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Yiddish (ייִדיש , יידיש or אידיש , yidish or idish, pronounced [ˈ(j)ɪdɪʃ], lit. ' Jewish '; ייִדיש-טײַטש , historically also Yidish-Taytsh, lit. ' Judeo-German ') is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews.
- ≤600,000 (2021)
- Central, Eastern, and Western Europe
The 22 Best Yiddish Words to Know. A brief glossary of important and commonly used Yiddish words and phrases. By My Jewish Learning
Yiddish is the language of the Ashkenazim, central and eastern European Jews and their descendants. Written in the Hebrew alphabet, it became one of the world’s most widespread languages, appearing in most countries with a Jewish population by the 19th century.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- baleboste. A good homemaker, a woman who’s in charge of her home and will make sure you remember it.
- bissel. Or bisl – a little bit.
- bubbe. Or bobe. It means Grandmother, and bobeshi is the more affectionate form. Bubele is a similarly affectionate word, though it isn’t in Yiddish dictionaries.
- bupkes. Not a word for polite company. Bubkes or bobkes may be related to the Polish word for “beans”, but it really means “goat droppings” or “horse droppings.”
- What Is Yiddish?
- The Origin of Yiddish
- Early Yiddish
- Early Modern Yiddish
- Modern Yiddish
- Yiddish in The 20th Century
- Post-Holocaust Yiddish
Literally speaking, Yiddish means “Jewish.” Linguistically, it refers to the language spoken by AshkenaziJews — Jews from Central and Eastern Europe, and their descendants. Though its basic vocabulary and grammar are derived from medieval West German, Yiddish integrates many languages including German, Hebrew, Aramaic and various Slavic and Romance...
It is impossible to pin down exactly where or when Yiddish emerged, but the most widely-accepted theory is that the language came into formation in the 10th century, when Jews from France and Italy began to migrate to the German Rhine Valley. There, they combined the languages they brought with them, together with their new neighbors’ Germanic, pro...
In Ashkenazi societies, Hebrew was the language of the Bible and prayer, Aramaic was the language of learning and Yiddish was the language of everyday life. Scholars refer to this as the internal trilingualism of Ashkenaz. Though they vary in sound and use, all three languages are written in the same alphabet. The first record of a printed Yiddish ...
Yiddish publishing became widespread in the 1540s, nearly a century after the invention of the printing press. To ensure the broadest possible readership, books were published in a generic, accessible Yiddish, without the characteristics of any particular Yiddish dialect. In the 1590s, the Tsene-rene (also called Tzenah Urenah) was published for th...
The late 19th century saw the birth of modern Yiddish literature. The “grandfather” of this new literary movement was Sholem Yankev Abramovitsh, known by his pen name Mendele Mokher Seforim (Mendele the Bookseller). I. L. Peretz, a Polish writer, poet, essayist, and dramatist became known as the “father” and humorist Sholem Aleichem, born in Ukrain...
In 1908, the first international conference on Yiddish language (the Czernowitz conference) declared Yiddish to be “a national language of the Jewish people.” The purpose of the conference was to discuss all the issues facing the language at that time, including the need to establish Yiddish schools, to fund Yiddish cultural institutions and to est...
On the eve of World War II, there were roughly 13 million Yiddish speakers in the world. The Holocaust destroyed most of this population. In America after the war, immigrant parents were often hesitant to speak Yiddish with their children. Though there were a few networks of Yiddish schools in the post-war period, after-school programs and camps co...
- Mordecai Walfish
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.
