Ich farshtey nisht: Yiddish

Q. Why does Yiddish sound like German

A. Because grammatically and lexically Yiddish - from the German J�disch, Jewish - is a Germanic language, which means that, in addition to German, it is closely related to Dutch, Afrikaans, Frisian and, of course, English. The example in the headline to this article, Ich farshtey nisht (I don't understand), is pretty much the same as the modern German Ich verstehe nicht.

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Q. When did the language come about

A. The earliest dated Yiddish documents are from the 12th century, but its origins lie in the 9th century when the Ashkenazim - the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, as distinct from the Sephardic Jews of the Mediterranean countries - emerged as a unique cultural entity. The German base was augmented by Romance, Aramaic and Hebrew vocabularies and written in the Hebrew script. As the language moved from its German heartland into eastern Europe it also absorbed many Slavic characteristics.

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Q. Where is it spoken

Today it is somewhat diminished and is mostly spoken among the remaining European Ashkenazim in the former Soviet bloc, Israel - obviously - and North America. However, if you happen to be passing through Stamford Hill in Hackney, north-east London, you'll hear plenty of Yiddish being spoken by the large Hasidic, or Orthodox, community there.

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Once upon a time, however, Yiddish was one of the most geographically widespread languages in the world, with millions of speakers using a variety of dialects ranged across Europe from Holland, throughout the German-, Baltic- and Slavic-speaking lands and right to the farthest reaches of the old Russian Empire.

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In Germany Yiddish began to decline through the 18th and 19th centuries as a result both of official 'Germanisation' and the more general assimilation of Jews into mainstream German culture. In the east, however, the language thrived, despite many attempts at suppression by various governments.

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During WWII millions of Yiddish speakers were murdered by the Nazis, and the number of speakers was further reduced by official discouragement in the Soviet Union, by the semi-official antagonism - curiously - of Israeli authorities (who wanted to protect Hebrew) against Yiddish speakers and massive shifts to other languages in Europe and America.

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Q. Have any Yiddish words come into English

A. American-English is peppered with Yiddish words: schmuk, schlemiel, cacamaimey and gelt are all familiar terms these days. However, British-English assimilated Yiddish words, initially through various slangs, particularly in London, from the large-scale Eastern-European Jewish immigration into Whitechapel, east London, at the turn of the 20th century.

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Q. Such as

A. Nosh, kosher, chutzpah, schmooze, schlep and schnozz�all spring swiftly to mind, though there are plenty more.

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Q. And Hebrew

A. Hebrew is an ancient Semitic language. From the same family as modern Arabic, Hebrew was the language of the early Jews, though it was supplanted as the everyday language of Judaea in the 6th century BC by Aramaic. Aramaic, which remained the principal language of the region until replaced by Arabic around 650AD - although some villagers in Lebanon still use it as a mother tongue - was the language spoken by Jesus and his followers, while Hebrew remained in use only among the upper classes and as the language of religion.

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Aramaic was used by European Jewry alongside Yiddish for many centuries, while Hebrew continued to be used in the synagogue. As the Zionist movement got under way in the 19th and 20th centuries, a modern version of spoken Hebrew was developed, and this was adopted in 1948 as the official language of the state of Israel - the only example of the successful resurrection of what was, in effect, a dead tongue.

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For more about the Yiddish language and culture and links to other related sites go to http://www.ibiblio.org/yiddish/shtetl.html

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See also the article on Dutch

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For more on Phrases and Sayings click here

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By Simon Smith