Jewish English is a cover term for varieties of the

English language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...

spoken by

Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

. They may include significant amounts of

vocabulary A vocabulary (also known as a lexicon) is a set of words, typically the set in a language or the set known to an individual. The word ''vocabulary'' originated from the Latin , meaning "a word, name". It forms an essential component of languag ...

and

syntax In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituenc ...

taken from

Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...

, and both classical and

modern Hebrew Modern Hebrew (, or ), also known as Israeli Hebrew or simply Hebrew, is the Standard language, standard form of the Hebrew language spoken today. It is the only surviving Canaanite language, as well as one of the List of languages by first w ...

. These varieties can be classified into several types:

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 t ...

Yinglish Yiddish words used in the English language include both words that have been Language shift, assimilated into English language, Englishused by both Yiddish and English speakersand many that have not. An English sentence that uses either may be des ...

, and

Heblish Jewish English is a cover term for varieties of the English language spoken by Jews. They may include significant amounts of vocabulary and syntax taken from Yiddish, and both classical Hebrew, classical and modern Hebrew. These varieties can b ...

, 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 Jewish diaspora, diaspora. The original Jewish language is Hebrew, supplanted as the primary vernacular by Aramaic following the Babylonian capti ...

, 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 The English-speaking world comprises the 88 countries and territories in which English is an official, administrative, or cultural language. In the early 2000s, between one and two billion people spoke English, making it the largest language ...

contexts via Yiddish, and may be, therefore, simply regarded as Yiddish. (This problem is illustrated in 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 ...

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.

Hebrish

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

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

" 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. These alternations are generally intended to ...

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. After that the public came back to using the term "Hebrish".

References

External links

Jewish Languages - Jewish English

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

Variants

Hebrish

See also

References

Further reading

External links