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 ...

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 ...

.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, 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 language and other Jewi ...

. 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 opposing ...

, 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; ...

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 Yiddish linguist and Hebrew palaeographer.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 opposing ...

and '' aliyah'' (immigration to Israel) further decreased the use of Yiddish among survivors after adapting to

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 land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...

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 st ...

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 joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-west, with Ma ...

) 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 sefa ...

, who ranged into southern France. 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

, 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 ...

. 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 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, 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

, 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

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 intellig ...

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

, 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 Yiddish linguist and Hebrew palaeographer. 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) 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 script, which is used as the basis of a full vocalic alphabet. Letters that are silent or represent glottal stops in the ...

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 ("Jewi ...

) 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"
'' 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 print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the ...

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 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

Page from Yiddish-Hebrew-Latin-German dictionary by Elijah Levita

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 thousands o ...

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 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

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 mome ...

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 populou ...

) 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

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 syllables. * The last two diphthongs may be realized as and , respectivel

In addition, the sonorants 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

may be understood by considering their common origins in the Proto-Yiddish sound system. Yiddish linguistic scholarship uses a system developed by

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 ''o₁₁'' 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

; 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

s and diphthongs. 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

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, ...

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 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

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 A₁ and A₂: ; .

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

, 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 ...

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

, 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

On the eve of

, 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; ...

, 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 List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

, in addition to the strictly monolingual stance of the

Zionist Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

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 A minority language is a language spoken by a minority of the population of a territory. Such people are termed linguistic minorities or language minorities. With a total number of 196 sovereign states recognized internationally (as of 2019) a ...

only in

Moldova Moldova ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Moldova ( ro, Republica Moldova), is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The unrecognised state of Transnistr ...

Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and H ...

, the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

, 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 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-Persian refers to both a group of Jewish dialects spoken by the Jews living in Iran and Judeo-Persian texts (written in Hebrew alphabet). As a collective term, Judeo-Persian refers to a number of Judeo-Iranian languages spoken by Jewish com ...

, Judeo-Spanish or

Judeo-French 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 al ...

. A widely cited summary of attitudes in the 1930s was published by

, 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 "A language is a dialect with an army and navy" is a quip about the arbitrariness of the distinction between a dialect and a language. It points out the influence that social and political conditions can have over a community's perception of the ...

").

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 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 Internationalism may refer to: * Cosmopolitanism, the view that all human ethnic groups belong to a single community based on a shared morality as opposed to communitarianism, patriotism and nationalism * International Style, a major architectur ...

) as the means of defining Jewish nationalism. In the 1920s and 1930s, , "

Battalion for the Defence of the Language The Battalion for the Defence of the Language (Hebrew: גדוד מגיני השפה, pronounced ''gdud meginey hasafa'') was a small but militant body established by Jewish students at the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium in Tel Aviv, Israel in the 1920s ...

", whose motto was " ", that is, "Hebrew .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 Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the H ...

. 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 immigrants from Arab countries arrived. In short order, these

Mizrahi Jews Mizrahi Jews ( he, יהודי המִזְרָח), also known as ''Mizrahim'' () or ''Mizrachi'' () and alternatively referred to as Oriental Jews or ''Edot HaMizrach'' (, ), are a grouping of Jewish communities comprising those who remained ...

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 Sephardic origin, spoke Judeo-Spanish, others various 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 The Knesset ( he, הַכְּנֶסֶת ; "gathering" or "assembly") is the unicameral legislature of Israel. As the supreme state body, the Knesset is sovereign and thus has complete control of the entirety of the Israeli government (with ...

passed a law founding the "National Authority for Yiddish Culture", with the aim of supporting and promoting contemporary Yiddish art and

literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...

, 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

, particularly the Hasidic Jews and the Lithuanian yeshiva world (see

Lithuanian Jews Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks () are Jews with roots in the territory of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania (covering present-day Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, the northeastern Suwałki and Białystok regions of Poland, as well as adjacent are ...

), 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 Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

. 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

(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 The New Economic Policy (NEP) () was an economic policy of the Soviet Union proposed by Vladimir Lenin in 1921 as a temporary expedient. Lenin characterized the NEP in 1922 as an economic system that would include "a free market and capitalism, ...

(NEP) in the 1920s, Yiddish was promoted as the language of the Jewish proletariat. At the same time,

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 The Byelorussian SSR emblem was used as the coat of arms of the Soviet Socialist Republic until the fall of the Soviet Union. The coat of arms is based on the coat of arms of the Soviet Union. Description The central feature of the emblem is t ...

included the motto ''

Workers of the world, unite! The political slogan "Workers of the world, unite!" is one of the rallying cries from '' The Communist Manifesto'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (german: Proletarier aller Länder, vereinigt Euch!, literally "Proletarians of all c ...

'' in Yiddish. Yiddish was also an official language in several agricultural districts of the

. The use of Yiddish as the primary spoken language by Jews was heavily encouraged by multiple Jewish political groups at the time. The 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. Emblem of the Byelorussian SSR (1927-1937)

Emblem of the Byelorussian SSR (1927-1937)

A public educational system entirely based on the Yiddish language was established and comprised kindergartens, schools, and higher educational institutions (technical schools,

rabfak Rabfak (from russian: рабфак, a syllabic abbreviation of рабочий факультет, ''rabochiy fakultet'', "workers' faculty") was a type of educational institution in the Soviet UnionBerthold Unfried''"Ich bekenne": Katholische Beic ...

s 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 Yoysef Burg ( Chernivtsi 1912–2009) and

Olexander Beyderman Olexander Abramovytsch Beyderman (Ukrainian language, Ukrainian , Scientific transliteration '; also: Bejderman ; * 1949 in Odessa) is a USSR, Soviet-Ukraine, Ukrainian writer of Jewish descent. He is a lecturer of Hebrew, Russian language, Russian ...

(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 Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

Russia

According to the 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 The Russian Far East (russian: Дальний Восток России, r=Dal'niy Vostok Rossii, p=ˈdalʲnʲɪj vɐˈstok rɐˈsʲiɪ) is a region in Northeast Asia. It is the easternmost part of Russia and the Asian continent; and is admin ...

, 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 ( ''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 ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

, 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 The Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR), or Ukrainian National Republic (UNR), was a country in Eastern Europe that existed between 1917 and 1920. It was declared following the February Revolution in Russia by the First Universal. In March 1 ...

(1917–1921).

Council of Europe

Several countries that ratified the 1992

European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) is a European treaty (CETS 148) adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages in Europe. However, th ...

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
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 (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 nd 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 .se, formerly branded as .SE, is the Internet country code top-level domain ( ccTLD) for Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is ...

. 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

Inviting Immigrants to Cleveland Poster (6279784636)

In the United States, at first most Jews were of 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'' – ''

'') 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'' – '' Algemeyner Journal''; ''algemeyner'' = general), a

Chabad Chabad, also known as Lubavitch, Habad and Chabad-Lubavitch (), is an Orthodox Jewish Hasidic dynasty. Chabad is one of the world's best-known Hasidic movements, particularly for its outreach activities. It is one of the largest Hasidic grou ...

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 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 Ellis Island is a federally owned island in New York Harbor, situated within the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, that was the busiest immigrant inspection and processing station in the United States. From 1892 to 1954, nearly 12 mil ...

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 New York City English, or Metropolitan New York English, is a regional dialect of American English spoken by many people in New York City and much of its surrounding metropolitan area. It is described by sociolinguist William Labov as the most ...

, often used by Jews and non-Jews alike, unaware of the linguistic origin of the phrases.

Yiddish words used in English Yiddish words used in the English language include both words that have been assimilated into Englishused by both Yiddish and English speakersand many that have not. An English sentence that uses either may be described by some as Yinglish (or H ...

were documented extensively by

Leo Rosten Leo Calvin Rosten (Yiddish: ; April 11, 1908 – February 19, 1997) was an American humorist in the fields of scriptwriting, storywriting, journalism, and Yiddish lexicography. Early life Rosten was born into a Yiddish-speaking family in Łód ...

in ''

The Joys of Yiddish ''The Joys of Yiddish'' is a book containing a lexicon of common words and phrases of Yinglish—i.e., words originating in the Yiddish language that had become known to speakers of American English due to the influence of American Ashkenazi J ...

''; see also the

list of English words of Yiddish origin This is a list of words that have entered the English language from the Yiddish language, many of them by way of American English. There are differing approaches to the romanization of Yiddish orthography (which uses the Hebrew alphabet); thus ...

. In 1975, the film '' Hester Street'', much of which is in Yiddish, was released. It was later chosen to be on the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception ...

for being considered a "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" film. In 1976, the Canadian-born American author

Saul Bellow Saul Bellow (born Solomon Bellows; 10 July 1915 – 5 April 2005) was a Canadian-born American writer. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only w ...

received the Nobel Prize in Literature. He was fluent in Yiddish, and translated several Yiddish poems and stories into English, including

Isaac Bashevis Singer Isaac Bashevis Singer ( yi, יצחק באַשעװיס זינגער; November 11, 1903 – July 24, 1991) was a Polish-born American Jewish writer who wrote and published first in Yiddish and later translated himself into English with the help ...

's "Gimpel the Fool". In 1978, Singer, a writer in the Yiddish language, who was born in

and lived in the United States, received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Legal scholars

Eugene Volokh Eugene Volokh (; born February 29, 1968 as Yevhen Volodymyrovych Volokh ( uk, Євге́н Володимирович Волох)) is an American legal scholar known for his scholarship in American constitutional law and libertarianism as well as ...

and

Alex Kozinski Alex Kozinski (; born July 23, 1950) is a Romanian-American jurist and lawyer who was a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 1985 to 2017. He was a prominent and influential judge, and many of his law clerks went on to ...

argue that Yiddish is "supplanting Latin as the spice in American legal argot".

Present U.S. speaker population

In the

2000 United States Census The United States census of 2000, conducted by the Census Bureau, determined the resident population of the United States on April 1, 2000, to be 281,421,906, an increase of 13.2 percent over the 248,709,873 people enumerated during the 1990 cen ...

, 178,945 people in the United States reported speaking Yiddish at home. Of these speakers, 113,515 lived in New York (63.43% of American Yiddish speakers); 18,220 in

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

(10.18%); 9,145 in

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

(5.11%); and 8,950 in

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

(5.00%). The remaining states with speaker populations larger than 1,000 are

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

(5,445),

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

(1,925),

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

(1,945),

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

(2,380),

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

(2,125),

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...

(3,510),

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capita ...

(1,710), and

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

(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 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, Borough Park, and Williamsburg neighborhoods of Brooklyn. In Kiryas Joel in

Orange County, New York Orange County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 401,310. The county seat is Goshen. This county was first created in 1683 and reorganized with its present boundaries in 1798. Orange ...

, 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 Stamford Hill is an area in Inner London, England, about 5.5 miles north-east of Charing Cross. The neighbourhood is a sub-district of Hackney, the major component of the London Borough of Hackney, and is known for its Hasidic community, the ...

district of North London, but there are sizable communities in northwest London,

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by popula ...

, 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'' 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 Whitechapel Road is a major arterial road in Whitechapel, Tower Hamlets, in the East End of London. It is named after a small chapel of ease dedicated to St Mary and connects Whitechapel High Street to the west with Mile End Road to the east. ...

, 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 Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

and Leeds. Bilingual Yiddish and English café the Pink Peacock opened in Glasgow in 2021.

Canada

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...

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 The Monument-National is a historic Canadian theatre located at 1182 Saint Laurent Boulevard in Montreal, Quebec. With a capacity of over 1,600 seats, the venue was erected between 1891 and 1894 and was originally the cultural centre of the Sai ...

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 The Segal Centre for Performing Arts, formerly the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts, is a theatre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located at 5170 chemin de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine, in the borough of Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâ ...

), inaugurated on September 24, 1967, where the established resident theater, the

Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre The Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre, a branch of the Segal Centre for Performing Arts, was founded in Montreal in 1958 by Dora Wasserman (June 1919– December 2003), a Ukrainian actress, playwright, and theatre director. The first play was ''T ...

, 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 Mordecai Richler (January 27, 1931 – July 3, 2001) was a Canadian writer. His best known works are '' The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz'' (1959) and '' Barney's Version'' (1997). His 1970 novel '' St. Urbain's Horseman'' and 1989 novel ...

and

Leonard Cohen Leonard Norman Cohen (September 21, 1934November 7, 2016) was a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet and novelist. His work explored religion, politics, isolation, depression, sexuality, loss, death, and romantic relationships. He was inducted in ...

, 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 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 ...

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,

Litvish ''Misnagdim'' (, "Opponents"; Sephardi pronunciation: ''Mitnagdim''; singular ''misnaged''/''mitnaged'') was a religious movement among the Jews of Eastern Europe which resisted the rise of Hasidism in the 18th and 19th centuries. The ''Misna ...

, or Yeshivish communities, such as

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

's Borough Park, Williamsburg, and Crown Heights, and in the communities of Monsey, Kiryas Joel, and

New Square New Square ( yi, שיכון סקווירא, Shikun Skvir) is an all-Hasidic village in the town of Ramapo, Rockland County, New York, United States. It is located north of Hillcrest, east of Viola, south of New Hempstead, and west of New Cit ...

in New York (over 88% of the population of Kiryas Joel is reported to speak Yiddish at home.) Also in

, Yiddish is widely spoken mostly in Lakewood Township, but also in smaller towns with

s, such as

Passaic Passaic ( or ) is a city in Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city had a total population of 70,537, ranking as the 16th largest municipality in New Jersey and an increase of 656 from the 69,7 ...

Teaneck Teaneck () is a township in Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is a bedroom community in the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2010 U.S. census, the township's population was 39,776, reflecting an increase of 516 (+1.3%) f ...

, and elsewhere. Yiddish is also widely spoken in the Jewish community in Antwerp, and in Haredi communities such as the ones in London,

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

, and

. 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 Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the H ...

, 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 Hasidim Satmar (Yiddish: סאַטמאַר, Hebrew: סאטמר) is a Hasidic group founded in 1905 by Grand Rebbe Joel Teitelbaum, in the city of Szatmárnémeti, Hungary (now Satu Mare in Romania). The group is an offshoot of the Sighet Hasidic dynasty ...

, 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 The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...

into Yiddish. This process is called (''taytshn'') – "translating". Many Ashkenazi yeshivas' highest level lectures in Talmud and

Halakha ''Halakha'' (; he, הֲלָכָה, ), also transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Jewish religious laws which is derived from the written and Oral Torah. Halakha is based on biblical commandm ...

are delivered in Yiddish by the rosh yeshivas as well as ethical talks of the

Musar movement The Musar movement (also Mussar movement) is a Jewish ethical, educational and cultural movement that developed in 19th century Lithuania, particularly among Orthodox Lithuanian Jews. The Hebrew term (), is adopted from the Book of Proverbs (1 ...

. Hasidic

rebbe A Rebbe ( yi, רבי, translit=rebe) or Admor ( he, אדמו״ר) is the spiritual leader in the Hasidic movement, and the personalities of its dynasties.Heilman, Samuel"The Rebbe and the Resurgence of Orthodox Judaism."''Religion and Spiritua ...

s 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 Jews who attend yeshivas speak English. This usage is distinctive enough that it has been dubbed "

Yeshivish Yeshivish (), also known as Yeshiva English, Yeshivisheh Shprach, or Yeshivisheh Reid, is a sociolect of English spoken by Yeshiva students and other Jews with a strong connection to the Orthodox Yeshiva world. "Yeshivish" may also refer to ...

". 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 Israel ben Eliezer (1698 – 22 May 1760), known as the Baal Shem Tov ( he, בעל שם טוב, ) or as the Besht, was a Jewish mystic and healer who is regarded as the founder of Hasidic Judaism. "Besht" is the acronym for Baal Shem Tov, which ...

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 ''God of Abraham'' (Yiddish: גאָט פֿון אַבֿרהם, pronounced ''Got fun Avrohom'', ''Got fin Avruhom'') is a Jewish prayer in Yiddish, recited by women and girls in many Jewish communities at the conclusion of the Sabbath, marking it ...

", 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 The Galicia Jewish Museum ( Polish: ''Żydowskie Muzeum Galicja'') is located in the historic Jewish district of Kazimierz in Kraków, Poland. It is a photo exhibition documenting the remnants of Jewish culture and life in Polish Galicia, whic ...

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

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 University ( lt, Vilniaus universitetas) is a public research university, oldest in the Baltic states and in Northern Europe outside the United Kingdom (or 6th overall following foundations of Oxford, Cambridge, St. Andrews, Glasgow and ...

(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 Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

teaches Yiddish as a second language to all its students. The school was founded in 1975 by the Bund movement in Australia, and still maintains daily Yiddish instruction today, and includes student theater and music in Yiddish.

Internet

Google Translate Google Translate is a multilingual neural machine translation service developed by Google to translate text, documents and websites from one language into another. It offers a website interface, a mobile app for Android and iOS, and an API ...

includes Yiddish as one of its languages, as does

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

. Hebrew alphabet keyboards are available and right-to-left writing recognised.

Google Search Google Search (also known simply as Google) is a search engine provided by Google. Handling more than 3.5 billion searches per day, it has a 92% share of the global search engine market. It is also the most-visited website in the world. The ...

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 The Yiddish Book Center (formerly the National Yiddish Book Center), located on the campus of Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States, is a cultural institution dedicated to the preservation of books in the Yiddish language, a ...

, 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 Raphael Finkel (born 1951) is an American computer scientist and a professor at the University of Kentucky. He compiled the first version of the Jargon File. He is the author of ''An Operating Systems Vade Mecum'',dictionary and spell checker. In late 2016,

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorol ...

, Inc. released its smartphones with keyboard access for the Yiddish language in its foreign language option. On 5 April 2021,

Duolingo Duolingo ( ) is an American educational technology company which produces learning apps and provides language certification. On its main app, users can practice vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and listening skills using spaced repetition. D ...

added Yiddish to its courses.

Influence on other languages

As this article has explained, Yiddish has influenced

and New York English, especially as spoken by

yeshivah 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 stud ...

students (sometimes known as

). It has also influenced

Cockney Cockney is an accent and dialect of English, mainly spoken in London and its environs, particularly by working-class and lower middle-class Londoners. The term "Cockney" has traditionally been used to describe a person from the East End, or ...

in England. French

argot A cant is the jargon or language of a group, often employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group.McArthur, T. (ed.) ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (1992) Oxford University Press It may also be called a cryptolect, argo ...

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 In linguistics, relexification is a mechanism of language change by which one language changes much or all of its lexicon, including basic vocabulary, with the lexicon of another language, without drastically changing the relexified language's gra ...

of Yiddish, a native language of its

founder Founder or Founders may refer to: Places *Founders Park, a stadium in South Carolina, formerly known as Carolina Stadium * Founders Park, a waterside park in Islamorada, Florida Arts, entertainment, and media * Founders (''Star Trek''), the ali ...

. 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.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * *

* * * * * * * *

* * * * * Shternshis, Anna (2006). ''Soviet and Kosher: Jewish Popular Culture in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939.'' Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. * * * * *

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 A stable is a building in which livestock, especially horses, are kept. It most commonly means a building that is divided into separate Stall (livestock), stalls for individual animals and livestock. There are many different types of stables ...

. EVOLAEMP Project,

University of Tübingen The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (german: Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen; la, Universitas Eberhardina Carolina), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-W� ...

.
In Geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yiddish Language Ashkenazi Jews topics Jewish languages Jews and Judaism in Germany German dialects High German languages Languages of Israel Languages of Poland Languages of Russia Languages of Ukraine Languages of Georgia (country) Diaspora languages Subject–verb–object languages Verb-second languages Endangered diaspora languages Languages of Germany