Language of the Month: Yiddish - יידיש

By Almond

Art by Marc Chagall

שלום עליכם!

Welcome to this month’s language feature! Our second language of the month is Yiddish. Lovingly referred to as the “mame loshn” (mother tongue) by Yiddish speakers, Yiddish is a West Germanic language spoken historically by Ashkenazi Jewish communities in Central and Eastern Europe. Today it is primarily spoken by their descendants in the United States, Israel, Canada, Russia, and in scattered areas across Europe. With just a few countries having Yiddish as a minority language and having had only one instance of any “official” status, Yiddish has been described by some as a nation of words.

But What Exactly is Yiddish?

Yiddish itself means “Jewish” and started as a dialect of High German with elements from Hebrew, Aramaic, and Romance Languages. The most widely accepted theory as to the beginnings of Yiddish is when 10th-century Jews migrated from France and Italy to the German Rhine Valley. Once there, they mixed the languages they knew and learned into an early version of Yiddish. It wasn’t until the Crusades and the Black Death that Yiddish became a distinct language rather than a dialect. Due to these events communities moved eastward, and thus disconnected Yiddish from the German of the time. As German changed and evolved so did Yiddish, picking up Slavic words and elements. Since communities grew and made contact with others over time, Yiddish became a widespread lingua franca of Europe’s Jews. From then on, the language grew more distinct and unique. Yiddish theatre, literature, and a general culture developed and flourished. After World War II, the number of speakers declined heavily due to the Holocaust and assimilation in other countries, however, efforts to revive the language have been present for many years up to today.

Yosl Cutler behind one of his theatre puppets. Photo by YIVO.

Did You Know?

• Yiddish uses the Hebrew alphabet because every Jew was familiar with it.

• For a brief period of time it gained official support from the early Soviet Union in the mid-1920s to early 1930s as long as it was strictly and only a cultural expression with no religious content. They even formed the Jewish Autonomous Oblast with Yiddish being its official language. Theater and literature flourished especially for a very brief time before the USSR began to censor and close down Yiddish institutions. Yiddish became “anti-soviet” and Stalin’s purges ensured the decline of the language in Russia even in the present.

• Yiddish newspapers, literature, theater, and movies are still made to this day. The language has been going under a renewal of interest and efforts towards revival.

• Yiddish has an estimated worldwide 500,000 to one million speakers today.

• Yiddish has several dialects and a more controversial “standardized” dialect many refer to as YIVO after the institute that spearheaded the effort.

Basic Phrases in Yiddish:

• Hello — שלום - Shalom

• Good morning — גוטן מאָרגן - Gutn morgn

• Good evening — אַ גוט אָוונט - A gut ovnt

• Where is the bathroom? — וווּ איז דער וואַשצימער - Vu iz der vashtsimer

• Thank you — אַ דאַנק - A dank

• I love you — איך האָב דיר ליב - Ikh hob dir lib

• Congratulations — מזל טוב - Mazel tov

• Goodbye — אַ גוטן טאָג - A gut tog

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About Almond

An undergraduate and a meshuggener, Almond hopes to major in Microbiology and minor in Yiddish studies. He studies Hebrew and Yiddish, and will never get over his crippling klezmer addiction.