is a short example of the Yiddish language with standard German as a comparison.
See also
* List of Yiddish-language poets
* List of Yiddish newspapers and periodicals
* ''The Yiddish King Lear''
* Yinglish
* Yiddish symbols
* Judeo-Persian, Judeo-Persian (Jiddi)
References
Bibliography
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* Shternshis, Anna (2006). ''Soviet and Kosher: Jewish Popular Culture in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939.'' Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
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Further reading
* ''YIVO Bleter'', pub. YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, NYC
initial series
from 1931
new series
since 1991.
* ''Afn Shvel'', pub. League for Yiddish, NYC, since 1940
sample article אונדזער פרץ – Our Peretz
* ''Lebns-fragn'', by-monthly for social issues, current affairs, and culture, Tel Aviv, since 1951
* ''Yerusholaymer Almanakh'', periodical collection of Yiddish literature and culture, Jerusalem, since 1973
ירושלימער אלמאנאך
new volume, contents and downloads
* ''Der Yiddisher Tam-Tam'', pub. Maison de la Culture Yiddish, Paris, since 1994, also available i
* ''Yidishe Heftn'', pub. Le Cercle Bernard Lazare, Paris, since 1996
subscription info
* ''Gilgulim, naye shafungen'', new literary magazine, Paris, since 2008
גילגולים, נייע שאפונגען
External links
Yiddish Book Center
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research: Yiddish Dictionaries
The Israeli National Authority of Yiddish Culture
Comparison of Eastern and Western Yiddish
based on stable vocabulary. EVOLAEMP Project, University of Tübingen.
In Geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies
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