Yiddish language

Yiddish (Yid. ייִדיש, yidiš) is a Germanic language spoken by about three million people throughout the world, predominantly Ashkenazic Jews. The name Yiddish itself is Yiddish for "Jewish" (compare German jüdisch) and is likely an abbreviated rendition of yidish-taytsh (ייִדיש־טײַטש), or "Jewish German". In its earliest historical phase (13th-14th centuries), Yiddish is referred to by linguists as Judeo-German; occasionally this term is used for later forms of the language as well.

Typography

Yiddish is normally printed using a Hebrew square typeface. Prior to the early 19th century, however, it was more common to use an Ashkenazi semicursive typeface, colloquially named Vayber-taytsh, and also referred to as Masheyt (both terms having several variant forms). This is related to, but not the same as the Sephardi semicursive typeface known as Rashi. That term is sometimes used as a generic designation for what are also termed Rabbinic typefaces, but distinctions are made among at least five separate semicursive Hebrew scripts. http://sites.huji.ac.il/slais/ciglatzer2.htm,

Related Topics:
Sephardi - Rashi

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http://bc.ub.leidenuniv.nl/bc/tentoonstelling/Judaica/object2.htm (Adding to the confusion, the term Masheyt is also used both as an umbrella designation for them all, and as a specific synonym for Rashi.) The Sephardi variant bears the same relationship to Ladino as the Ashkenazi variant does to Yiddish, but remains in present-day use. The two are commonly termed Rashi and Masheyt, respectively, with no similarly abbreviated designations applied to the other semicursive forms. Regardless of any overlap in the descriptive terminologies applied to Yiddish typography, the commonplace earlier distinction between Hebrew and Yiddish typefaces in the presentation of Yiddish text was a significant attribute, not just of typographic practice, but of the language itself. This has been lost without counterpart in present-day usage and may deserve renewed attention. http://www.degruyter.de/journals/ijsl/2001/pdf/150_027.pdf

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Handwritten Yiddish is fully cursive (using a script that was also adopted for contemporary Hebrew) and Ashkenazi cursive typefaces are encountered both in print and as fonts for computerized text processing. Since Rashi is used in the presentation of certain Hebrew texts, fonts are available for it, also serving the purposes of the Ladino community. In principle, an Ashkenazi semicursive font could be made available for similar use in Yiddish, enabling the revival of a traditional aspect of the conceptualization and presentation of texts in that language.

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