Yiddish

Yiddish is a language used by some Jews. At first, it was a dialect of German that Jews began to use in Europe about 1000 years ago. It was and still is used in the United States, especially in New York City, and other countries that now have Jews.

Yiddish
ייִדיש, יידיש or אידיש yidish/idish/yidish
Pronunciation	[ˈjɪdɪʃ] or [ˈɪdɪʃ]
Native to	Central, Eastern, and Western Europe
Region	Israel, North America, other regions with Jewish populations
Native speakers	(1.5 million cited 1986–1991 + half undated)
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic Elbe Germanic High German Yiddish
Writing system	Hebrew alphabet (Yiddish orthography)
Official status
Recognised minority language in	Bosnia and Herzegovina Israel Netherlands Poland Romania Sweden Ukraine
Regulated by	no formal bodies; YIVO de facto
Language codes
ISO 639-1	yi
ISO 639-2	yid
ISO 639-3	yid – inclusive code Individual codes: ydd – Eastern Yiddish yih – Western Yiddish
Glottolog	yidd1255
Linguasphere	52-ACB-g = 52-ACB-ga (West) + 52-ACB-gb (East); totalling 11 varieties

Most Yiddish words come from German, but many words are also from Hebrew and Slavic languages, especially Polish, and some from French, Hungarian and Latin. Yiddish is written usually by the Hebrew alphabet.

In the world, Yiddish is spoken by about 3 million people, mainly Hasidic Jews.

European Charter

In the Netherlands and Sweden, Yiddish is protected by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

Related pages

• Isaac Bashevis Singer
• Ladino language

Other websites

• Di Velt fun Yidish: Audio Stories Archived 2009-04-13 at the Wayback Machine