An ordinary Russian-speaking person, who is usually called a layman, knows that Jews in Israel speak Hebrew. Slightly more advanced people are quite capable of clarifying that there are two languages ​​in Israel. Those who are well-read and educated will even add: these languages ​​are called Yiddish and Hebrew. And this will indeed be a correct statement. But if you ask the question: Yiddish and Hebrew, what is the difference between these languages, few people will be able to answer right away. A !

Jewish bilingualism: how did it arise?

The ancient language of the Jewish people was Hebrew. It is safe to say that Hebrew is one of the oldest languages humanity. The Jews themselves claim that it is the oldest, citing this fact by the fact that the Old Testament is written in Hebrew - the oldest part of the Bible, common to Jews and Christians. And Hebrew, according to the Bible, was spoken by Adam himself, the first earthly man.

Official linguistic science does not agree with this position. However, as already stated, she does not dispute ancient origin Hebrew.

Hebrew belongs to the so-called Semitic language group. It most likely originated in the Middle East, sometime in the 15th century BC. This means that the language is at least 3,500 years old.

Yiddish, in comparison with Hebrew, is just a youngster. This language was born in Europe and, by coincidence, also in the 15th century, but already in our era! It is only about 500 years old.

Yiddish was invented by Ashkenazi Jews who lived in Central Europe during the Middle Ages. They took dialects as the basis for their new language East Germany. It is for this reason that Yiddish is very close to the German language. Approximately 70% of his vocabulary consists of words from Old Germanic dialects. Another 15% is allocated in Yiddish to words from Hebrew and... Slavic, especially Ukrainian and Belarusian.

At first glance, this is a little surprising, but everything becomes logical if you look at why Yiddish arose.

The thing is that already from the first centuries of our era, Jews lost their statehood and were practically forced out of their original places in the Middle East. A huge number of Jews ended up in Europe. By the 15th - 17th centuries they concentrated in the territory of present-day Germany, as well as in Eastern Europe(on lands inhabited mainly by Ukrainians and Belarusians). Jews were not allowed deep into the Russian Empire. It is not surprising that in their new language, Jews massively used the vocabulary of those peoples with whom they had become accustomed to living for generations.

But any language exists in oral and written form. Yiddish, being lexically weakly related to ancient Hebrew, nevertheless, completely borrowed its alphabet. To put it simply, Yiddish sounded like a European language (close to German), and its words were written in the same way as the ancient Jews in Hebrew.

Thus, by the beginning of the 20th century, most of the world's Jews turned out to be Europeans and spoke Yiddish. Hebrew remained a half-forgotten language for the elite. Religious Jewish texts were still written on it; only priests and a certain part of scientists knew it.

But in 1948, a new state arose in the Middle East - Israel. The question arose: what language should its inhabitants use? It should not be forgotten that by that time a huge number of European Jews had fallen victim to the Holocaust perpetrated by the German Nazis. It would be extremely strange to make Yiddish, a language incredibly close to German, the official language of the nascent Jewish state.

Therefore, the authorities turned to their old, half-forgotten Hebrew. As often happens, history has made another “castling”. Now Yiddish is a half-forgotten, little-used language in Israel, and the official one is the old, traditional Hebrew: it is currently spoken by the vast majority of Israelis.

So what are their differences?

Actually, we have almost answered this question. To summarize, we can highlight the main points:

1. Languages ​​differ significantly in their history and time of origin.
2. Now Hebrew is the official language of the state of Israel and is much more widespread than Yiddish, although for many centuries everything was just the opposite.
3. Hebrew is a Semitic language, and Yiddish belongs to the group of Germanic languages.
4. The Hebrew alphabet does not have letters representing vowel sounds. These sounds in writing are marked with special signs - vowels. In Yiddish there are no vowels, but there are, albeit in small numbers, letters denoting vowels.

That's how much interesting things you can learn by asking the question: Yiddish and Hebrew - what's the difference? And, it seems, the most interesting thing here is not even in questions of linguistics, but in how quickly and unpredictably fate can change: whether we are talking about a people or a language.

For an inexperienced person, Yiddish and Hebrew are interchangeable concepts. However, in fact, these are two Hebrew languages ​​that differ from each other in many ways, including age, origin, areas of use, etc.

Yiddish and Hebrew are two different languages, and a person who knows only Hebrew will not be able to talk to a person who knows only Yiddish.

Origin and written notes

Hebrew is one of the most ancient human languages, belonging to the Semitic group. There is no consensus regarding its origin. Some believe that this language separated from the northwestern part of the Semitic group, becoming independent in the 13th century. BC. Others attribute it to Shem, a descendant of Noah. If you trust sacred scriptures, then not only Shem spoke Hebrew, but also Noah and even the first man Adam. The language did not change until Abraham, the first Jew.

Of course, centuries-old history has left its mark on Hebrew. So, old testament period from the 15th to the 5th century BC. was written in the Hebrew form of that language. It is the main document for the study of the primordial nature of Hebrew. There are thousands of manuscripts, fragments in which you can trace how the spelling of letters changed. Written non-biblical memorials are few. This is the Gezer calendar of the 10th century. BC, clay shards of Samaritans from the 8th century. BC, from Lachish 6th century. BC, Siloam inscription from the time of Hezekiah. These historical documents allow you to learn about the semantic system, lexical borrowings from Arabic, Aramaic, Akkadian languages, grammatical structure, and the development of Hebrew.

Yiddish is a younger language compared to its brother. Its appearance in Central and Eastern Europe dates back to the 10th-14th centuries. The basic part of the language is the vocabulary of Middle High German dialects with extensive borrowings from Aramaic and Hebrew, Slavic, and later German. In other words, Yiddish is a peculiar mixture of Germanic, Semitic, and Slavic linguistic systems. Most of his words have German roots and are constructed according to grammatical rules German language. So initially Yiddish was perceived more as slang rather than independent language or dialect.

Naturally, due to its origin, it cannot boast of such ancient written sources as Hebrew.

Further development

Until a certain time, Hebrew was the only language everyday communication, was used for both written and spoken language. However, already in the 2nd century. AD it ceased to serve as an active colloquial dialect. The language began to be used exclusively for worship. However, it managed to survive thanks to the Masoretes - scribes of the Old Testament. And it's all about interesting feature of this Hebrew language: its written words consisted of only consonants. Vowels were inserted during reading.

When did Hebrew begin to leave Everyday life, and Jewish speech was rarely heard; new generations no longer knew the pronunciation of some words. And then the Masoretes came up with a system of vowels, that is, symbols of vowel sounds in writing. This allowed Hebrew to be preserved to this day. During the 18th centuries it was not used as a colloquial language, but remained as a language in which religious services were conducted and literary and journalistic works were written.

The revival of Hebrew is associated with the formation of Israel. Since 1948 it has been the official state language. Thanks to the movement, which supported the active introduction of Hebrew into all spheres of life, Hebrew, after being in a bookish state, began to sound again on the streets, in schools, shops, and institutions.

Yiddish was not as widespread as Hebrew. It was spoken only by Jews living in Europe. However, despite the fact that there were more than 11 million Yiddish speakers here, this language was officially recognized as a full-fledged language only at the beginning last century.

Due to the prevailing circumstances, Yiddish was supplanted by Hebrew. This is largely due to the extermination of a huge number of Jews who spoke Yiddish during the Second World War. In addition, it is Hebrew, and not Yiddish, that is the language of the Jews of the Promised Land.

Alphabet

The basis for the writing of these two languages, the alphabet of which consists of 22 letters and is called consonantal (after all, the letters represent only consonant sounds), was the Hebrew square letter. Modern writing was recorded in the 6th century. BC. after the Babylonian captivity.

Hebrew sometimes adds vowels to make reading easier, which are not found in Yiddish. This is one of the main differences when writing letters. In the Hebrew alphabet, the letters are arranged according to the European pattern - from left to right, and in Yiddish - from right to left.

Summing up

The differences between the two Jewish languages ​​can be distinguished by the following fundamental factors:

Hebrew is significantly older than Yiddish;

Hebrew belongs to the group of Semitic languages, Yiddish, in addition to Semitic roots, has Slavic and German roots;

Hebrew has vowels, Yiddish does not;

Hebrew has larger range distribution than Yiddish.

In general, these two Hebrew languages ​​have much in common. If we talk about purely everyday factors, then by and large they differ in the purposes of use. Previously, Hebrew was a book language, used for religious purposes, while Yiddish was used for everyday communication. Currently, the situation has changed dramatically.

There is a popular stereotype that Hebrew and Yiddish are the same thing, but what is the difference? Indeed, these languages ​​are spoken by one people - the Jews; their writing is based on the same set of letters (square letter). Then why is the opinion that these two concepts are interchangeable wrong? There are a number of reasons for this. After all, similar graphics and the same carrier are all the ways in which these languages ​​are similar to each other.

Hebrew is much older than Yiddish. It is believed that this is even one of ancient languages Earth. Hebrew belongs to the Semitic group of languages. There is no answer to the question of its exact origin. It is believed that Hebrew was part of a subgroup of Northwestern Semitic languages, but became isolated many centuries ago. However, judging by the written monuments that have survived to this day, all these languages ​​are integral and completely separate.

So to say that they were once united would not be entirely correct (by the way, there is a hypothesis that the root of the word “Semitic” came from the name of Noah’s son, Shem). If you believe the legend about Tower of Babel, then God became angry and punished the people by confusing languages. However, Shem and his descendants were obedient to God, which means they did not suffer punishment. From this we can conclude that these people spoke an ancient form of the Hebrew language.

But Yiddish does not have such an impressive history. As mentioned above, he is younger than his relative. Its roots go back to Europe, it arose in the 20th-19th centuries based on High German dialects. Consequently, many words are words with German roots, and sentences are constructed according to a model similar to the Germanic one. However, the phonetics of these languages ​​are different, although Yiddish from the outside may be perceived as a certain dialect of German. Yiddish is a kind of fusion of languages ​​(after all, it also borrowed a lot from Hebrew, Aramaic, and Slavic dialects), so its grammar and vocabulary are very interesting to study.

Linguistic characteristics

As mentioned above, the graphic component of Hebrew and Yiddish is the Hebrew square letter (the letters are square). And each sign corresponds to a specific sound. Their alphabet is the same - consonantal, with only 22 letters. In both languages, letters are lowercase and written from right to left. But there are some nuances here too.

Hebrew sometimes uses vowels (vowel sounds) to indicate soft sounds. This makes it easier to read. They consist of dots and strokes that are written around the letter. Vowels cannot be found everywhere; most often they are found in religious texts and dictionaries, in children's literature and songs. There are no such vowels in Yiddish.

Hebrew alphabet

As for grammar, Hebrew is a clearly structured language whose words are modified strictly according to rules. There are almost no exceptions here. It is not similar to Hebrew because it changed through interaction with Yiddish and other languages. The structure of Yiddish is not like that at all. It practically consists of exceptions. Here, just knowing the rules is not enough. Word formation depends on the root of the word, so you need to have a good knowledge of the vocabulary and phonetics of the language in order to understand the context.
As mentioned earlier, Yiddish absorbed some things from other languages. Thanks to this, Yiddish has a unique grammar where Hebrew writing is combined with German word roots and syntax Slavic languages.

Development of Hebrew

Until the 2nd century. AD Hebrew was in common use. It was used both orally and writing. But later it begins to be used only for worship. A large number of Jews lived in Europe due to the fact that they were forced out of their native lands. Obviously, the language of the Jews was undergoing changes at this time, and German, Belarusian and other languages ​​began to influence it.

Hebrew is gradually being forgotten as the language of the Jews begins to become Europeanized. Of course, he does not go away completely: clergy and some scientists remember him. But people already speak another language - Yiddish. True, Yiddish is never recognized as a separate language; it is considered non-literary, a type of German dialect. It was declared a full-fledged language only in the 20th century, although by that time almost 11 million people already spoke it.

Hebrew will be resurrected in 1948. This date is one of the most important for Jews. This year the State of Israel is being reborn. And when the question of an official language arises, Yiddish is abandoned, since it is close to German (after all, only three years ago the Germans persecuted and exterminated the people of Jewish nationality). Now the idea of ​​​​introducing forgotten Hebrew into all spheres of state life is supported. Oddly enough, Hebrew is returning - it is beginning to be used in colloquial speech. A language that had been dead for centuries is now spoken by 8 million people - the entire Jewish population of Israel.

Development of Yiddish

As for Yiddish, it is no longer used in everyday speech. The number of its carriers is slightly more than 200 thousand. These are either elderly or people who are connected to ancient sacred communities. The second reason why Hebrew began to be used more is that during the war many Jews who spoke Yiddish died.

Jews have several sayings about language:

“Whoever does not know Hebrew is not educated; whoever does not know Yiddish is not a Jew.”

“God speaks Yiddish on weekdays, and Hebrew on Saturday.”

“They learn Hebrew, but they know Yiddish.”

It is worth noting that these sayings were invented almost a century ago, when Hebrew was considered sacred and inaccessible, the language of the Torah and religious literature, and Hebrew was considered colloquial. Now everything is quite the opposite. So another, no less important difference between Yiddish and Hebrew is the purpose of use.

How does Yiddish differ from Hebrew? The main differences between these languages:

1. Age. Yiddish is much younger than Hebrew.
2. Yiddish is a Germanic language group, Hebrew is a Semitic group.
3. Today Hebrew is more common than Yiddish.
4. The Hebrew alphabet contains vowels that represent vowel sounds.
5. Different morphology, grammar and phonetics.
6. Purpose of use.

Influence of Yiddish and Hebrew on other languages

Thanks to Yiddish, Slavic languages ​​contain many words of Germanic origin, and even some words from ancient Hebrew. This happened in the first centuries of our era, when native speakers interacted closely. Also, many words in Hebrew are entrenched in the everyday speech of residents of Germany, Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania.

Yiddish and Hebrew connection with criminal jargon

An interesting fact is that part of the Russian thieves' jargon and many rude expressions are words from Yiddish and Hebrew. “Thief Fenya” is a vocabulary that is used in underworld. The word “fenya” means “way” (“botat po fenya” = “to express oneself in a way unfamiliar to others”), the root is taken from “ofeni” (the language of poor Jewish traders of the 19th century, who were a bit like criminals). This Jewish thieves' jargon originates in Odessa - the former capital of Jewish crime.

How did Fenya get to Russia? It turns out that when Russian Empire, Jews lived in the country and formed criminal groups. Then Fenya gained popularity. After all, the police could not understand the Jews, since they were not accepted to serve in the tsarist police. So, these words ended up in Russian criminal jargon.

Jewish words in Russian, Yiddish and Hebrew included in criminal jargon

• Blatnoy - Die Blatte (German Yiddish) - sheet, piece of paper, note. In the criminal environment, “blatnoy” is someone who is related to the criminal world.
• Botat - בטא (bote) to express. ביטוי (beat) expression.
• Fraer - (Yiddish, German Frej - freedom) - free, free. The one who is not in prison. For thieves, “frayers” are not their own, since they do not belong to the criminal environment. A friar is a simpleton, someone who can be deceived.
• Marviher is a highly skilled thief. מרויחר marviher (Yiddish) – one who earns money. From Hebrew מרויח marviah - to earn money.
• Keif - Hebrew, Arabic. - key with the same meaning. From the same root in Arabic"coffee". In general, Hebrew and Arabic are two Semitic languages ​​that have many common roots.
• Ksiva (from Hebrew כתיבה kt(s)iva - document, something written) - document.
• Malina (from Hebrew מלון malon - hotel, shelter, place to spend the night) is a place where criminals gather.
• Hana (from Hebrew חנה khana - to make a stop along the way, a halt) - the end. This root is very common in Hebrew. Hence Taganka (תחנה takhana - station) - a place of rest. This was the name of the prison for prisoners who were there before being sent to Siberia.
• Shmon (from Hebrew שמונה shmona - eight) - search, shmonat - to search. IN Russian prison the cells were searched at 8 pm when the prisoners were having dinner.
• Khipesh (from Hebrew חיפוש hipus - search, search) - search. Hypocrite is a thief.
• Freebie (from Hebrew חלב halav - milk) - free. In the 19th century, the Jews of Russia collected a certain דמי חלב “dmei halav” - “money for milk” for the Jews of Palestine.
  “Poor Jews are given free challah - krinks with milk and challah, so that they have something to celebrate the Sabbath.” (Akunin)
• Garbage (from Hebrew מוסר moser - traitor, informer) - policeman.
• Shara, on the ball - free. Hebrew (שאר, שארים: shear, shearim) - remnants. What is not suitable for sale is left to the poor and needy. According to Jewish tradition, it is necessary to leave an unharvested strip of שאר - shear - remnant on the field so that the poor can collect ears of grain. This is what the Gospel parable tells about: Jesus and his disciples gathered unharvested ears of corn on the Sabbath, and this caused discontent among the Pharisees.
• To steal (from Hebrew סתר siter - to do in secret) - to steal.
• Sidor - order (Hebrew) - a bag with a prisoner’s belongings. It was supposed to contain only certain items. For their absence or the presence of foreign objects, the prisoner suffered punishment.
  The Hebrew "seder" became "sidor".
• Bashli, bashlyat (from Hebrew בישל bishel - to cook) - to make a profit from a scam.
• Atas (from Hebrew עתוד atud, Yiddish atus - attention, prepare) - preparation, purpose
• Bugor (from Hebrew בוגר boger - adult, adult) - foreman, authority in a criminal environment.
• Cabala (from Hebrew קבלה cabala - receipt, receipt, acceptance, receipt) - a large amount of debt.
• To get together (from Hebrew כנס kenes - gathering, rally, congress) - to become friends, to be together.
• Kodla (from Hebrew כדלה kedale - poor, beggar, wretched) - a bunch of thieves and ragamuffins.
• Kurva (from Hebrew קרבה karva, kurva - closeness, kinship) is a frivolous girl. In ancient times, in order to unite, the warriors must have everything in common. What the prisoners had in common was a whore. After the procedure of collective coitus with the hen, all the thieves became brothers (in Hebrew, קרובים blood - relatives).
• Sucker (from Hebrew - להוט lahut - greedy) - someone who can be fooled.
• Malyava (from Hebrew מילה בא mila va - the word goes) - letter.
• Nishtyak (from Hebrew נשתק nishtak - let's calm down) - great, good.
• Chuve (from Hebrew תשובה teshuvah - return, repentance) - parting with the world of thieves, repentance.
• Hence Chuvikha, a repentant woman who has given up crime.
• The dude is a man who left the criminal environment and again became a “frayer.”
• Shukher (from Hebrew שחרר shuhrer - freed from worries, burdens) - do not participate in theft. To be on the lookout - to keep watch when thieves or prisoners commit a crime or rob. Beware from the police. Shukher comes from the Hebrew word shahor שחור, which means “black.” The police uniform in Tsarist Russia was black.

In contact with

Yiddish is a Jewish language of the Germanic group, historically the main language in which at the beginning of the 20th century. spoken by about 11 million Jews around the world.

Yiddish originated in Central and Eastern Europe in the 10th-14th centuries. based on Central German dialects (70-75%) with extensive borrowings from Aramaic (about 15-20%), as well as from Romance and Slavic languages ​​(in dialects reaches 15%).

The fusion of languages ​​gave rise to an original grammar that made it possible to combine words with a German root and syntactic elements of Semitic and Slavic languages.

About the name

The word "Yiddish" in Yiddish itself means literally "Jewish, Jewish."

Historically also - taich, Yiddish-taich (from ייִדיש־טײַטש‎) - “folk-Jewish”, or according to another version - “interpretation” in connection with the tradition of oral interpretation of Jewish texts when studying them.

The word Taich is related to the words Deutsch and Dutch, but is not equivalent, for example, to the adjective “German” in the sense of belonging to the German nation. The word itself is older than such a concept, and simply means “folk” in the original sense, that is, taich in this context means spoken language.

B XIX century and the beginning of the 20th century. in Russian, Yiddish was often called "jargon". The term "Jewish-German" was also used.

In Russian, the word “Yiddish” can be used as both an indeclinable and an indeclinable noun.

Classification issues

Traditionally, Yiddish is considered a Germanic language, historically belonging to the Middle German dialects of the High German cluster of the West Germanic group.

Slavic theory

In 1991, Tel Aviv University linguistics professor Paul Wexler, based on an analysis of the structure and vocabulary of Yiddish, put forward a hypothesis that classifies Yiddish as a Slavic rather than a Germanic language.

Later, in the book “Ashkenazi Jews: A Slavic-Turkic People in Search of Jewish Identity,” Wexler proposed revising the entire theory of the origins of Ashkenazis, Yiddish-speaking Eastern European Jewry.

He views them not as descendants of people from the Middle East, but as an indigenous European people descended from the descendants of the Western Slavs - the Lusatian Sorbs, Polabs, etc.

Later, Wexler included among the supposed ancestors of Eastern European Jews also the Khazars and numerous Slavs who lived in Kievan Rus in the 9th-12th centuries.

Wexler's theory did not gain support in the scientific community. In academic circles (including at Tel Aviv University, where P. Wexler works) it is viewed as a curiosity generated by the author’s own political views.

At the same time, some researchers believe that the role of the Slavic component in Yiddish is perhaps somewhat more significant than previously thought.

Linguogeography

Range and numbers

Beginning of the 21st century

Define modern number Yiddish speakers are very difficult. Most Ashkenazi Jews during the 20th century. passed into the language of the countries where they live. However, from the censuses of some countries it is possible to obtain the number of Yiddish speakers.

• Israel - 215 thousand people. according to Ethnologue estimates for 1986 (6% of the number of Jews in Israel).
• USA - 178,945 people. speak Yiddish at home (approximately 2.8% of all US Jews, with 3.1% speaking Hebrew).
• Russia - 30,019 people. speak Yiddish according to the 2002 census (13% of all Jews in Russia).
• Canada - 17,255 people. named Yiddish as their native language in the 2006 census (5% of people of Jewish descent).
• Moldova - 17 thousand people. named Yiddish as their native language (1989), that is, 26% of total number Jews
• Ukraine - 3213 people. named Yiddish as their native language according to the 2001 census (3.1% of the number of Jews).
• Belarus - 1979 people. speak Yiddish at home according to the 1999 census (7.1% of the number of Jews).
• Romania - 951 people named Yiddish as their native language (16.4% of the number of Jews).
• Latvia - 825 people named Yiddish as their native language (7.9% of the number of Jews).
• Lithuania - 570 people named Yiddish as their native language (14.2% of the number of Jews).
• Estonia - 124 people named Yiddish as their native language (5.8% of the number of Jews).
• According to the Hungarian census, out of 701 Jews, 276 (40%) speak Hebrew at home. It is possible that this is an error in the interpretation of the concept of “language of one’s nationality” and either all of them meant Yiddish, or some of them meant Yiddish, and some of them meant Hebrew (as in the Russian census).

A significant number of Yiddish speakers also live in Great Britain, Belgium, France, and to a lesser extent in Australia, Argentina and Uruguay.

Based on the above data, the total number of Yiddish speakers in the world can be estimated at 500 thousand people. Similar data are given in some other sources: 550-600 thousand. At the same time, there are much higher estimates: 1,762,320 (Ethnologue, 16th edition) and even 2 million (KEE), but it is not explained on the basis of what methodology they have been received.

Sociolinguistic information

Although among the majority of Jews Yiddish has given way to the languages ​​of the surrounding population, deeply religious Jews (Haredi and especially Hasidim) communicate among themselves primarily in Yiddish.

Dialects

Yiddish consists of large number dialects, which are usually divided into Western and Eastern dialects. The latter, in turn, are divided into three main dialects:

• northern (the so-called Belarusian-Lithuanian dialect: the Baltic states, Belarus, the northeastern regions of Poland, the west of the Smolensk region of Russia and part of the Chernigov region of Ukraine),
• southeastern (so-called Ukrainian dialect: Ukraine, Moldova, eastern regions of Romania, primarily Moldova and Bukovina, the southern part of the Brest region of Belarus and the Lublin voivodeship of Poland)
• central (or southwestern, so-called Polish dialect: central and western Poland, Transylvania, Carpathian regions of Ukraine).

There are also transitional dialects.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, a single common language was created, Klal Shprakh, which became widespread mainly in universities.

IN North America Among the Hasidim, a common dialect crystallized based on “Hungarian” Yiddish, previously widespread in Transylvania.

IN THE USSR grammatical basis The Ukrainian dialect served as the literary standard, while phonetics was based on the northern dialect. Theatrical Yiddish, in accordance with the tradition leading from A. Goldfaden, corresponds to the average Ukrainian dialect (sometimes in this context called Volyn). Western Yiddish, which some researchers (eg P. Wexler) consider as a separate language spoken by Jews in the western regions of Germany, Switzerland and Holland, is practically dead today.

Regional varieties of Yiddish show great variation in the vowel system, ranging from the opposition between short open i and long closed i, to patterns with complete parallel rows of short and long vowels. Dialects also contain ü and diphthongs ending in -w.

However, literary Yiddish exhibits the greatest diversity in the consonant system. Some dialects lack the h phoneme, some differentiate fewer palatals, and Western Yiddish lacks a voicing distinction. Articulation varies in different regions from apical to (predominantly) uvular.

Writing

Spelling

Yiddish uses "square" writing. There are several variants of Yiddish spelling. The writing is based on the Hebrew alphabet with some standard diacritics: אַ, אָ, בֿ, וּ, יִ, ײַ, כּ, פּ, פֿ, שֹ, תּ.

Most words borrowed from Hebrew and Aramaic have retained their traditional spelling. Rest lexicon is a system of one-to-one correspondence between sounds, on the one hand, and letters or their combinations, on the other. At the same time, established traditions are preserved, concerning, for example, the graphics of certain final letters, or the rules about the initial unpronounceable א.

In the process of evolution in Yiddish, there has been a growing tendency to systematically use the letter א to represent the sound /a/, אָ to represent /o/; כ is used to convey /x/, וו - to convey /v/. Over time, the use of the letter ע as a symbol of the vowel sound /e/ became established. This innovation, characteristic of the Ashkenazi pronunciation of Hebrew, which lost the consonant sound indicated by the letter ע, dates back to the 14th century.

The methods of rendering diphthongs and unstressed vowels, as well as the rules of word division, varied significantly in different periods of history. Nowadays the diphthong /oi/ is indicated by the combination וי, the diphthong /ei/ by the combination יי, the diphthong /ai/ by the same combination with an additional diacritic sign - ײַ (the diacritic sign is not used in all publications). /ž/ and /č/ are represented by the digraphs זש and טש, respectively.

Some publishers still do not comply with all the rules. The IVO spelling is considered standard, but religious publishing houses prefer the old system. In many newspapers, old proofreaders refuse to change their long-established skills dating back to pre-World War II Europe.

Since the 1920s In the Soviet Union (and then in communist and pro-Soviet publishing houses in a number of other countries), the principle of historical and etymological spelling of words of Hebrew-Aramaic origin was rejected and the phonetic principle was adopted, denying the traditional adherence to Hebrew and Aramaic spelling when writing words from these languages.

In 1961, the USSR returned to writing final letters.

Linguistic characteristics

Phonetics and phonology

Yiddish has expiratory stress, and although the location of word stress is not always entirely predictable, there are several characteristic word stress distributions. A triangular vowel system with three degrees of opening and two positions of articulation:

Vowels: i u e o a

The most characteristic diphthongs are the combinations еі, аі and оі. In Yiddish, as well as in the southern dialects of German, the reflection of the Middle German diphthong ei and the long vowel î differs:

There is a reduction in many German diphthongs, for example pf.

The consonant system is highly symmetrical:

m n n'
b d d' g
p t t’ k
v z z’ z c r
f s s’ š č x h y
l l'

Note: The apostrophe denotes palatal consonants.

Unlike the German language, the series of plosives and fricatives differ not in tension, but in voicing - obviously under Slavic influence, which also affected the appearance of palatal consonants. Unlike German, the occurrence of voiced consonants in the outcome of words is also observed. Due to the influx of words of Hebrew-Aramaic and Slavic origin, numerous initial consonant combinations unusual for the German language (for example, bd-, px-) penetrated into Yiddish.

Morphology

The grammatical system of Yiddish largely follows the model of the German language, but with a significant number of changes. New patterns of word order have emerged in syntax. The word order in the main and subordinate clauses became the same. The distance between nouns and their modifiers, as well as between parts of verb phrases, has been reduced.

Nouns are characterized by four cases and three genders. However, the genitive case became possessive, losing most of its other functions. The accusative case indicator is omitted after prepositions. The Germanic distinction between weak and strong declension of adjectives has disappeared, but a new distinction has emerged between modifiable predicative adjectives. Many nouns were distributed among different models plural. Under the influence of Slavic languages, diminutive forms of nouns and adjectives developed. In the verb, all tenses and moods, except for the present tense of the indicative mood, began to be formed analytically. A consistent distinction between perfect and imperfect forms, alien to the structure of Germanic languages, develops; A number of new verbal forms have appeared, expressing aspectual and voicing shades.

Helpful information

Yiddish
ייִדיש
translit. "Yiddish"
and אידיש
translit. "Yiddish"
verbatim "Jewish"

From the history of language

Coat of arms of the Belarusian SSR, 1926-1937. The motto is “Workers of all countries, unite!” in four languages ​​- Belarusian, Russian, Polish and Yiddish

In the 1920s, Yiddish was one of the official languages ​​of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic.

For some time the slogan “Workers of all countries, unite!” was inscribed on the coat of arms of the BSSR in Yiddish, along with Belarusian, Polish and Russian. T

was also one of state languages Ukrainian People's Republic in 1917

Influence of Yiddish on other languages

Odessa dialect

Yiddish, along with Ukrainian language, had a great influence on the formation of the Odessa dialect.

Source of slang

Hebrew words (ksiva, shmon, etc.) entered the Russian language through Yiddish - this is evidenced, in particular, by their Ashkenazi pronunciation (“ksiva” (Ashkenazi Hebrew, Yiddish) - “ktiva” (modern Hebrew)).

All over the world.

Yiddish arose in Central and Eastern Europe in the 10th-14th centuries on the basis of Central German dialects (70-75%) with extensive borrowings from Hebrew and Aramaic (about 15-20%), as well as from Romance and Slavic languages ​​(in dialects reaches 15%) . The fusion of languages ​​gave rise to an original grammar that made it possible to combine words with a German root and syntactic elements of Semitic and Slavic languages.

About the name

The word "Yiddish" literally means "Jewish" in Yiddish. Historically also - taich, Yiddish-taich, (from ייִדיש־טײַטש‎) - “folk-Jewish”, or according to another version - “interpretation” in connection with the tradition of oral interpretation of Jewish texts when studying them. (The word Taich is related to the words Deutsch and Dutch, but is not equivalent, for example, to the adjective “German” in the sense of belonging to the German nation. The word itself is older than such a concept, and simply means “folk” in the original sense, that is, Taich in this context means colloquial language).

In the 19th century and early 20th century, Yiddish was often called “jargon” in Russian. The term "Jewish-German" was also used.

Classification issues

Traditionally, Yiddish is considered a Germanic language, historically belonging to the Middle German dialects of the High German cluster of the West Germanic group.

Slavic language?

In 1991, Tel Aviv University linguistics professor Paul Wexler, based on an analysis of the structure and vocabulary of Yiddish, put forward a hypothesis that classifies Yiddish as a Slavic rather than a Germanic language. Later, in the book “Ashkenazi Jews: A Slavic-Turkic People in Search of Jewish Identity,” Wexler proposed revising the entire theory of the origins of Ashkenazis, Yiddish-speaking Eastern European Jewry. He views them not as descendants of people from the Middle East, but as an indigenous European people descended from the descendants of the Western Slavs - Lusatian Sorbs, Polabs, etc. Later, Wexler included among the supposed ancestors of Eastern European Jews also the Khazars and numerous Slavs who lived in Kievan Rus in IX-XII centuries.

Wexler's theory did not gain support in the scientific community. In academic circles (including at Tel Aviv University, where P. Wexler works) it is viewed as a curiosity generated by the author’s own political views. At the same time, some researchers believe that the role of the Slavic component in Yiddish is perhaps somewhat more significant than previously thought.

Linguogeography

Range and numbers

Beginning of the 21st century

Determining the current number of Yiddish speakers is very difficult. During the 20th century, most Ashkenazi Jews switched to the language of the countries where they live. However, from the censuses of some countries it is possible to obtain the number of Yiddish speakers.

• According to the census results Hungary Of the 701 Jews, 276 (40%) speak Hebrew at home. It is possible that this is an error in the interpretation of the concept of “language of one’s nationality” and either all of them meant Yiddish, or some of them meant Yiddish, and some of them meant Hebrew (as in the Russian census).

Based on the above data, the total number of Yiddish speakers in the world can be estimated at 500 thousand people. Similar data are given in some other sources: 550-600 thousand. At the same time, there are much higher estimates: from 2 million (KEE) to 3,142,560, but it is not explained on the basis of what methodology they are made.

Sociolinguistic information

Although among the majority of Jews Yiddish has given way to the languages ​​of the surrounding population, deeply religious Jews (Haredi and especially Hasidim) communicate among themselves primarily in Yiddish, because, according to their concepts, Hebrew is a sacred language, and one should not talk about secular things in the holy language.

Dialects

Yiddish dialects

Isoglosses of Yiddish dialects

Yiddish consists of a large number of dialects, which are usually divided into Western and Eastern dialects. The latter, in turn, are divided into three main dialects:

• northern(so-called Belarusian-Lithuanian dialect: Baltic states, Belarus, northeastern regions of Poland, western Smolensk region of Russia and part of Chernigov region of Ukraine),
• southeastern(so-called Ukrainian dialect: Ukraine, Moldova, eastern regions of Romania, primarily Moldova and Bukovina, the southern part of the Brest region of Belarus and the Lublin voivodeship of Poland)
• central(or southwestern, so-called Polish dialect: central and western Poland, Transylvania, Carpathian regions of Ukraine).

There are also transitional dialects.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, a single put the sprach a common language spread mainly in universities.

In the USSR, the grammatical basis of the literary standard was Ukrainian dialect, while phonetics was based on northern dialect. Theatrical Yiddish, in accordance with the tradition leading from A. Goldfaden, corresponds to the average Ukrainian dialect(sometimes referred to in this context as Volynian). Western Yiddish, which some researchers (eg P. Wexler) consider as a separate language spoken by Jews in the western regions of Germany, Switzerland and Holland, is practically dead today.

Regional varieties of Yiddish show great variation in the vowel system, ranging from the opposition between short open i and long closed i, to patterns with complete parallel rows of short and long vowels. Dialects also contain ü and diphthongs ending in -w. However, literary Yiddish exhibits the greatest diversity in the consonant system. Some dialects lack the h phoneme, some differentiate fewer palatals, and Western Yiddish lacks a voicing distinction. Articulation varies in different regions from apical to (predominantly) uvular.

Writing

Spelling

Yiddish uses "square" writing. There are several variants of Yiddish spelling. The writing is based on the Hebrew alphabet with some standard diacritics: אַ, אָ, בֿ, וּ, יִ, ײַ, כּ, פּ, פֿ, שֹ, תּ Most words borrowed from Hebrew and Aramaic have retained their traditional spelling. The rest of the vocabulary is a system of one-to-one correspondence between sounds, on the one hand, and letters or their combinations, on the other. At the same time, established traditions are preserved, concerning, for example, the graphics of certain final letters, or the rules about the initial unpronounceable א.

In the process of evolution in Yiddish, there has been a growing tendency to systematically use the letter א to represent the sound /a/, אָ to represent /o/; כ is used to convey /x/, וו - to convey /v/. Over time, the use of the letter ע as a symbol of the vowel sound /e/ became established. This innovation, characteristic of the Ashkenazi pronunciation of Hebrew, which lost the consonant sound indicated by the letter ע, dates back to the 14th century. The methods of rendering diphthongs and unstressed vowels, as well as the rules of word division, varied significantly in different periods of history. Nowadays the diphthong /oi/ is indicated by the combination וי, the diphthong /ei/ by the combination יי, the diphthong /ai/ by the same combination with an additional diacritic sign - ײַ (the diacritic sign is not used in all publications). /ž/ and /č/ are represented by the digraphs זש and טש, respectively.

Some publishers still do not comply with all the rules. The IVO spelling is considered standard, but religious publishing houses prefer the old system. In many newspapers, old proofreaders refuse to change their long-established skills dating back to pre-World War II Europe. Since the 1920s In the Soviet Union (and then in communist and pro-Soviet publishing houses in a number of other countries), the principle of historical and etymological spelling of words of Hebrew-Aramaic origin was rejected and the phonetic principle was adopted, which denies the traditional adherence to Hebrew and Aramaic spelling when writing words from these languages. In 1961, the USSR returned to writing final letters.

From the history of language

In medieval Germany, there was a thieves' jargon "kukumloshen", based on Yiddish.

Literature

Dictionaries and monographs

• Russian-Jewish (Yiddish) dictionary: Ok. 40,000 words. Compiled by R. Ya. Lerner, E. B. Loitsker, M. N. Maidansky, M. A. Shapiro. - 2nd ed., stereotype. - M.: Rus. lang., 1989. - 720 with ISBN 5-200-00427-6 - Contains an overview of Yiddish grammar

• Max Weinreich “Here you go” ( geshikhte fun der yidisher shprakh- history of the Hebrew language), in 4 vols. YIVO Institute for Jewish Research: New York, 1973.

Translated into English:

• Max Weinreich. History of the Yiddish Language, in 2 vols. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1980. ISBN 0-226-88604-2
• Max Weinreich. History of the Yiddish Language, in 2 vols. (first complete translation). Yale University Press: New Haven, 2007. ISBN 978-0-300-10887-3 and ISBN 0-300-10887-7

• Neil G. Jacobs. Yiddish: A Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2005, ISBN 0-521-77215-X

Literature in Yiddish

• Category:Yiddish writers
• Category:Yiddish poets

Links

• Marina Agranovskaya Yiddish, brother of German
• Marina Agranovskaya This sweet tongue is a lock for mom

Online resources

• Concise Yiddish-Russian dictionary by Alexander Soldatov on the Jewniwerse website
• Yiddish lessons by Arie London and Yoil Matveev on the Jewniwerse website

Other links

• Derbaremdiker M. L. What do proverbs say in Yiddish
• Journal of the University of Haifa "Di velt fun Yiddish" (Life of Yiddish)
• Collections of Jewish short stories ed. Irving Howe, Eliezer Greenberg and Frieda Forman
• Too left, too right, too dead Yiddish by Michael Dorfman

Notes