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.

Yiddish and other languages

Yiddish eventually split into Western (German) Yiddish and Eastern Yiddish. The latter in turn split into North-Eastern (Litvish) Yiddish, Central/Mid-Eastern (Polish/Galician) Yiddish, and South-Eastern (Ukrainian, Romanian) Yiddish. The Eastern Yiddish dialects and Modern Yiddish contain a great many words derived from Slavic languages.

Related Topics:
German - Litvish - Polish - Galician - Ukrainian - Romanian - Slavic languages

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Like Judæo-Arabic and pre-19th century Ladino (Judæo-Spanish), Yiddish is written using an adaptation of the Hebrew alphabet. However, Yiddish itself is not linguistically related to Hebrew, even though it absorbed thousands of Hebrew and Aramaic terms taken from the Tanakh, Mishna, Talmud, and Jewish tradition.

Related Topics:
Judæo-Arabic - Ladino - Hebrew alphabet - Tanakh - Mishna - Talmud

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Curiously, Yiddish uses Latin derivatives for many of its words relating to religious rituals, apparently borrowing the terminology from Old French as spoken in Alsace. The presumed path of entry into Yiddish is that the famous rabbi Rashi (1040-1105), and his descendants and disciples the Tosafists, used hundreds of Old French words in their rabbinical writings. Study of Rashi's commentary on the Pentateuch and the Talmud was widespread among medieval Jews; Rashi has also been used by modern scholars as a reliable source for thousands of Old French words. As an example, 'say grace after meals' is, in Yiddish, bentshn (בענטשן), which is cognate with the same term that gave English the word benediction; and Western-Europe dialects of Yiddish use the word orn, derived from Latin orare, to mean 'pray'; and some scholars believe that davnen (דאַװנען), the Eastern European Yiddish word for pray, has a Romance language origin. Other Yiddish words with Romance backgrounds include leyenen (לײענען) 'to read' and tsholnt (טשאָלנט) 'a Sabbath stew' (spelled cholent in English). Many of the Old French words incorporated into Yiddish happen also to have been similarly used by the Catholic Church.

Related Topics:
Latin - Old French - Alsace - Rabbi - Rashi - 1040 - 1105 - Tosafists - Pentateuch - Talmud - Romance language - Sabbath - Cholent - Catholic Church

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In the native Germanic vocabulary of Yiddish, the differences between standard German and Yiddish pronunciations are mainly in the vowels and diphthongs. One example is that standard German long a, as in Vater 'father', corresponds to o in Yiddish (foter); standard German long e and long o are diphthongized in Yiddish to oy and ey. Like many German dialects, Yiddish lacks the standard German front rounded umlaut vowels ö and ü; they are replaced in Yiddish by e and i respectively. Diphthongs have also undergone divergent developments in standard German and Yiddish. Where standard German has merged the Middle High German diphthong ei and long vowel î to ei (pronounced ), Yiddish has maintained the distinction between them as ey and ay respectively. Standard German au (as in kaufen 'buy') corresponds to Yiddish oy (as in koyfn); lastly, the German eu (pronounced , as in deutsch 'German') corresponds to ay in Yiddish (as in daytsh).

Related Topics:
Vowel - Diphthong - Front - Rounded - Umlaut - Middle High German

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Consonantal differences between standard German and Yiddish include the smoothing of the standard German affricate pf to plain f in Yiddish, and the fact that Yiddish (but not standard German) allows word-final voiced obstruents.

Related Topics:
Affricate - Voiced - Obstruent

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