Yiddish (ייִדיש yidish or אידיש idish, literally "Jewish") is a High German language The High German languages or the High German dialects (Hochdeutsche Mundarten/Dialekte) are any of the varieties of standard German, Luxembourgish and Yiddish, as well as the local German dialects spoken in central and southern Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Luxembourg and in neighbouring portions of Belgium, France (Alsace and of Ashkenazi Jewish Sephardi Jews, Mizrahi Jews, and other Jewish ethnic divisions origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew Extinct as a regularly spoken language by the 4th century CE, but survived as a liturgical and literary language; revived in the 1880s, Aramaic Aramaic is a Semitic language belonging to the Afroasiatic language family. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic subfamily, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic group of languages, which also includes Canaanite languages such as Hebrew and Phoenician. Aramaic script was widely adopted for other languages and is, Slavic languages The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia and traces of Romance languages extinct: Anatolian · Paleo-Balkans (Dacian, .[2][3] It is written in the Hebrew alphabet The Hebrew alphabet , known variously by scholars as the Jewish script, square script, block script, and because of its place of origin, the Assyrian script (not to be confused with the Syriac alphabet). The alphabet is used in the writing of the Hebrew language, as well as other Jewish languages, most notably Yiddish, Ladino, and Judeo-Arabic.
The language originated in the Ashkenazi culture that developed from about the 10th century The 10th century is the period from 901 to 1000 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian/Common Era in the Rhineland The Rhineland today is the general name for areas of Germany along the river Rhine between Bingen and the Dutch border. To the west the area stretches to the borders with Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands; on the eastern side it only encompasses the towns and cities along the river. Except for the Saar this area more or less corresponds with and then spread to Central Central Europe is the region lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe. The term and widespread interest in the region itself came back into fashion after the end of the Cold War, which, along with the Iron Curtain, had divided Europe politically into East and West, splitting Central Europe in half and Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a region lying in the Eastern part of Europe. The term is highly context-dependent and even volatile, as there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region". A related UN paper adds that "every assessment of spatial identities is essentially a social and cultural construct& and eventually to other continents. In the earliest surviving references to it, the language is called לשון־אַשכּנז (loshn-ashkenaz = "language of Ashkenaz") and טײַטש (taytsh, a variant of tiutsch, the contemporary name for the language otherwise spoken in the region of origin, now called Middle High German Middle High German , abbreviated MHG (Mhd.), is the term used for the period in the history of the German language between 1050 and 1350. It is preceded by Old High German and followed by Early New High German. In some uses, the term covers a longer period, going up to 1500; compare the modern New High German New High German is the term used for the most recent period in the history of the German language. It is a translation of the German Neuhochdeutsch (Nhd). It includes all of the modern High German dialects since the Baroque period, but is often used as a synonym for Standard German Deutsch). In common usage, the language is called מאַמע־לשון (mame-loshn, literally "mother tongue"), distinguishing it from biblical Hebrew Extinct as a regularly spoken language by the 4th century CE, but survived as a liturgical and literary language; revived in the 1880s and Aramaic Aramaic is a Semitic language belonging to the Afroasiatic language family. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic subfamily, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic group of languages, which also includes Canaanite languages such as Hebrew and Phoenician. Aramaic script was widely adopted for other languages and is, which are collectively termed לשון־קודש (loshn-koydesh, "holy tongue"). The term "Yiddish" did not become the most frequently used designation in the literature of the language until the 18th century However, Western historians may sometimes specifically define the 18th century otherwise for the purposes of their work. For example, the "short" 18th century may be defined as 1715–1789, denoting the period of time between the death of Louis XIV of France and the start of the French Revolution with an emphasis on directly.
For a significant portion of its history, Yiddish was the primary spoken language of the Ashkenazi Jews and once spanned a broad dialect continuum A dialect continuum, or dialect area, was defined by Leonard Bloomfield as a range of dialects spoken across some geographical area that differ only slightly between neighboring areas, but as one travels in any direction, these differences accumulate such that speakers from opposite ends of the continuum are no longer mutually intelligible. The from Western Yiddish to three major groups within Eastern Yiddish Yiddish dialects are subsets of the major regional branches of the Yiddish language: Western Yiddish and Eastern Yiddish. Eastern Yiddish, the branch almost exclusively encountered in the contemporary speech community, includes three major dialects: Northeastern , Central or Poylish (spoken in Poland, Galicia, areas of the former Austro-Hungarian, namely Litvish Lithuanian Jews are Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews with roots in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania:, Poylish and Ukrainish. Eastern and Western Yiddish are most markedly distinguished by the extensive inclusion of words of Slavic The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia origin in the Eastern dialects The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class. A dialect that is associated. While Western Yiddish has few remaining speakers, Eastern dialects remain in wide use.
Yiddish is written and spoken in Orthodox Jewish Orthodox Judaism is a formulation of Judaism that adheres to a relatively strict interpretation and application of the laws and ethics canonized in the Talmudic texts and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and Acharonim. Generally, Orthodox Judaism consists of two different streams, the communities around the world. It is a home language in most Hasidic Hasidic Judaism or Hasidism, from the Hebrew חסידות -Hasidus meaning "piety" , is a branch of Orthodox Judaism that promotes spirituality and joy through the popularisation and internalisation of Jewish mysticism as the fundamental aspects of the Jewish faith. It was founded in 18th Century Eastern Europe by Rabbi Israel Baal Shem communities, where it is the first language learned in childhood, used in schools and in many social settings.
The general history and status of Yiddish are discussed below, with further detail provided in separate articles on:
- Yiddish dialects Yiddish dialects are subsets of the major regional branches of the Yiddish language: Western Yiddish and Eastern Yiddish. Eastern Yiddish, the branch almost exclusively encountered in the contemporary speech community, includes three major dialects: Northeastern or Litvish , Central or Poylish (spoken in Poland, Galicia, areas of the former Austro-—as spoken in different regions of Europe
- Yiddish morphology The morphology of the Yiddish language bears many similarities to that of German, with some influence from Slavic languages and Hebrew—the structural detail of the language
- Yiddish orthography The Yiddish language is written using Hebrew script as the basis of a full vocalic alphabet. This adaptation uses letters that are silent or glottal stops in Hebrew, as vowels in Yiddish. Other letters that can serve as both vowels and consonants are either read as appropriate to the context in which they appear, or are differentiated by—the written representation of the language
- Yiddish phonology There is significant phonological variation among the various dialects of the Yiddish language. 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. Its genesis is described in the article on Yiddish dialects—the elements of the spoken language
Yiddish is also used in the adjectival sense to designate attributes of Ashkenazic culture (for example, Yiddish cooking Jewish Cuisine is the collection of cooking traditions of the Jewish people. It is a diverse cuisine that has evolved over many centuries, shaped by Jewish dietary laws and Jewish Festival and Sabbath traditions. Jewish cooking has also been influenced by the economics, agriculture, and culinary traditions of the many countries where Jewish and Yiddish music Klezmer is a musical tradition of the Ashkenazic Jews of Eastern Europe. Played by professional musicians called klezmorim, the genre consists largely of dance tunes and instrumental display pieces for weddings and other celebrations. Although the genre has its origins in Eastern Europe, the particular form now known as klezmer developed in the).[4]
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History
The Ashkenazi culture that took root in 10th century Central Europe Central Europe is the region lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe. The term and widespread interest in the region itself came back into fashion after the end of the Cold War, which, along with the Iron Curtain, had divided Europe politically into East and West, splitting Central Europe in half derived its name from Ashkenaz In the Bible, Ashkenaz is Gomer's first son, brother of Riphath and Togarmah , thereby a Japhetic descendant of Noah. A kingdom of Ashkenaz is called together with Ararat and Minni against Babylon (Jer. 51:27) (Genesis The Book of Genesis is the first book of the Hebrew Bible, and the first of five books of the Torah, called the Pentateuch in the Christian Old Testament 10:3), the medieval Hebrew name Hebrew names are names that have a Hebrew language origin, classically from the Hebrew Bible. They are mostly used by people living in Jewish or Christian parts of the world, but some are also adapted to the Islamic world, particularly if a Hebrew name is mentioned in the Qur'an. When Hebrew-speaking Muslims give names, they don't use specifically for the territory centered on what is now Germany A region named Germania, inhabited by several Germanic peoples, has been known and documented before AD 100. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire, which lasted until 1806. During the 16th century, northern Germany became the centre of the Protestant Reformation. As a modern nation-state,. Its geographic extent did not coincide with the German Christian A Christian (pronounced /ˈkrɪstʃən/ ) is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who Christians believe is the Messiah (the Christ in Greek-derived terminology) prophesied in the Hebrew Bible, and the son of God. Most Christians believe in the doctrine of principalities; Ashkenaz included northern France France is a founding member state of the European Union and is the largest one by area. France has been a major power for several centuries with strong cultural, economic, military and political influence in Europe and in the world. During the 17th and 18th centuries, France colonised great parts of North America; during the 19th and early 20th. It also bordered on the area inhabited by the Sephardim 1st row: Maimonides • Isaac Abrabanel • Baruch Spinoza • David Nieto • Daniel Mendoza • David Ricardo , or Spanish Spain (pronounced /ˈspeɪn/ spayn; Spanish: España, pronounced [esˈpaɲa] ( listen)), officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.[note 6] Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for Jews, which ranged into Southern France Southern France , colloquially known as le Midi is a loosely defined geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Gironde, Spain, the Mediterranean, Italy, and Switzerland south of the Jura Mountains. Le Midi includes. Ashkenazi culture later spread into Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a region lying in the Eastern part of Europe. The term is highly context-dependent and even volatile, as there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region". A related UN paper adds that "every assessment of spatial identities is essentially a social and cultural construct&.
The first language of European Jews may have been Aramaic Aramaic is a Semitic language belonging to the Afroasiatic language family. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic subfamily, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic group of languages, which also includes Canaanite languages such as Hebrew and Phoenician. Aramaic script was widely adopted for other languages and is,[5] the vernacular of the Jews in Roman-era Palestine Palestine (Greek: Παλαιστίνη, Palaistinē; Latin: Palaestina; the Hebrew name Peleshet ; also פלשׂתינה, Palestina; Arabic: فلسطينFilasṭīn, Falasṭīn, Filisṭīn) is a conventional name used, among others, to describe a geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands and ancient and early medieval Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris-Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, as well as some parts of northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and southwestern Iran. 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 Rome (English pronunciation: /ˈroʊm/; Italian: Roma listen , pronounced [ˈroːma]; Latin: Rōma) is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality (central area), with over 2.7 million residents in 1,285.3 km2 (496.3 sq mi). While the population of the urban area was estimated by Eurostat to have been 3.46 and Southern Italy Southern Italy or the Mezzogiorno (Midday) generally refers to the southern portion of the continental Italian peninsula and Sicily, historically forming the Kingdom of Two Sicilies plus the island of Sardinia. It encompasses the modern regions of Basilicata, Campania, Calabria, Apulia and Molise, which lie in Italy's south, and Abruzzo which is appear to have been Greek Greek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical ancient Greek literature and the New Testament of-speakers, and this is reflected in some Ashkenazi personal names (e.g., Kalonymus). Much work needs to be done, though, to fully analyze the contributions of those languages to Yiddish.
Nothing is known about the vernacular A vernacular, mother tongue or mother language, and less frequently one sense of idiom and dialect, is the native language of a population located in a country or in a region defined on some other basis, such as a locality. For example, Navajo is a local language in the southwest of the United States, and English is the state language of a number of the earliest Jews in Germany, but several theories have been put forward. It is generally accepted that it was likely to have contained elements from other languages of the Near East The Near East is a geographical term that covers different countries for archeologists and historians, on the one hand, and for political scientists, economists, and journalists, on the other. The term originally applied to the Balkan states in Eastern Europe, but now generally describes the countries of Western Asia between the Mediterranean Sea and Europe, absorbed through dispersion. Since many settlers came via France and Italy, it is also likely that the Romance-based Jewish languages of those regions were represented. Traces remain in the contemporary Yiddish vocabulary: for example, בענטשן (bentshn, to bless), from the Latin benedicere; and the personal name Anshl, cognate to Angel or Angelo.[citation needed] Western Yiddish includes additional words of Latin derivation (but still very few): for example, orn (to pray), cf. Latin "orare."
Members of the young Ashkenazi community would have encountered the myriad dialects from which standard German German (Deutsch, [ˈdɔʏtʃ] ) is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Globally, German is spoken by approximately 120 million native speakers and also by about 80 million non-native speakers was destined to emerge many centuries later. They would soon have been speaking their own versions of these German dialects, mixed with linguistic elements that they themselves brought into the region. These dialects would have adapted to the needs of the burgeoning Ashkenazi culture and may, as characterizes many such developments, have included the deliberate cultivation of linguistic differences to assert cultural autonomy. The Ashkenazi community also had its own geography, with a pattern of relationships among settlements that was somewhat independent of its non-Jewish neighbors. This led to the consolidation of Yiddish dialects, the borders of which did not coincide with the borders of German dialects.
Apart from the obvious use of Hebrew words for specifically Jewish artifacts, it is very difficult to determine the extent to which the Yiddish spoken in any earlier period differed from the contemporary German. There is a rough consensus that by the 15th century Yiddish would have sounded distinctive to the average German ear, even when restricted to the Germanic component of its vocabulary.
Written evidence
The oldest surviving literary document in Yiddish is a blessing in the Worms Mahzor,[6] a Hebrew prayer book from 1272 (described extensively in Frakes, 2004 and Baumgarten/Frakes, 2005):
| Yiddish | גוּט טַק אִים בְּטַגְֿא שְ וַיר דִּיש מַחֲזֹור אִין בֵּיתֿ הַכְּנֶסֶתֿ טְרַגְֿא |
| Transliterated | gut tak im betage se vaer dis makhazor in beis hakneses trage |
| Translated into German | Möge er einen guten Tag haben, der dieses Gebetbuch in die Synagoge trägt. |
| Translated | May a good day come to him who carries this prayer book into the synagogue. |
This brief rhyme is decoratively embedded in a purely Hebrew text, a reproduction of which is in Katz, 2004. Nonetheless, it indicates that the Yiddish of that day was a more or less regular Middle High German into which Hebrew words – makhazor The mahzor is the prayer book used by Jews on the High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Many Jews also make use of specialized mahzorim on the three "pilgrimage festivals" of Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot. The prayer book is a specialized form of the siddur, which is generally intended for use in weekday and Shabbat services (prayer book for the High Holy Days) and beis hakneses (synagogue) – had been included. The pointing 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 also macaronic 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, which survives in the famous Cambridge Codex T.-S.10.K.22. This 14th-century manuscript was discovered in the geniza of a Cairo synagogue in 1896, and also contains a collection of narrative poems on themes from the Hebrew Bible and the Haggadah.
Printing
The advent of the printing press resulted in an increase in the amount of material produced and surviving from the 16th century and onwards. One particularly popular work was Elia Levita's Bovo-Bukh, composed around 1507–08 and printed in at least forty editions, beginning in 1541. Levita, the earliest named Yiddish author, may also have written Pariz un Viene (Paris and Vienna). Another Yiddish retelling of a chivalric romance, 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 Gravenberg. Another significant writer is Avroham ben Schemuel Pikartei, who published a paraphrase on the Book of Job 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 and the Tkhines. One of the best-known early woman authors was Glückel of Hameln, whose memoirs are still in print.
A page from the Shemot Devarim (literally Names of Things), a Yiddish-Hebrew-Latin-German dictionary and thesaurus, published by Elia Levita in 1542The 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 typefaces were used for each. The name commonly given to the semicursive form used exclusively for Yiddish was ווײַבערטײַטש (vaybertaytsh = "women's taytsh," shown in the heading and fourth column in the adjacent illustration), 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 מעשייט mesheyt or מאַשקעט mashket — the construction is uncertain).[7]
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, 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 Sefardi counterpart to Yiddish, Ladino, is printed in Hebrew script.)
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Sun, 22 Aug 2010 08:35:06 GMT+00:00
New York Daily News Then imagine how jarringly unfunny the results would be if you swapped the monologues so that Chapelle was telling Yiddish jokes or Jackie Mason was doing ...
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Advanced cources are intended for students with interst in Yiddish teaching scholarship and journalism as well as for for those interested in
(James O'Fee)
hu, 18 Mar 2010 15:56:21 GM
I well remember my mother writing letters to her mother, my grandmother who lived in London at the time in the . Yiddish language. . Hebrew script was always used. Jaffa oranges. To confuse matters there are no vowels but the pronunciation ...
Q. There are around 6 million Jewish people, who practice their religion, in the United States. There are more than 10 million Jewish people, who don't practice but consider themselves as Jewish. By the year of 2015 Jewish people will be the biggest minority group in the United States. And, considering very good relationships between Israel and the United States, we could propagate our language and culture further.
Asked by Akim K - Thu May 10 16:18:10 2007 - - 2 Answers - 0 Comments
A. A national language of what? The U.S.already has a national language in a practical sense-- English. Hebrew is the national language of Israel. Yiddish is one of those languages that would probably disappear, if it weren't kept alive by Jews who are ultra-orthodox and Hasidic. Btw, where did you get your data about Jews being the biggest minority group in the US by 2015? How about Blacks, Hispanics, East Asians? You should check your sources.
Answered by Stephen L - Thu May 10 16:29:16 2007
