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Jewish Theater and Dance. Yiddish Literature in the 20th Century. Yiddish. In its 1,000-plus-year history, the Yiddish language has been called many things, including the tender name mameloshen(mother tongue), the adversarial moniker zhargon (jargon) and the more matter-of-fact Judeo-German.
YIDDISH LANGUAGE, language used by Ashkenazi Jews for the past 1,000 years. Developed as an intricate fusion of several unpredictably modified stocks, the language was gradually molded to serve a wide range of communicative needs.
The most important differences between Yiddish and Hebrew are these: • Yiddish is a Germanic language, belonging to the Indo-European family of languages, while Hebrew is a Semitic language, belonging to the Afroasiatic family of languages.
Yiddish is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originates from 9th century Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with many elements taken from Hebrew and to some extent Aramaic.
Yiddish literature, the body of written works produced in the Yiddish language of Ashkenazic Jewry (central and eastern European Jews and their descendants). Yiddish literature culminated in the period from 1864 to 1939, inspired by modernization and then severely diminished by the Holocaust.
ייִדיש. Level: Basic. Yiddish was the language of Ashkenazic Jews, but not Sephardic Jews. Yiddish is based on German, Hebrew and other languages. Yiddish uses an alphabet based on Hebrew. There are standards for transliterating Yiddish. Yiddish was criticized as a barrier to assimilation. Yiddish developed rich literature, theater and music.
Yiddish is a thousand-year-old Germanic fusion language that was once spoken by most of the world’s Jews and spread to every continent. Although the number of Yiddish speakers has decreased dramatically following the disasters of the twentieth century, Yiddish is still the mother tongue of many Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish communities.
