I ask because of the recent NPR series on the Yiddish radio programs in NYC, in the 1930’s to the 1950’s. The series was quite interesting, and I found it sad that such a rich vein of literature and culture seems to be dying out. I understand that the State of Israel is somewhat cool to yiddish-it favors Hebrew, and that in Israel, the yiddish speakers are an old and declining minority.
What do American Jews feel about this? IANAJ, but I have read many of I.B. Singer’s marvelous short stories (in translation, of course), it would be too bad that such a productive tradition were to die off. Any finally, how close to German is Yiddish-can a german speaker understand it?:wally
Being a native German, I usually can understand most of a Yiddish dialogue (not that I’ve ever heard one live - just in films and read some), it actually seems to be darn close. AFAIK it developed out of German, with strong Hebrew influence; a surprisingly large number of German colloquialisms comes from Yiddish, too.
About the health status of Yiddish: My WAG would be it’s not totally dead, but almost. There are a few authors writing in it around, but only a small audience able and willing to read the stuff in Yiddish. It was the language of the Jews in Middle and Eastern Europe during the time when they had little contact with the non-Jewish population there, but the segregation is over now.
Well, and the fact that there aren’t many Jews left in Central and Eastern Europe. Most native Yiddish speakers were killed during WWII.
Well, I am from New York City, and believe me, Yiddish isn’t dead. It just assilimilated into the language.
Rob
To Wit:
“Oh veh, you should maybe take a ride to the Hamptons. You’ll hear so much yiddish you’ld plotz. Messhuga it is.”
Rob
There is a small but growing Yiddish speaking group in Montreal. They also speak English and French, but as I walk through their neighborhood, it is clear that it is what they speak to their children and each other. I think there are such neighborhoods in Brooklyn too. Of course they mix a lot of English with it. Every once in a while I see a panel truck with Hebrew lettering on that actually says Haemishe Kleeners. The first word is a little hard to translate. Literally homely or homelike, it is rather stronger than that.
According to Ethnologue:
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=Israel
it’s still got 215,000 speakers in Israel.
My grandparents speak it with varying degrees of fluency; it was my maternal grandmother’s native language. Now they mostly use it to tell secrets in front of their progeny. My mom can understand a bit more than I can; I mostly know swear words and a few pithy folk expressions. I don’t think even my grandparents can read it as written with Hebrew letters, since to them it was mostly a “kitchen” language. (The dialects they speak are also quite different from each other, as my grandmother’s family may or may not be from Austria and my grandfather’s family hails from what is now southwestern Ukraine.) They used to speak it around the house when my mom was a kid, but called it “Jewish,” not Yiddish, so that Mom was in Hebrew school for quite some time before she figured out she was learning a different language.
There used to be summer Yiddish immersion camps, but I don’t know whether they exist anymore. Does anyone know whether the Jewish Daily Forward is still publishing in Yiddish?
In sum, it’s not entirely dead, but is probably pretty moribund barring some kind of major miracle, as I think my family’s story is pretty typical of American Jews.
It’s not dead, but it’s certainly not growing.
Amongst non-Hasidic Orthodox Jews, Yiddish is not spoken regularly. A number of Yiddish words have become part of what’s called “Yeshivish” jargon, but that really means that the words are sprinkled into English conversation (or conversation in the native language of wherever that Jew lives…except in Montreal, that’s still English). And the non-Orthodox Yiddish speakers are pretty much limited to a few circles of nostalgists.
The Hasidim are really the only bunch who continue perpetuating the language, but they do it for the purpose of conversation…they don’t really lend it to drama, poetry or prose literature, and not all that much to song - most Orthodox Jewish produced music, including Hasidic, is excerpted from prayers, Biblical passages (both in Hebrew) or Talmudic passages (Aramaic). So even though it’s alive in Hasidic communities, it’s not expanding its reach in any significant way.
And, Eva Luna:
Yes - but it has a substantial English-language section as well.
I’ve never met an Israeli under the age of 60 who spoke Yiddish.
OTOH, I recently read some research which claimed that 48% of all modern Hebrew slang and colloquilisms are Yiddish-derived, so you can say that the language is not completely forgotten.
But Yiddish’s more of a dialect than a seperate language.
No, it actually is a language of its own right, with Yiddish grammar, vocabulary, and whatever. It sounds like a dialect of German, but it isn’t.
Actually, I’m afraid that those who claim that Yiddish is a dead language are just choosing to ignore the hundreds of thousands of Chassidim around the world who still grow up speaking Yiddish. Just because most of them do not write any new, non-religious literature in Yiddish doesn’t mean that it isn’t a living language, just as the thousands of completely unwritten languages around the world aren’t extinct either.
And yes, the Forwerts is still printed weekly – about 24 pages of freshly written, non-religious and still slightly socialist Yiddish.
Dos iz far vos ikh lerne yidish. Un ikh bin nit kayn yid, even! ;j
The Thill, I thought Forverts was entirely in English now. I know I can pick it up around here in DC somewhere; I’ve seen street boxes of them. Gonna have to start picking it up.
Yiddish is indeed a language in its own right, but it has its origins in medieval Germany when the Jews started immigrating there. It’s the same story with Ladino, the language of the Sephardic Jews of Spain. My YIVO textbook has a map of the various dialects of Yiddish with their names, but I don’t have it to hand, unfortunately.
I think it’s sad that cultural assimilation has caused the Yiddish tradition in America to dry up, but I think it’s in a similar situation to the languages of ancient Greece and Rome. As long as there are people around who are interested in learning the language, even if it’s just to read texts in the original, a language is never truly dead.
Just some clarifications on what others have written.
Not only is Yiddish “alive” among Chasidim as CMKeller wrote, and not only do they “grow up” speaking it as TheThill wrote, but among many Chasidic groups, they grow up speaking it as their first language.
Olentzero, there is indeed a fully-English edition of the Forward. But that is separate from the Yiddish edition which you may not have seen (and which has a few English pages in the back, I think).
Alessan, I am not doubting your experiences with Israelis. But I suspect that you simply did not meet any Chasidic ones. Or if you did, then perhaps you spoke in another language and did not realize that they also speak Yiddish.
I understand Yiddish, but have a hard time with German - I can figure out a lot of the words but couldn’t converse in it. But I’m told that Swiss-German is more similar to Yiddish than German-German.
It is not spreading to new groups of people. But as the number of Hassidic people increases, the number of native Yiddish speakers increases as well.
Actually, there’s quite a lot of Yiddish music out there, though you may have never encountered it.
How are people here defining “dead language”?
It seems that there are still Yiddish speakers (my father loves to find someone else who can speak it) so it hasn’t gone the way of Rapa Nui.
However, languages are dynamic. Are new words being added to Yiddish? Is there a term for computer or is the english word used? If the language is not evolving but there are still speakers, I would say that it isn’t dead but it isn’t in the greatest of health either.
I saw that radio show and found it fascinating too.
(the word of the day is Nu…it’s still stuck in my head!)
I have a question that I am sure someone here can answer for me easily.
forgive my complete ignorance.
Yiddish is the language.
Judaism is the Religion.
Then what exactly is Hebrew? Is that too, a language or…?
Hebrew is also a language. There are Biblical and modern versions. Yiddish is written in Hebrew letters, and has many Hebrew-derived words, but is structurally a Germanic language.
You might want to check out The Joys of Yiddish by Leo Rosten. My copy is totally dog-eared, and it’s a hardback.
Anecdote of inerest: During WWII, my father-in-law was in the American army invading Germany. Because he spoke Yiddish, he was the translator – that was as close as they could come to German. When the unit got to a farmhouse (for instance), he had to tell the family to get out, their home was being taken over by the American army.
He said the people were in fear that they would be raped and murdered by the invading American monsters who ate babies for breakfast. He had to try to convince them that they were not in danger.