Yiddish phonology

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There is significant phonological variation among the various dialects of the Yiddish language. The description that follows is of a modern Standard Yiddish that was devised during the early 20th century and is frequently encountered in pedagogical contexts. Its genesis is described in the article on Yiddish dialects.

1 Consonants
2 Vowels
3 Comparison with German
4 References
5 Bibliography
6 Further reading
7 External links

[edit] Consonants

Yiddish consonants
		Labial	Dental	Post- alveolar	Velar/ Uvular	Glottal
Nasal		m	n		(ŋ)¹
Plosive		p b	t d		k g
Affricate			ts dz	tʃ dʒ
Fricative		f v	s z	ʃ ʒ	χ	h
Rhotic			ɾ²
Approximant	central			j
Approximant	lateral		l³	ʎ

[ŋ] is not a separate phoneme but an allophone of /n/ before a velar or syllabically following /k/ or /g/.
Depending on speaker, the rhotic /r/ may be realized either as an alveolar trill [r], an alveolar tap ɾ, or a uvular trill [ʀ].
The "plain" lateral /l/ is generally velarized.
Yiddish has a number of palatalised coronal consonants, mostly from Slavic loanwords: [sʲ], [zʲ], [tsʲ], [dzʲ], [tɕ], [dʑ], [nʲ],^[1] and [lʲ]. The phonemic status of these palatalised consonants, as well as any other affricates, is unclear.

As in the Slavic languages with which Yiddish was long in contact (Russian, Belarusian, Polish, and Ukrainian), but unlike German, voiceless stops have little to no aspiration; unlike many such languages, voiced stops are not devoiced in final position.^[2] Moreover, Yiddish has regressive voicing assimilation, so that, for example, זאָגט /zɔgt/ ('says') is pronounced [zɔkt] and הקדמה /hakˈdɔmə/ ('foreword') is pronounced [hagˈdɔmə].

[edit] Vowels

The vowel phonemes of Standard Yiddish are:

Yiddish monophthongs^[3]
	Front (unrounded)	Central (unrounded)	Back (rounded)
Close	ɪ		ʊ
Mid	ɛ	ə	ɔ
Open		a

Diphthongs^[4]
Front nucleus	Central nucleus	Back nucleus
ɛɪ	aɛ	ɔə

In addition, the sonorant consonants /l/ and /n/ can function as syllable nuclei:

אײזל /ˈɛɪzl̩/ 'donkey'
אָװנט /ˈɔvn̩t/ 'evening'

[m] and [ŋ] appear as syllable nuclei as well, but only as allophones of /n/, after bilabial consonants and dorsal consonants, respectively.

The syllabic sonorants and [ə] are always unstressed. [ə] can be analyzed as the unstressed allophone of /ɛ/.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Comparison with German

In vocabulary of Germanic origin, the differences between Standard German and Standard Yiddish pronunciation are mainly in the vowels and diphthongs. Examples are the German long a as in Vater 'father', which corresponds to o in the Yiddish פֿאָטער foter, and the German long e and long o which are diphthongized in Yiddish to ey and oy. As in many Germanic languages, and even in many dialects of German itself, Yiddish lacks the German front rounded umlaut vowels ö and ü. They are replaced in Yiddish by e and i respectively. Diphthongs have also undergone divergent developments in German and Yiddish. Where Standard German has merged the Middle High German diphthong ei and long vowel î to ei (pronounced [ai]), Standard Yiddish has maintained the distinction between them as ey and ay respectively. The German au (as in kaufen 'buy') corresponds to the Yiddish oy (in קױפֿן koyfn); lastly, the German eu (pronounced [oi], as in Deutsch 'German') corresponds to ay in Yiddish (in דײַטש daytsh). Consonantal differences between German and Yiddish include the smoothing of the German affricate pf to plain f in Yiddish, and the fact that Standard Yiddish (but not Standard German) allows word-final voiced obstruents.

German	Yiddish	Example (German → Yiddish)
short a	o	Vater → foter
long e	ey	Esel → eysl
long o	oy	hoch → hoykh
ö	e	möglich → meglekh
ü	i	Brücke → brick
ei	ey, ay (MHG ei, î)	mein » mayn, Fleisch » fleysh
au	oy	auch » oykh
eu [oi]	ay	Deutsch » daytsh

[edit] References

[edit] Bibliography

Birnbaum, Solomon A., Yiddish: A Survey and a Grammar, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1979, ISBN 0-8020-5382-3.
Herzog, Marvin, et.al. ed., YIVO, The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry, 3 vols., Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tubingen, 1992-2000, ISBN 3-484-73013-7.
Jacobs, Neil G. (2005). Yiddish: A Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge University Press.
Kleine, Ane (2003), "Standard Yiddish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33 (2): 261-265