Overview of the Yiddish Language

People who speak Yiddish can be found all over the world, particularly in Israel, Argentina, Canada, France, Mexico, Romania, and the United States. Many organizations devoted to preserving Yiddish have recently become active.

Yiddish developed from a blend of German dialects spoken by the Ashkenazi Jews in Germany. It eventually came to be spoken by Jews not only in Germany but also in many other central and eastern European countries. However, many Yiddish-speaking communities were devastated during the Holocaust, leading to the steep decline in the number of speakers and the spread of the Yiddish language to other countries as its remaining speakers scattered to new homes.

The Yiddish Alphabet and Yiddish Pronunciation

Since the 13th century, written Yiddish has used a variation of the Hebrew alphabet that has been adapted to the sounds of Yiddish. Some letters which are consonants in Hebrew are used as vowels in Yiddish. Other vowels are indicated by using diacritic marks with base characters that can serve as either vowels or consonants.

The Yiddish alphabet has 22 letters. Yiddish is written from right to left, the opposite of English. There are no capital and lowercase letters in Yiddish.

The Yiddish pronunciation of certain letters and words can vary noticeably from one dialect to the next.

Yiddish Vocabulary

Although Yiddish grammar is largely based on Medieval German, its vocabulary has come from many sources, including German, Hebrew, various Slavic languages and, recently, English. Many words of Yiddish origin have also entered English vocabulary, ranging from chutzpah and schmooze to kibitz and bagel.

Yiddish Grammar

Yiddish nouns are either masculine, feminine, or neuter. Nouns ending in -izm, -l, -n, -em, and -er are usually masculine. Nouns ending in -ut, -ay, and -kit are usually feminine. Nouns ending in -g and -tum are usually neuter. Although Yiddish nouns do not generally change form for different cases, Yiddish pronouns, Yiddish articles, and Yiddish adjectives do. Yiddish verbs are conjugated to show person and tense. The conjugation tends to be very regular, with few exceptions to the normal pattern of verb endings.

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