Jewish English is a cover term for varieties of the

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to t ...

spoken by

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...

. They may include significant amounts of

vocabulary A vocabulary is a set of familiar words within a person's language. A vocabulary, usually developed with age, serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one of the la ...

and syntax taken from Yiddish, and both classical and

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 He ...

. These varieties can be classified into several types: Yeshivish, Yinglish, and Heblish, as well as more flexible mixtures of English and other

Jewish languages Jewish languages are the various languages and dialects that developed in Jewish communities in the diaspora. The original Jewish language is Hebrew, supplanted as the primary vernacular by Aramaic following the Babylonian exile. Jewish languag ...

, which may contain features and other elements from languages other than Yiddish and Hebrew. The classification "Jewish English" eliminates the need for concern with identifying the specific origin of the non-English components of any such variant. This offsets, for example, misperceptions that can result from failure to note the Hebrew origin of a word that may have become widely known in

Anglophone Speakers of English are also known as Anglophones, and the countries where English is natively spoken by the majority of the population are termed the '' Anglosphere''. Over two billion people speak English , making English the largest langua ...

contexts via Yiddish, and may be, therefore, simply regarded as Yiddish. (This problem is illustrated in the list of English words of Yiddish origin.)

Variants

Several terms for hybrid Jewish English are being used or have been suggested, such as Englibrew and Yeshivish (hybrid English used in ''yeshivas'', Jewish religious schools). A set of terms refer to hybrids or mixtures of English and Yiddish rather than with Hebrew, and code-switching may be for representation of religious or cultural affiliation in speech, rather than language transfer reasons. In the US these include: Yinglish, Yidgin English, Yidlish, Yiddiglish, Ameridish, Anglish, Heblish, Engdish, Engliddish, Engbrew, Englibrew, Jewish English, Jewish Dialect, Frumspeak, Yeshivish, Hebonics, Judeo-English.

Heblish

Heblish or Hebrish, less frequently Hebglish or Engbrew, all blends of the words "

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 ...

" and " English", refer to any combination of the two languages, or to

code-switching In linguistics, code-switching or language alternation occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation or situation. Code-switching is different from plurilingual ...

between the languages. The term ''Heblish'' was recorded earliest in 1979, with ''Hebrish'' (1989) and ''Hebglish'' (1993) appearing later. Other less common terms are ''Hinglish'' (recorded from 1982) and ''Henglish'' (1983).Lambert, James. 2018. A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity. ''English World-Wide'', 39(1): 25.

References

External links

Jewish Language Research WebsiteMuseum of the Jewish People
Code-switching Hebrew language Macaronic forms of English {{jewish-hist-stub

Variants

Heblish

See also

References

Further reading

External links