Yiddish dialects are subsets of the major regional branches of the Yiddish language: Western Yiddish[1] and Eastern Yiddish.[2] Eastern Yiddish, the branch almost exclusively encountered in the contemporary speech community, includes three major dialects: Northeastern (NEY or Litvish, spoken in the Baltic States region, Belarus, and adjacent areas), Mideastern or Poylish (spoken in Poland and other areas of Central Europe), and Southeastern or Ukrainish (spoken in Ukraine and the Balkans). There is also a distinctive Hungarian-Yiddish dialect that is widely spoken by hasidim from the areas of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire that were not absorbed by the Soviet Union after World War II.
Western Yiddish included three dialects: Northwestern (spoken in Northern Germany and the Netherlands), Midwestern (spoken in central Germany), and Southwestern (spoken in southern Germany, France, and neighboring regions extending into Northern Italy). These have a number of clearly distinguished regional varieties, such as Judeo-Alsatian, plus many local subvarieties.
General references to the "Yiddish language" without qualification are normally taken to apply to Eastern Yiddish, unless the subject under consideration is Yiddish literature prior to the 19th century, in which case the focus is more likely to be on Western Yiddish.
Some authors use the term "Southeastern Yiddish" as a collective designation for both Poylish and Ukrainish while still applying the term Northeastern Yiddish to Litvish. The single most populous dialect is Poylish, which together with Ukrainish is used by as many as three quarters of all Yiddish speakers.
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