Talk:Yiddish language

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[edit] Historic "gut tak im betage" quote

Can someone please mention where the "gut tak im betage" quote is taken from? What script does it appear in, where was it found, etc. Thank!

  • It comes from a Hebrew prayerbook of the 13th century, where it is written in the Hebrew alphabet. You will find various transcriptions of it in recent histories of Yiddish literature - there is one by Dinse, for example, which has it, though I don't know I would necessarily recommend that book generally. But before I put this quote into the article I did check in our library, and other books have it to. Unfortunately, none of them had it in the original Hebrew script. If you could find that, it would be a plus. --Doric Loon 08:45, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Following Frakes's edition, the "Worms Mahsor Couplet" reads:
גוּט טַק אִים בְּטַגְֿא שְ וַיר דִּיש מַחֲזֹור אִין בֵּיתֿ הַכְּנֶסֶתֿ טְרַגְֿא
--Bws2002 01:37, 3 Jan 2006 (UTC)
This is interestin indeed. I'd be quite suprised if Niqqud appears in original. Since this is claimed the first source, it could be interesting if anyone could provide a scan? what script does it use, etc. Oyd11 01:54, 27 August 2006 (UTC)


  • In addition to the sources cited by Frakes, a reproduction of the original also appears as Figure 2.2 in Katz's "Words on Fire" (ISBN 0-465-03728-3). The original does not break the lines to highlight the rhyme as Frakes does. I've therefore changed the presentation above to a single line, also resolving some rendering issues (but not all; some combining points may still appear in spaces of their own following the base characters to which they apply) and have added a few points that were missing. I've placed this in the main body of the article and edited the references to it for consistent spelling. --futhark 11:14, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Basque???

"or even that it is a derivative of Basque." This is so bizarre that it begs for citation. What is the source? -- Jmabel | Talk 20:20, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

It seems to have appeared with this edit in March 2005. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:25, 10 January 2006 (UTC)


It is indeed truely bizarre. I found it on the internet, but the site seems to have disappeared. It is mentioned at the following sites, though, if you want proof that it was once up:

http://links-guide.ru/sprachen/asien/yiddish-language.html
http://shakti.trincoll.edu/~mendele/vol06/vol06.055

At the time I read the page fairly thoroughly. The guy was claiming that the bulk of Yiddish vocabulary came from Basque, and he gave about 50 examples, every one of which, despite superficial similarities, were obviously false etymologies to anyone with a linguistic training. I mentioned it in the article just to show how crazy people get when they start talking about Yiddish, but perhaps that is not a good reason to have it there. --Doric Loon 12:50, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I've contextualized this a bit better. Have a look. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:36, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

If you want to have a look at the truly bizarre basque page, it is available via the way back machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20050309215719/www.highspeedplus.com/~edonon/yiddish.html It's a pretty amusing read, actually. Check out the entry for "meshuge". Nomi Jones 23:20, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I hope that was intended by its author as dry humor, but I suppose it could be a very weird sort of paranoia. - Jmabel | Talk 23:51, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dialects

I think this article could use a more prominent mention of Western Yiddish, and the dialectal developments and differences overall. //Big Adamsky 05:43, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Probably so. I have to admit, Western Yiddish is enough of a dead language that I don't know much about it beyond the obvious (few, if any, Slavic borrowings, declined rapidly during the Haskalah). I don't think anyone will be against adding this, it's just a matter of knowing enough to write it. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:06, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Orthography

I have added a bit of material to this article that I hope will lead to a fuller discussion of the diversity of orthographic practice that characterizes the Yiddish literature. The context in which various initiatives toward orthographic standardization were undertaken in the 1920’s was brutally disrupted just a few years after the codification of the YIVO orthography, which therefore never had the application that was initially foreseen. Although YIVO's corresponding Romanization scheme is far and away the most commonly cited such system in contemporary linguistic discourse, it is by no means the only one in actual use. The orthographic heterogeneity of the literature pre-dating the standardization attempts was also significant. Any current student of Yiddish needs to deal with this and the Wikipedia is an obvious platform for its detailed description.

If the length of the Yiddish article is regarded as excessive, perhaps an editor would consider moving the section on orthography to a separate article. A good deal of material could then usefully be added, including a more extensive phonetic mapping of the alef-beys to Yiddish dialects, similar to the pronunciation table in the article on the Hebrew alphabet.

Quite a bit of attention is being paid elsewhere in the Wikipedia to the many issues relating to Hebrew Romanization. Every now and again it seems as though the ideas being tested in that context are applied to the Yiddish text in the present article, when someone changes a correct YIVO transliteration to what the same sequence of letters would be in one of the proposed systems, for example, in Wikipedia_talk:Naming conventions (Hebrew). Although much still needs to be said about the transliteration of Hebrew words in a running Yiddish text, as well as the transliteration of older texts (which YIVO explicitly states lies outside the scope of its transliteration system), I believe that all of the Romanized recent Yiddish in the article is now consistent with YIVO practice. futhark 10:59, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Split to Yiddish orthography and phonology

Any objections to splitting Yiddish language#History off to "History of Yiddish" with appropriate brief summary at #History and an appropriate lead written to the new article? I'm willing to do it after Shabath. Might hafta lemme a note on my talk page to remind me... שבת שלום, Tomertalk 19:58, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

  • All of the headings through "Yiddish and other languages" deal with Yiddish history, and it is difficult to see any point at which they could be split that wouldn't require significant new text on both sides of the break. The sections on history certainly do differ enough from the remaining headings (Phonology, Orthography Typography) for their further development as two separate articles to be worthwhile, nor would splitting the article at Phonology require much new text. The question is which of the two articles more reasonably ought to retain the present title. My guess is that the typical reader expectation would be to find material generally descriptive of the Yiddish language under that heading and, precisely as morphology is treated separately in Yiddish morphology, the new article might therefore best be headed Yiddish phonology and orthography. The bibliography will need to be split in either case, or duplicated as appropriate. --futhark 14:14, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

The new article is now automatically being flagged for possible excessive length, so it may be time for a further split. One possible division would be into Yiddish orthography and typography and Yiddish dialectology and phonology. I will gladly do the work but would appreciate comments about the need for it, and its focus, before proceeding. Please use the article's own talk page. --futhark 10:56, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bibliography

Does the bibliography for this article have a firm focus? A lot of the books listed are indeed language/linguistics related, and I added two in that spirit (the LCAAJ and the new Jacobs). But I wonder about the inclusion of books like Lansky's, which have no real linguistic information in them. It would seem to me more appropriate for the entry on Yiddish literature. I will wait before I move it in case there are objections. Also, would books in Yiddish be acceptable? All of Dr. Schaechter's work is in Yiddish, but it's worth knowing about.Nomi Jones 23:15, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

  • The focus of the bibliography is not, and need not be, any clearer than the focus of the article itself. It is not specifically about Yiddish linguistics and includes a free range of other topics relating to the cultural significance of the Yiddish language, If this is perceived as too broad, it might make more sense to start by tightening the main text (which, if nothing else, is in need of a solidifying edit). In all of its present heterogeneity, the article is intended for an anglophone readership and the inclusion of non-English references would not clearly enhance its value. Although it is not a particularly elegant approach, several of the specialized headings have been migrated to separate articles, often together with the topical bibliographic references. (The Schaechter treatise is one example of this.) Separate treatment of material about Yiddish for Yiddish readers may therefore be worth considering. Note also that an initiative is currently underway to reinvigorate the Yiddish Wikipedia. --futhark 10:29, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yiddish words in English

I'm no sure if I'm reviving an old discussion here, but I'm concerned about the "Yiddish-derived idioms used in English, particularly in the United States".
(a) Are these "idioms"?
(b) Some are written as they are commonly written by English speakers (e.g. Schnorrer, Schmuck) and not as transliterations from Yiddish; others vice versa (latkes, farkakte). Shouldn't there be consistency? Or perhaps how they are commonly spelt in English and what the corresponding Yiddish word is? (A related question is on the apparent policy of using Harkavy romanization rather than YIVO (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiddish_orthography_and_typography#Transliteration - i.e. ch not kh, tz not ts?)
(c) I thought that previous discussion had established that "Schmuck" is not "literally "jewel"" and "bupkis" is not literally "goat droppings".
By the way, I am not challenging the idea of having a (short) list in this article!

  • How the heck else do you spell latkes? -- Jmabel | Talk 06:42, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Given the separate articles on words borrowed from Yiddish into English, I don't really see any purpose to the redundant appearance of such material in the present article (although I am prepared to argue the specific points you criticize). On the other hand, there is not likely much to be gained by trying to remove it -- sooner or later it will begin to reappear. The same goes for the regular attempts that have been made at normalizing the romanizations that appear here. (Tracing the history of the way Forverts is spelled provides as a good example.) There used to be a claim in the article about its consistent use of YIVO transliteration. The fact that the statement wasn't reinserted may be an indication of the degree of interest in using a uniform romanized Yiddish orthography, which after all is not a characteristic of the bulk of writing in or about Yiddish. --futhark 16:20, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Status of Yiddish as a Germanic Language

The status of Yiddish as a Germanic language is occasionally challenged from two opposing perspectives. On the one hand, there are those who suggest that in its deep structure Yiddish is unrelated to German—that it is instead a Semitic or a Slavic. For example, the linguist Paul Wexler claims that Eastern Yiddish was originally a Slavic language, Sorbian, whose vocabulary was replaced with German words, and that a second round of relexification, this time replacing an East Slavic dialect with German words, occurred when this variety of Yiddish migrated eastwards to Ukraine. His claims are not widely accepted. There have even arguments proposed that Yiddish is somehow a Romance language, or even that it is a derivative of Basque.

This spurious nonsense should stay on the Talk page until someone can come up with a damn fine argument for re-inserting it. A paragraph on the unwillingness of some people to believe that Yiddish is a Germanic language based on 20th-century history would be perhaps appropriate, but this paragraph as it stands can't be allowed to sit in the article dressed up as an argument worth considering... Sorbian indeed... and "relexification"? Good grief... there's a reason noone's created an article for this Paul Wexler person yet. Colonel Mustard 13:45, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Amen!!! -- Olve 16:59, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Indeed. And, as previously discussed, the thing about Basque was clearly either a joke or a paranoid delusion. - Jmabel | Talk 18:50, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Colonel Mustard, please explain why you are so quick to dismiss Dr. Paul Wexler and his research. Wexler is a linquistics expert working at Tel Aviv University, please tell us your qualifications. If you have not read his books (eg. "The Ashkenazic Jews: A Slavo-Turkic People in Search of a Jewish Identity") then I suggest you shut up and start reading. His theories regarding the origins of Yiddish are supported by the research of several other well-infrormed linguists, eg. Dr Robert King, and quite frankly Wikipedia cannot be taken seriously if it does not make mention of this in the article.Logicman1966 08:21, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
A Google search on "Paul Wexler" "Robert King" leads to articles that suggest this should be mentioned, at least as a dissident theory, and probably expanded upon in an article of its own. But I stand by my remark that the thing about Basque is either a joke or a paranoid delusion. - Jmabel | Talk 18:30, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Yiddish Media

What is the point of transliterating the names of Yiddish media sources (e.g. the Forverts) in both YIVO transliteration and German-style orthography, given that the latter has not been commonly used for well nigh a hundred years in the spelling of these names -- e.g. Forwarts (umlaut over the a), which no one uses to transliterate the name of the paper, or Allgemeines Journal, which is laughably inaccurate on a number of counts? I will delete these mis-transliterations unless someone gives a good reason to maintain them. Other than Daytshmerish nostalgia, that is. Zackary Sholem Berger 02:02, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Split to section on List of English words of Yiddish origin

The article is once again being flagged for excessive length. Does anyone object to my moving all of the material under this heading to the related separate article that it already references? --futhark 21:34, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

  • Moved it. --futhark 18:38, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Numbers of Yiddish speakers

I noted that most of the ethnologue numbers are very old, most are pre 1992, which is especially problematic for the ex-USSR states, since many of the Yiddish speakers have since emigrated. Travelbird 05:27, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I updated some of the numbers. The numbers for Israel may be a slightly low due to subsequent post-1997 immigration. If someone has newer data, please correct. Travelbird 06:22, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
While I'm glad sources have been cited and specific numbers given, I think the infobox is the wrong place for that. The infobox should be for quick-n-easy information, not cluttered with years and countries and sources. I'd much rather the specific info be moved to the text portion of the article, and the infobox just give one number indicating the total number of speakers today. User:Angr 17:35, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quantity and quality

This article was once again being flagged for excessive length. Although there are sections that can be split off to separate articles — which is how this problem has been dealt with several times before — there are no more as readily apparent points where it can be done. There is, however, some material that is repeated under multiple headings. The article also contains unsustainable subjective assertions, which may also be attributed to named individuals but without indication of verifiable sources.

Under the assumption that it might be relevant to the evaluation of the article as a candidate for featured status, the time may be at hand for a thorough editorial revision of its contents. I've made a first stab at this by removing unsubstantiated attributions. Together with some general tidying, that has at least brought the article down under the recommended maximum length. If this does not trigger a flurry of reversions and nobody else has pitched in in the interim — or railed at my suggestion — I'll do some more extensive stylistic editing. --futhark 09:52, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Following up on my previous comment, if this article is to be reconsidered as a candidate for featured article status, the criticism that led to its initial failure needs to be addressed. Extensive rewriting will at some point be necessary. There are, however, quite a few things that can be done incrementally. I'm starting by removing the section on the "Status of Yiddish as a dialect of German". It was rightly faulted for beginning with an unsubstantiated (and likely unsubstantiatable) assertion which it then proceeded to argue against. The relationship between German and Yiddish is treated adequately elsewhere in the article. I've also done some general reshuffling and editing. --futhark 17:39, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree that no serious linguist holds this opinion today, but as late as the mid-19th century, the predominant view was that Yiddish was a mere dialect or jargon, and as late as the mid-20th century the opinion was still widely enough held to inspire the famous remark (removed from the article in this cut) "A shprakh iz a diyalekt mit an armey un flot": "A language is a dialect with an army and navy." I do agree that what was there went on too long and set up a straw man, but there is a real issue on the history of the perception of Yiddish that should be mentioned. - Jmabel | Talk 19:41, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I was wondering how many minutes it would take before the deletion of the army-navy quote was noted :-) It was only gone between edits while looking for a clearer context in which to reintroduce it. --futhark 07:32, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 3 million?

3 million strikes me as a very high estimate of the number of Yiddish-speakers today (unless everybody in New York each counts as 0.1 of a Yiddish speaker for the amount of Yiddish in their English!) I imagine that would have been correct 50 years or so ago, but in both the U.S. and Israel, the last generation in which Yiddish was genuinely widely used has been dying off, and their descendants (of whom I am one) mostly did not learn much of the language. Is there a citation for this number? - Jmabel | Talk 19:38, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Prior to the edit that apparently caught your eye, the article said both 1 million and 3 million, which was guaranteedly wrong. Ethnologue reports the latter figure at http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=ydd. I note that the currency of that figure is questioned in a heading futher up on this page, but absent better demographic authority it trumps either of our suspicions. --futhark 20:55, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Speaking of number of speakers, is there a common understanding of what it takes for someone to be considered a Yiddish speaker? I doubt it's anybody's first language these days, so what makes a Yiddish speaker? Someone who knows the language fluently, someone who speaks it regularly, or what? That would be a good place to start working on this. -Unknownwarrior33 23:28, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
It's still the first language of a fair number of Hasidim, isn't it? I bet it's the first language of a lot of people in Kiryas Joel and Williamsburg. User:Angr 05:08, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
The normal demographic criterion for determing whether someone speaks a language is that person's own say so. Phrasing the question, "What is your first language?", is however, both leading and misleading. It assumes that everyone who learned to speak several languages simultaneously nonetheless ranks them independently of context, and all but precludes a linguistically based answer from someone who regards themself as nonpreferentially multilingual. Their response is likely to be a statement of cultural identity, rather than language ability. Given the deeply-rooted multilingual aspects of non-secular Yiddish culture, I would be curious to know how the Hasidim regard their language identity. There is no question, though, that their use of Yiddish as a primary home language leaves us only a few decades away from the situation where members of the Hasidic community will constitute the overwhelming majority of – if not simply being the only – mother tongue speakers of that language. --futhark 10:27, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm sure it's native or near-native for at least a half million non-Hasids over the age of 70, possibly more; certainly a primary language for many Hasidim of whatever age; I'm sure there are a small number of non-Hasidic younger people who are truly dual native. And I'm sure there are quite a few more who while not native are still fluent. But 3 million really sounds high. I tend to trust Ethnologue most of the time. I'd love to see estimates that were decade-by-decade, showing the arc of this over, say, the last century. I wonder if YIVO has something on this. - Jmabel | Talk 05:50, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
I'd trust YIVO over Ethnologue on this. Ethnologue are the ones who would have us believe Yinglish is a full-fledged language deserving its own three-letter code. User:Angr 06:11, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
The way it's reported in the current literature, a significant and growing number of Hasidic children are truly dual native. The high nativity rates in that community mean that the total number of mother-tongue Yiddish speakers is also growing, whatever the correct current census may actually be. Relevant YIVO figures may be in one of the online editions of the LCAAJ, or somewhere on YIVO's own Web site. I'll look. --futhark 06:45, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
I wonder. It would have to be growing faster than the die-off of the last generation that spoke Yiddish in large numbers in Eastern Europe. Anyway, yes, YIVO seems to be the likely source. - Jmabel | Talk 03:14, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
With around 13 million Jews on Earth..., 25% of them being from sefardi descent or tradition..., 90% of the 80% born after WWII educated (at home and at school) not in Yiddish..., this 3 million estimation is (alas) a pure nonsense...
Of course 3 million may have some distant notions (for instance, I can sing songs in Yiddish and I do know about 100 words and expressions, but raised in French by a father - whose mother tongue [1] was Yiddish and a mother born in Berlin -, I am - like almost every Yid (Jew), of my generation, I met - in/from France, UK, USA, Israel, Switzerland, South Africa, Australia, Argentina, former Soviet Union ... - totally unable to hold a simple conversation...). I'd rather give credit to this - less questionable - evaluation : [2]. Sroulik 11:31, 2 september 2006 (CET).

Ethnologue is the most frequently cited single source for demographic data about language populations. Although that certainly doesn't guarantee against its containing incorrect information, it does mean that any such assertion in the Wikipedia would need to be supported by a similarly well-recognized source. Speculative analyses of conjectural data are not enough and can, in any case, also be used to support the 3 million figure. Assuming that the number of mother-tongue Yiddish speakers at the outset of WWII was 12 million, and half of that number perished during its course, sixty years ago there would still have been 6 miliion. I have no idea how the Holocaust effected the age distribution within that population, but under normal circumstances it would have been skewed toward the younger extreme. Absent specific knowledge about that, it is meaningless to speculate on the extent of subsequent mortality. Similar lack of hard data about nativity rates in Yiddish-speaking ultra-Orthodox communities makes the exercise even shakier. For what it's worth, I also find the 3 million figure counterintuitive, but even if that reflects the consensus of participants in the present discussion, it still does not provide a basis for supportable assertion in this article. --futhark 11:54, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Mensh ! I got your point but I still don't agree with the Ethnologue thing (that seems to be here in total failure). Just consider that if around 40 percent of the world jewry live in the States [3] (without a very significant sephardi community), we must have - keeping the same ratio - at least 1.200.000 Yiddish-speaking people.
Do you really think that more than 20% of the american Jews are able to express feelings, talk politics, buy goods or event listen to the radio in Yiddish ? Of course not.
But if knowing two poems, some gimmicks, expressions or remembering that grandpa was called zaide and that his mummy was a mame is enough, why not decide that everyone (Jew, Italian, Old Philadelphian, evangelist priest, Inuit... ) claiming his chutzpah or desparately looking for a bagle [4] is a Yiddish-speaking person ? We could so reach 75 million ! We must have some serious standard... I, myself, can easily read the italian or catalan newspapers present on the web, but I won't pretend mastering these languages...
For the record Yiddish was not one of the 20 most spoken languages at home in 2000 according to the US census (the last listed was Armenian with 202.000 speakers) [5] (cf page 4) and 0.3 % of the 51 million who declared speaking another language - than English - at home, say they use Yiddish in daily conversation [6] . That makes 180.000. Double that number ('cause a good speaker may have the opportunity to speak the language just once in a month) and you will obtain 360.000. If the US represent 40% of the Jews, 900.000 to 1 million should be a fair bet for the global village. Sroulik 01:00, 3 september 2006 (CET).
The Council of Europe documents that you added to the external links yesterday say 2 million. It would be easy enough to extend the article's discussion of the number of current Yiddish speakers, or perhaps even start a new article on the demographic history of the Yiddish speaking population worldwide. Any assertion of it being a controversial subject would, however, need to be as clearly supported by verifiable external sources as is the number of current speakers that is put forward in conclusion. -- futhark 05:46, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
You're perfectly right, futhark ! The problem, to my knwowledge, is that there is none (serious and/or verifiable external sources)... Sroulik 08:50, 4 september 2006 (CET)
Ethnologue is one of the first places people look — if not the first place — when they want information about language demographics. It is both a serious and verifiable source and, of course, is vulnerable to error. Your assertion notwithstanding, there are additional sources against which its contents can be checked (including, but not limited to, those from which it was compiled). Reviewing that material would not be a trivial exercise and the result could certainly benefit the quality of the Wikipedia article, but whoever undertakes it better be prepared to discover that there is warrant for the 3 mill figure. Interim speculation, however insightful it might be, is not the stuff encyclopedias are made of. --futhark 08:32, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


Ach... To me the Ethnologue figures are raw speculations or (rather) outdated data. The 2000 American census and the Israeli Governement seem to believe alternately. Both are serious sources. But as you previously pointed, to "extend the article's discussion of the number of current Yiddish speakers" could be appropriate ; the 1rst paragraph of the Irish language's article [7] is what we could aim to...
By the way, Ethnologue found 40.000 Yiddish-speakers in Latvia (in 1991 !), roughly 1.700.000 in other republics of former Soviet Union [8], 1.250.000 in the States (also in 1991) (1) [9], and 215.000 in Israel (in 1986) [10] (2). With massive immigration from Russia, Ukraine, Bielorussia or the Baltic states - and the passing of some -, we should find from Galilee to Neguev at least the supposed american number (1.250.000) of yiddish speakers. I don't think that is the case. Sroulik 14:01, 4 september 2006 (CET).
(1) Using the 2000 census data, the Modern Language Association (MLA) reckons that 178.000 persons speak Yiddish [11] [12] in Colombus Medine (USA) - 1 million less than Ethnologue [13] -.
(2) In this Ethnologue descriptive one teach us that in Israel 60.000 persons speak Dzhidi - a near moribund judeo-iranian language - and 100.000 English (yes 100.000 !). Sroulik 00:51, 5 september 2006 (CET).
These strange assertions on Ethnologue :
(...) Jews in the former USSR who may speak Yiddish : 231,000 in Belarus; 8,000 in Estonia; 40,000 in Latvia; some in Lithuania and Moldova; 701,000 in Russia; 634,000 in Ukraine. Also in Germany, Belgium, Poland, Romania, Latin America, Australia, South Africa, possibly Estonia, Lithuania, Ukraine. Now almost dead in Europe (1977 Adler) (...) [14](bottom) Sroulik 22:51, 5 september 2006 (CET)

[edit] Mass media

Does anyone object to removing this heading entirely? Separate articles on "Yiddish Press" and "Yiddish on the Internet" would certainly be worthwhile but, until someone finds time to write them, the material on Yiddish media in the present article — which has otherwise been a focus of negative criticism — might best be taken offline. --futhark 09:22, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Need for total reformatting?

I'm about done fussing with the article in its origin disposition. The major remaining task as far as I can see — and assuming that it is generally regarded as necessary — is to reframe the thing entirely according to the language template. If there is no comment on this, I will assume there to be no interest in (at least me undertaking) such action. --futhark 11:06, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

This article is very much in need of reformatting to fit the language template, with sections added like "Classification and related languages", "Sounds", "Grammar" etc. These can just immediately redirect to sub-articles if need be. See Dutch language for an example.
Incidentally, your removal of "conjectural statements" merely replaced unencyclopaedic language with more unencyclopaedic language:
Members of the young Ashkenazi community would have encountered the myriad dialects from which standard German was destined to emerge many centuries later. They would soon have been speaking their own versions of these German dialects, mixed with linguistic elements that they brought into the region, themselves. These dialects would have adapted to the needs of the burgeoning Ashkenazi culture and may, as characterizes many such developments...
Colonel Mustard 15:39, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

The unencylopaedic language that's caught your eye was in the article before I turned my attention to it, and I didn't replace it with anything. --futhark 16:34, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] taytsh-tiutsch vs. Yiddish-German

And this is just silly:
(taytsh, a variant of the contemporary name of 'the language otherwise spoken in the region'; compare the modern Deutsch)
This particular edit seems to have been made to avoid linking to the language that dare not speak its name.
Colonel Mustard 15:39, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

The silly stuff was an attempt to shy away from calling the early language "Yiddish" (a term that wasn't to turn up until a few centuries later), and equally to avoid comparing it "German" (a term that wasn't to turn up until a few centuries later). I've now added an explicit reference to Middle-Darenotspeakitsname. --futhark 16:50, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Heh. Thanks, reads better now. Please pardon my clumsy, hostile tone, I assumed you were trying to repoliticise the Yiddish article, but that was a bit silly of me - in fact, you've improved the article immensely. Colonel Mustard

13:09, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I take it vaybertaytsh is not a dialect form of Standard German "Weiberdeutsch" and it would be best if English speaking readers were not given the impression it is. I apologise for my ignorance.
84.135.202.75 17:03, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Recently added, questionable

"Unlike most languages, which are spoken by the residents of a particular area, or by members of a particular nationality, Yiddish was spoken by millions of Jews of different nationalities all over the globe."

  1. In this period, being Jewish would generally have been considered a nationality to the same degree that anything else was (if we go back to the 13th century, nothing much like our modern notion of nationality existed).
  2. The Jews were somewhat more dispersed circa 1500 than, say, the Germans, but not all that dramatically so. Germans as far east as the Urals still spoke German.
  3. Eastern Yiddish and Western Yiddish became pretty distinct, so it wasn't all that clearly a single language.
  4. "All over the globe": really only in the last 200 years or so. Prior to that, Yiddish was almost entirely an Eastern and Central European phenomenon.

Or at least that's my take. But, as the saying goes, "five Jews, six opinions". So I'm perfectly willing to hear whether others think it should be kept. - Jmabel | Talk 00:08, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Unlike which "most languages"? English and Spanish (using two obvious examples) are a lot larger than Yiddish ever was, and have been spoken by millions of people of different nationalities all over the globe who are not identified as English or Spanish (but a sizeable number of which are Jews). Both English and Spanish have also been around for longer than Yiddish has. I think the new material should be deleted. --futhark 06:36, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Fine by me. - Jmabel | Talk 01:11, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Forverts "largest" Yiddish newspaper?

I doubt this claim strongly, since the Forverts' unfortunately dwindling circulation is no more than 7,000 or so weekly. Publications such as Der Yid and Der Blatt certainly have more readers (though I have no knowledge of their circulation figures). I will change this reference. Zackary Sholem Berger 15:33, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

You needn't bother. I'm going to be moving all the references to newspapers to the external links at the end of the article, without any narrative accompaniment. --futhark 16:44, 13 September 2006

[edit] Status as official language

Out of completeness, in the table under the official status it could be added that Yiddish is an officially/legally recognized language in Sweden and Moldova (cf http://www.eajc.org/program_art_e.php?id=18 http://www.fsumonitor.com/stories/asem1mold.shtml): "On September 1, 2004 the parliament of Moldova adopted the law On Languages in the Territory of the Republic of Moldova. Moldova acknowledged the use of Hebrew and Yiddish, along with other languages, with the purpose to satisfy the national-cultural needs of Jews. In 2001 the state guaranteed Jews preschool education, primary, secondary (general and professional), higher, and post-university Hebrew and Yiddish language education, which was a logical continuation of the aforementioned regulatory legal acts." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.127.241.2 (talk • contribs) 15 September 2006.

[edit] Western Yiddish as a spoken language?

I have some serious doubts that Yiddish is still a living language. First off, the Enlightment meant that almost all German Jews switched from German to Yiddish as their first language. Then, the Holocaust destroyed Jewish communities throughout Western Europe, most likely wiping out the remaning Western Yiddish speakers. In the Yiddish article for the Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, Dovid Katz, one of the preeminent Yiddish experts states that only "a few small pockets of Yiddish speakers were discovered as late as the middle of the twentieth century" [15]. After this, there is no further mention of Western Yiddish. The ethnologue site says that there were only some Western Yiddish speaking Jews left in Israel as early as the 1970's. Even if it is still spoken today, it remains highly unlikely that the language will be passed down. There are two groups of Yiddish speaking groups today, the ultra-orthodox and a small group of (mostly secular) Jews. Ultra-Orthodox Jews come from Ukraine, Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, or eastern Hungary, and as a result speak dialects of Eastern Yiddish. Secular Jews are either Eastern Yiddish speakers, or they speak standard Yiddish, based off the vocabulary of The Lithuanian dialect of Eastern Yiddish, and the grammer of the Polish dialect (All this information can be found in books about Yiddish, such as Words on Fire by David Katz; however, I do not currently have the books in my possesion, so I can not give sources). These are the principle reasons why Western Yiddish is most likely near extinction or extinct. I will also e-mail the Yiddish Mendele list to find out if any of their members either are or know of Western Yiddish speakers.--Engelmann15 00:54, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

When you say "I have some serious doubts that Yiddish is still a living language" I presume that you meant to say "…that Western Yiddish is still a living language." I would share those doubts. - Jmabel | Talk 02:09, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that is what i meantEngelmann15 20:45, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Western Yiddish (as spoken in Alsace-Lorraine, Switzerland, and Baden-Württemberg) is probably extinct as a daily spoken language. As a written language very little exists; and, the existing corpus of Western Yiddish predates the 19th century.Priscian 06:33, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] vaybertaytsh is a typographic designation

In German, the term Weiberdeutsch is used to designate the Yiddish language. However appropriate that may be, and whatever argument may be made for the use of German in English language articles (especially in one that does not regard Yiddish as a dialect of Standard German), in English discourse about Yiddish the term vaybertaytsh designates a typeface. Although the terms vaybertaytsh and Weiberdeutsch are obviously cognates, they do not have the same meaning in the context of this article. It can also be questioned if this use of taytsh is a noun cognate to Deutsch or is derived from the verb taytshn, which means to render something into legible Yiddish. --futhark 10:28, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

The verb taytshn is cognate with Deutsch. AJD 15:00, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Moldova?

I don't see anything on the Moldova page about Yiddish being an official minority language. CharlesMartel 22:59, 12 October 2006 (UTC)CharlesMartel

- Nothing about Yiddish on the Sweden page, either. Perhaps, someone would add this in the future.

Acutally,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden#Language will show that that is not true. Can anyone show any evidince that Yiddish is acutally a recognized Minority Language in Moldova?CharlesMartel 00:45, 14 October 2006 (UTC)CharlesMartel

- There is a section on Status as official language above with two references. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.127.241.2 (talk • contribs) 17 October 2006.

[edit] Yiddish in Israel

But even though this social factor would have anyway doomed any chance for Yiddish to prosper, state authorities in the young Israel of the 1950s went to the extent of using censorship laws inherited from British rule in order to prohibit or extremely limit Yiddish theatre in Israel.[citation needed]

What part of this sentence requires a citation: well-known limitations on Yiddish theater (and periodicals) in Israel's early years or the clairvoyance-like statement on the future of Yiddish "anyway"?

Finally, the large post-1948 influx of Jewish refugees from Arab countries (to whom Yiddish was entirely foreign, but who already spoke a Semitic language in daily life) effectively made Hebrew the only practical option. - Does anyone really think this was the reason for curbing Yiddish cultural activities? What does the use of a Semitic language by refugees from Arab countries have to do with restrictions on Yiddish as a cultural medium of some part of the population? I don't think there ever was a discussion of making it a sole official language or anything like that...

Out of the whole article, the section on Yiddish in Israel seems to invite arguments the most. This is telling in itself. Perhaps rather than having controversial sentences like the ones cited above it is better to avoid the topic of Yiddish in Israel altogether. - S.

Certainly should not be avoided: otherwise, the near-death of the language is almost incomprehensible. But obviously needs better citation. - Jmabel | Talk 17:02, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Soviet Yiddish

I think something should be added about this Government-created dialect, which was distinct from older forms of Yiddish in terms of spelling reform, usage, and a much higher percentage of Slavic-rooted words than "normal" Yiddish.CharlesMartel 14:51, 14 October 2006 (UTC)CharlesMartel

I know nothing about this. If you have some sources on this, I'm sure it would be welcome. As for "a much higher percentage of Slavic-rooted words than 'normal' Yiddish", though, I have to wonder: normal for where? I'm sure that the Yiddish of, say, Odessa, always had a lot more Slavic words than the Yiddish of, say, Bucharest, just as the English of New York City has a lot more Yiddish than the English of Portland, Oregon. So that would require a moderately authoritative source. - Jmabel | Talk 17:02, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

- Spelling reforms do not create dialects. As to slavic elements, accepted literary style in the Soviet Union unfortunately viewed a great proportion of them as colloquialisms (as is reflected in all major dictionaries). As a result, literary Yiddish in that country had a much smaller proportion of slavisms in comparison to the co-territorial spoken language. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.127.241.2 (talk • contribs) 17 October 2006.

  • So are you saying that the Slavicisms in Soviet-sanctioned Yiddish were just an acknowledgment of the language as it was actually spoken in Russia (distinct from a more international Yiddish)? Or are you saying something else. - Jmabel | Talk 22:22, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

- There was really no Soviet-sanctioned Yiddish (at least in terms of vocabulary), but standardization work was being done. In accordance with the prevailing attitudes in the Soviet Union at the time, a great deal of work was done to create literary linguistic norms and clearly designate what was deemed "colloquial" (i.e. nonliterary), "archaic", and so on. Similar to other languages (first of all Russian), words identified as dialectal, slang, "unsofisticated", etc. were not considered as acceptable in the written language, except for stylization purposes. As a result, Soviet dictionaries of Yiddish do not include a great proportion of these words (almost exclusively slavisms), and when they do include them - often designate as "colloquialisms" and "archaic" (the latter is especially applied to words of Hebrew origin). This is why Soviet Yiddish publications have so noticeably fewer slavic words than contemporaneous publications in Poland. I'm not sure what is the more international Yiddish, but spoken Yiddish is markedly heavier on slavicisms than any written variety, be it Poland, Ukraine, Romania, but especially Belarus.

-In Miriam Weinstein's Yiddish: A Nation of Words, the following information is given on Soviet Yiddish on pages 95 and 96, contianed in Chapter 7, Russia: Kissed by a Thief.

"The Soviets...developed something called Soviet Yiddish. Wordds that retained a Hebrew-derived spelling, with its typical lack of vowels, were changed to a more European orthography. For example, the Yiddish word for "truth" is emes." The passage goes on to describe how the spelling of the word, and other such Hebrew-rooted words, was changed to be phonetic, so that "they no longer saw the link to the old prayers." She continues: "There were other changes as well. Many words that had a religious source were expunged...Words that had a Germanic base were replaced with those of Slavic backround. Some language planners and politicians...suggested replacing the Hebrew-derived alphabet with a Cyrillic one, although this was never carried out. Although some of the reforms, such as abandoning the separate forms of letters found at the ends of words, were attempts to simplify and rationalize the language, they began to run on their own steam. Language planners became so enamored of creating new words that they created some fifteen hundred of them, almost all Russian derivatives." I believe that the above is sufficent evidince to warrent a section, or at least the possibility of one.CharlesMartel 22:30, 17 October 2006 (UTC)CharlesMartel

- So, she is basically correct, and it has nothing to do with a "government-created dialect" (BTW, Soviet government generally possessed rather limited levels of fluency in Yiddish). Soviet Yiddish refers to the Soviet spelling reform. There was no universally accepted spelling at the time (and there is none now). Unified phonetic orthography was introduced for all words regardless of origin, as proposed by such major figures as Nokhem Shtif, by the way, and accepted not only in the Soviet, but also in many Romanian and left-wing American publications. A lot of other orthographic norms were introduced, as well. Note, that this was well before YIVO was even founded, not to mention their spelling suggestions. Of course, many religious words were designated archaic - as was religion in general. As to daytshmerisms, a plague of the journalism of that time, there indeed was a movement of using naturally occurring slavic or nonslavic words instead of these germanisms invented by the maskilim and unintelligible to the vast majority of natural speakers of the language. This effort continues to this day, but mostly in the secular publications. What is "1500 new words" (is it a lot?) and why is it bad to introduce new words is unclear to me (perhaps she means popular then abbreviations). Yes, there clearly was language planning in the USSR and later in YIVO (there is a book by prof. Estraikh on this topic), and this could be potentially described in more detail. In conclusion: 1. New Yiddish dialects have not been created by "the Soviets". 2. Spoken Yiddish is heavily replete with words of slavic origin and not only in the Slavic countries, but practically everywhere (Lithuania, Romania, Latvia, USA, Argentina), although they are rapidly disappearing from the Hasidic vocabulary. This is a fact of life.

"Facts of Life", aside, the point is that Soviet Yiddish was not a natural evolution of the language, but a contrived change, which at least warrents a mention (and, by the way, she was not stating that it was "bad" to introduce words, however, feel free to pull things out of your ass as needed). And, it should be noted, it was distinct from what was actually spoken in the Soviet Union at the time, rather, it was a literary language, and a new variety of Yiddish, like Litvish, Polyish, et all. Would it also be possible to include an article for American Yiddish?CharlesMartel 22:47, 20 October 2006 (UTC)CharlesMartel

- Look, I can understand your bias against "Soviet Yidish", whatever you mean by this term. The suggestion that it is not a natural evolution of the language, however, lacks any sense whatever. Any orthography is contrived, any orthography is not "a natural evolution of a language", and every written form of a language differs from a spoken one. Well, I am a native speaker of Yiddish and believe me that what I have grown up speaking is only remotely related to YIVO standards or to the publications in 'der id'. Well, again, 'unfortunately' the "Soviet orthography" is closer to the actually spoken language than both of the above: it was deliberately phonetically based (esp. as it comes to prepositions, prefixes, etc.), less heavy on daytshmerisms, and relied more on the simple spoken register rather than on the "learned" (lamdonish) one. Naturally, it had weak points of its own, but it was in fact introduced by great Soviet Yiddish linguists and not by "the Government" or KGB (NKVD). Yes-yes, there were Yiddish linguists in the USSR (and even a few writers). See brief discussion of "Soviet Yiddish" here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiddish_orthography. (BTW, I'm not sure it is germane to use your invective vocabulary in a scholarly discussion, speaking of various registers)

As long as I'm making a valid point, I don't see any problems with it. But what I'm saying is that it should at least be mentioned seprately, as an important facet of the language.CharlesMartel 03:43, 23 October 2006 (UTC)CharlesMartel

[edit] Recent changes

I haven't been heavily involved in this article; I'm more of an observer here, because I've been working on a lot of other aspects of Jewish secular culture. I notice several recent changes that strike me as odd, and I'm hoping that someone more involved can explain what's going on.

  • The following was removed from the info box without any apparently relevant summary. Why?
    script=[[Hebrew alphabet|Hebrew abjad]]
Yiddish is written with a full vocalic alphabet, not an abjab. Also, the template erroneously displays "Writing system" for the script value. The two are not synonymous. I'll try to work around that with a phrase rather than a word. --futhark 06:49, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
  • "Yiddish film" is linked to National Center for Jewish Film. This seems to me like an Easter Egg link. Is there some good reason for this that is escaping me?
That's where the major collection of extant Yiddish film is housed and is being reissued. --futhark 06:49, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Still an Easter Egg link. We should have an article Yiddish film; that is what should be linked here. - Jmabel | Talk 00:52, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
  • The reference in one place to Byelorussian SSR and in another to Belorussia seems an odd choice of orthography. Is there any reason not to bring them in line with one another?
  • We seem to have lost the statement "There are more than 100 newspapers, magazines and radio programs in the Yiddish language worldwide…"
What is the warrant for indicating that number? The fact that it seems plausible is not enough. --futhark 06:49, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
That link is provided at the top of the language template. --futhark 06:49, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

- Jmabel | Talk 23:05, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd also suggest that "usually those above 50 years of age" be changed to "usually those born before [some date]", because that is presumably more what is at issue. - Jmabel | Talk 23:17, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citations

http://regeringen.se/sb/d/6555/a/65634, provided as a citation for an "additional statement" by the Swedish government, does not exist. - Jmabel | Talk 00:15, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

There's another related dead link:

Jmabel | Talk 00:36, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Both these URLs go to the official Web site of the Swedish government, which has just changed after a national election. The documents would have to have been deliberately removed, and it may be reasonable to wonder why the new government took them off line. --futhark 07:47, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Also, it would be appreciated if someone can "caption" the linked Yiddish PDFs in a manner parallel to other sources; I'm not literate in Yiddish, so I'm not the one to do it. - Jmabel | Talk 00:42, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Done — but it was more of a headache than it should have been. The ref tag apparently doesn't know how to deal with bidirectional text, and since the name of one of the cited resources starts with right-to-left Hebrew characters and ends with left-to-right European digits, I ended up having to omit the digits. Neither fun nor encyclopedistic. (If there is some applicable mark-up that I have overlooked, I'd appreciate a pointer to it.) --futhark 09:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] the destruction of the yiddish wikipedia

Hi to everyone, first sorry for my very bad English.

I'm an active memberin the yiddish wikkipadia [16], and here is my user page there.

I'm coming here to you after the destruction of the yiddish wikipadia, which currently have only 5-7 users, and one user with the name "yidel" [17] success to make them all quiet!

Most of active users in the Yiddish wikipadia went away for one reason: yidel!!!

He attacked already all; again "ALL" Yiddish wikipadia users. And every day he makes here a big slaughter house!!!!

There were votes to black him out, and all active users vote so.

All new users gat attacked from him; since he is there we didn’t received nothing from him, only to drunk the blood of all of us!

The sysop RUNY [18] where blocked out from the sysop rights by User:Danny after he tuck away the sysop rights from yidel.

Now we ask you with tears in the eyes, pleeeaasss!!! Think about the future of wikipadia, a lot of users went away just because yidel, if you know a little Yiddish you can check it out yourself.

Block him out, and give us the opportunity to build a informative wikkipadia, and not a loathing fighting wikkipadia. Give the sysop rights back to runy, to a man what is thinking about a successful wikkipadia. And block out the guy who is only thinking of carob the wikipadia.

Links:

  • Yiddish wikipidia users ask User:Danny to handle honestly, to think about the future of the yiddish wikipadia. [19]
  • The alert in the yiddish wikpadia [20].
  • the votes in the yiddish wikipadia to give back the rights to RUNY [21]
  • one of the most active users "kotzker" says:

I won't vote directly on the subject since I haven't been active for a few weeks and I'm unfamilliar with the latest dispute. However, there has been an ongoing problem with Yiedel, whose attitude is frequently antagonistic and far from conducive to the necessary cooperative spirit. I think most active users agree that Yiedel has been a source of considerable frustration by his failing to assume good faith and to refrain from personal attacks. From my experiences, Roni has shown himself to be a levelheaded and responsible administrator. And it is high time for someone to take Yiedel to task on his behavior. --קאצקער 03:02, 24 נאוועמבער 2006 (UTC) [22].

So now we are without a wikkipadia. Yidel vandals the wikkipadia the last 24 hours. [23].

PLEAS HELP US!!!!

thank you!--Alzuz 17:04, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

For the record this above tirade against me is nothing but a temptation to silence me, i have done nothing wrong, and he doesn't even try to name one think i have done wrong so my answer only serves to his agenda it should sound like something is going on. Truth is the Yiddish Wikipedia needs your help, but simply because we are not yet a community, and the only one toiling away there is me. Thanks--yidi 11:26, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] American Yiddish

I would like to know if it would be okay to create an article for the American Dialect of Yiddish. There are plenty of distinct features, like the "Ameridish" in "The Joys of Yiddish", and I think an article is required.CharlesMartel 00:05, 28 November 2006 (UTC)CharlesMartel

If you mean a "dialect" in the Yinglish sense, no new article is needed. Ameridish is included in it and you can build on that. There is also the redundant List of English words of Yiddish origin, and any effort at resolving the overlap between the two articles would be really useful. If you mean Yeshivish, there is also an article in place. If, however, you mean a more rigorous dialectological consideration of Yiddish variation among mother-tongue speakers in North and South America, it could reasonably be added to Yiddish dialects. --futhark 07:39, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I was refering to the dialect of mother-tongue speakers of Yiddish, primarily in the United States. There's a lot about it in "Yiddish, a Nation of Words", as well as "The Joys of Yiddish". Also, I have noticed that there is only one page for all the Yiddish dialects. I think that there is enough information about all of them to create seperate articles.CharlesMartel 00:05, 28 November 2006 (UTC)CharlesMartel

[edit] Sorry for off-topic

I entered an article on Yiddish poet Srul Bronshtein in the English, Russian, and Yiddish wikipedias (as well as articles on other Yiddish poets in Russian, incl, Yankev Shternberg - helped with English version of the latter, too). Now, my entries are stalked - in Russian with the only explanation that there are too many Jewish entries already. The same person marked my English language entry on Bronshtein for deletion, as well. If anyone has some time for this, please visit the discussion there. --SimulacrumDP 23:39, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

This was easily kept. - Jmabel | Talk 02:52, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lead paragraph guidelines

How is this article in violation of those guidelines? I can't see anything in them that isn't being heeded.--futhark 06:59, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jewish as a noun

I am quite nonplussed about the use of 'Jewish' as a noun. I can find hundreds of uses of 'Jewish' as an adjective but none as a noun. I have heard very few people use 'Jewish' as a noun (meaning 'Yiddish').

The sentences in this article which use 'Jewish' as a noun are unintelligible to 99% of English speakers. This use is not readily found in dictionaries. e.g. The Shorter Oxford Dictionary recognizes 'Jewish' as an adjective but not as a noun. The noun usage is confusing and should be deleted. Redaktor 13:36, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I cannot spot one single instance of the word 'Jewish' being used as a noun in this article (a specific pointer, please, if I have overlooked anything). I have, however, frequently heard 'Jewish' and 'Yiddish' used as synonymous designations for the same language by mother-tongue Yiddish speakers in the USA, when speaking English. When double-checking before mentioning that usage in this article, I was told that the preference correlates to the speaker's place of origin. --futhark 14:34, 13 December 2006 (UTC)


The very first line says n. and adj. That's one place. Then there is a para: "The word yidish means Jewish both as a noun and as an adjective. Anglophone members of the Ashkenazi community also use the words Yiddish …" This is placed very prominently in the intro. (Second place) In fact it is a minor point. It is incorrect to say the "Anglophone members of the Ashkenazi community…" when, as you say it is only used by mother-tongue Yiddish speakers in the USA, and only a specific group of those (ones who came from Europe). That is only a small fraction of all Anglophone members of the Ashkenazi community, most of whom would not recognize the use of "Jewish" as a synonym of Yiddish (esp. as they would get no help from a dictionary, where Jewish is an adjective). My preference is to remove all refernce to the noun "Jewish", but rather than start a war over it (is anyone really attached to this use?) perhaps just delete the reference in the first line, and move the paargraph describing the use somewhere less prominent. Redaktor 09:28, 15 December 2006 (UTC)


"The very first line says n. and adj." That is a statement of the parts of speech the word yidish serves as in the Yiddish language, and what that word means when translated into English. "Then there is a para: 'The word yidish means Jewish both as a noun and as an adjective.'" A statement of the multiple grammatical functions a word can have does not implicitly ascribe any of them to the target term. If the quoted statement is an instance of "Jewish" being used as a noun, the following statement would be a logical impossibility: "The word Jewish is never used as a noun."
Your initial statement "I have heard very few people use 'Jewish' as a noun (meaning 'Yiddish')" doesn't contradict any of this; limited usage is not the same thing as no usage (of all the things to need to point out in a discussion about Yiddish!). Since the article, itself, does not use the word as a noun, I have a rough time understanding what the substantive basis for your complaint is. I will do my best, nonetheless, to change the wording to reduce what is apparently a matter of some cultural sensitivity. (My own feelings on the matter are not absolutely neutral, but WP articles aren't vehicles for such things.) --futhark 12:31, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
I think it reads much better now Redaktor 14:21, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Printing — Rashi script

I have flagged the sentences An additional distinctive semicursive typeface was, and still is, used in Yiddish press for rabbinical commentary on religious texts when both appear on the same page. This is commonly termed Rashi from the name of the most renowned early author of such material. (Rashi is also the typeface normally used when the Sefardi counterpart to Yiddish, Ladino, is printed in Hebrew script.) I am not aware of any use of (so-called) Rashi script for Yiddish. AFAIK it is used only for rabbinical commentaries in Hebrew. Unless someone can provide a source for its use in Yiddish, I propose to delete this passage. --Redaktor 13:16, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Nobody said that the rabbinical commentary was in Yiddish. I've reworded the sentence to make that clearer. -- Futhark|Talk 15:54, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification. But it is still irrelevant to this article, since rabbinical commentaries are printed in 'Rashi script' whether or not Yiddish appears on the same page. Perhaps you can provide an example where the presence of Yiddish influences the use of Rashi Script? --Redaktor 00:19, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
The text is intended to indicate that Yiddish is an element of a rich multilingual and typographically differentiated printing tradition, and not something that just appears in isolation. This is relevant to a survey presentation of Yiddish without need for any demonstration of that language somehow modulating the way others appear adjacent to it in print. --Futhark|Talk 08:44, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lachoudisch

Lachoudisch is a dialect spoken in Schopfloch a village in Bavaria, Germany, district of Central Franconia (Mittelfranken), close to Rothenburg. In the 16th century it was a “secret language” used by Jewish cattle traders, but after a while virtually all inhabitants spoke it. Even after the Shoa almost a hundred words have remained in the town’s lingua franca, and Schopfloch’s former mayor, Hans-Rainer Hofmann, has written a book called “Lachoudisch Sprechen”. In the village are still people living which speak the language fluently. Zvi Lidar, a correspondent for Israeli television, did a documentary on Schopfloch that created something of a sensation at home. Mr. Lidar had learned about the village from an Israeli diplomat who happened to spend a night in a local inn, and was astonished when a waitress understood his children's needs when they spoke in Hebrew. ( NYT, 1984 ) …Lachoudisch – the term actually being traceable to Hebrew låshōn+qodεsh ‘language+holiness’ (denoting the ‘holy language’, referring to ‘Hebrew’) Its grammar is Germanic but its lexicon is based on German Ashkenazic Hebrew (sometimes via Yiddish). So the interesting point is, that Lachoudisch is relatively close to Israeli Hebrew! OK, it`s nothing that needs to be mentioned in the article, but it`s a very fascinating phenomenon for those who are interested in genesis and expansion of Yiddish. [24][25] [26] --Sushi Leone 11:07, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

This might well be worth describing in further detail in the article on Western Yiddish (which otherwise needs a good deal of work). Where can the book on “Lachoudisch Sprechen” be acquired? (None of the German online bookshops that I know of carry it.) Before proceeding with any WP text, however, the following contribution by Mikhl Herzog to a discussion on Mendele in July 1992 (vol02.048) should also be noted:
"The Lachoudisch business keeps reemerging every so often as a kind of sensational 'archaeological' find. It makes the rounds of world newspapers and each generation gets the thrill of rediscovery. Something like the discovery of crypto-Jews in Latin American jungles. I don't have immediate access to the bibliographic references. Didn't Dovid Katz include a piece on the subject somewhere recently? I think it's what you say it is, a concentration of vestiges, among non-Jews, of words deriving from Jewish speech. The pronunciation of the name probably varies among Lacho:dish, Lachoudish and Lachaudisch--which can be either 'holam'-derived or 'kamats'-derived in Western Yiddish (for example: Yiddish 'broygez' and 'xarote' have these variants). I'm inclined to derive Lachoudisch, a non-Jewish designation, from the frequent designation, among Jews, for their own language as something like 'loushnakoudish'." --Futhark|Talk 10:31, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Hofmanns book can be acquired online here: [27]

I agree with Mikhl Herzog: “The thrill of the sensational” dominates the ( public ) perception of Lachoudisch – maybe because of the date, location and socio-cultural circumstances of its “rediscovery”. Certainly Lachoudisch isn’t the only “former secret language” of Yiddish origin that still lingers around as a dialect / sociolect among Non-Jews ( like Münster`s “Masematte” for instance ) but Lachoudisch seems to be interesting in its lingual structure ( as far as I understood it ) and it is not very well examined. --Sushi Leone 04:55, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Roots

The Ashkenazi culture that was taking root in 10th-century? The oldest jewish communities dating back to the 4th Century. The Community of Colon is dating back to 321 a. d. In Germany it is believed that the first jews came in the times of the Roman Empire. --84.175.199.178 19:47, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

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