The Yiddish (“Jewish”) language, derived from medieval west High German but also intermingled with Hebrew, Aramaic, and different Slavic and Romance languages, became the vernacular of the Ashkenazi Jews (Jewish people of German or Eastern European origin). The language has evolved over the centuries, richly influencing Jewish literature, theater, and music.
Possibly the language came into existence during the 9th or 10th century when French and northern Italian Jews started arriving in the Rhine Valley of Germany (especially the cities of Speyer, Worms, and Mainz), combining the languages of their homelands along with the French-Jewish dialect known as Laaz, various idiomatic phrases derived from scripture and the Talmud, perhaps some elements of Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew, and the Germanic language of the locals living in the Rhine Valley. Dates are not well known for the various changes in and evolution of the Yiddish language over the centuries.
The first known Yiddish sentence found in existence was in 1272, in the form of a blessing. Yiddish was the only spoken language of the Jewish people in some communities for thousands of years and was a language that unified the Jewish people of the diaspora no matter where they lived. It was a language not based on a geographical region but tied to the Jewish people throughout the world. Today, it is mostly extinct, except in a few ultra-Orthodox communities, and has been revived within academia.
Hebrew belongs to the Afro-Asiatic language family, whereas Yiddish is the kaleidoscope of different Slavic and Romance languages infused with medieval German. Even though Hebrew and Yiddish use the same alphabet (though some Yiddish has adapted to use the Latin alphabet), the languages are distinct in composition and sound; Yiddish is essentially a language of the European Jewry, closer in structure to German and some Slavic languages than to Hebrew. Yiddish was used conversationally and in some business contexts, whereas Hebrew has been regarded as the language of the Jewish people worldwide, mostly in the context of prayer and liturgy, even if it is not spoken otherwise on a daily basis outside of Israel. Certain academics were conducted in Aramaic meanwhile.
As the Jewish people continued to move throughout the world, especially moving eastward during the Crusades to avoid persecution and the Black Plague, Yiddish spread to such places as Poland, Eastern Germany, and Eastern Europe. During this time, Yiddish began to morph into different regional dialects, influenced by different Slavic languages. No longer was it considered a Germanic dialect, but it was becoming its own distinct language that was no longer a dialect of anything.
This did create some divides between the Yiddish of Eastern Europe and the Yiddish of the Jews who lived in France and Western Germany without the Slavic overtones. Because Jews often isolated themselves from non-Jewish communities to avoid persecution, the language took on more importance as part of the isolation and had minimal influence from neighboring communities.
Some 14th-century poetry, in particular, made use of the Yiddish language. The language became even more frequently used after the invention of the printing press, though favoring the Eastern European version of Yiddish over the Western European version.
By the 18th century, the Haskalah (the era of Jewish enlightenment that also emphasized secular education and increased assimilation into the secular world) started referring to Yiddish as “barbaric jargon” and started emphasizing the use of German instead, despite the prolific use of Yiddish in parts of Eastern Europe. Jewish students would now learn German in school, and Yiddish was looked down upon; if anything, Hebrew was deemed a “purer” language for Jeish students to learn if they wanted to learn the language of their ancestry compared to Yiddish.
One description of Yiddish described it, "Yiddish grates on our ears and distorts. This jargon is incapable, in fact, of expressing sublime thoughts. It is our obligation to cast off these old rags, a heritage of the dark Middle Ages."
Many Jewish people wanted to be accepted into broader society and were desperate for acceptance, not wanting to be seen as “low life” or “gang members” for speaking a seemingly Jewish language. Therefore, not speaking Yiddish and not teaching it to their children was fine with them, leading to declines in use of the language. Interestingly, some Jewish communities had more interest in learning Russian at the time as a second or third language than they did in learning Hebrew or Yiddish. Yet, there remained isolated pockets of Jewish people holding onto the Yiddish language during these years.
In the 19th century, Yiddish started to become more widely used as a vibrant medium in poetry, theater, newspapers, and novels; the language had been used for a long time for such things as literature, certain religious writings, and folklore, but not in more of the novel and short story genres until this period. Authors such as Sholem Aleichem made their literary contributions during this era.
This is also the time frame in history when The Forward, a prominent Yiddish periodical, took off in prominence with its daily publications on issues such as politics, religion, economics, and the social issues of the day. This led to an increase in other Yiddish journalism, with periodicals emerging in different communities. Most of this Yiddish favored the Eastern European version of Yiddish with its Slavic flavors, whereas Western European Yiddish was largely starting to die out.
By the early 20th century, the Czernowitz Conference, an international conference on Yiddish and the importance of Yiddish schools, culture, and standard spelling, declared Yiddish officially to be a (not "the,” as was heavily debated, but “a”) national language of the Jewish people. Yiddish communities flourished throughout the world in such diverse places as Johannesburg, Buenos Aires, Toronto, and the United States.
The only place where Yiddish did not flourish during this time was in Israel, where it was looked down upon as an inferior language. In Israel, Yiddish was not welcome at best or outlawed in worst-case scenarios. Even after Israel became a state, Hebrew was deemed the national language, and Yiddish basically died out even in the newly formed Jewish state except for isolated Israeli communities.
After the Czernowitz Conference, the Yiddish language saw tremendous support, in particular in the early years of the Soviet Union, which supported the Yiddish language financially and through government-sponsored programs for a time. There were even district Yiddish post offices in some parts of the Soviet Union during the years when the Yiddish language and culture were supported.
This lasted until such time as the Soviet government saw fit to censor the Yiddish language, close Yiddish schools and institutions, and arrest writers, scholars, and local leaders who used the Yiddish language as the language was deemed anti-Soviet. Yiddish was banned in the Soviet Union during and after the Holocaust. The Night of Murdered Poets in 1952 resulted in pretty much no Yiddish communicators remaining in the Soviet Union.
The architects of the Holocaust murdered millions of speakers of the Yiddish language, of which there are believed to be 13 million Yiddish speakers (out of 17 million Jewish people worldwide) prior to the Holocaust and a fraction of those remaining after the Holocaust.
After the war, many families who did speak Yiddish were fearful to teach the language to their children, and this coincided with American culture taking over the world, which also had adverse effects on what remaining Yiddish schools and institutions may have survived the Holocaust. Thus, Yiddish became associated with poverty, a lack of education, and a failure to achieve the American Dream and was looked down upon, further resulting in families not wanting to teach their children a language that was not welcome in the increasingly global, Americanized world.
There was some level of interest in preserving and revitalizing Yiddish in the 1970s because of nostalgic reasons. This sentiment also came through in the revival of Klezmer-style music at this time, but Yiddish has never again assumed the level of prominence that it previously had. It is gaining some interest not only in parts of Israel and the ultra-Orthodox communities of primarily the Crown Heights, Williamsburg, and Borough Park neighborhoods of Brooklyn and a few other isolated patches of New York City and neighboring New Jersey.
Additionally, Yiddish is still spoken even as a first language in a few Jewish communities in Montreal and in the United Kingdom. The Yiddish language is taught in some non-Jewish institutions of higher learning (e.g., Columbia University, McGill University, University of Oxford, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and others) who view Yiddish as an actual language worthy of study on its own merits and not a language of poverty, lesser education, gangs, crime, failure to climb a socioeconomic ladder, or otherwise lesser importance.
Yiddish is not considered a dead language because of interest in it within academic circles and select communities throughout the world, even being considered a minority language in such places as Sweden (which even has cartoons, government materials, TV shows, children’s books, and various web content regularly printed in Yiddish) and Moldovia. The language is not as widespread in its usage as it was in the past, but among academics, cultural organizations, and individuals desiring to preserve the language of their ancestors, Yiddish still remains present in certain communities and cultural expressions.
Approximately 3 million people today worldwide currently speak Yiddish with varying degrees of fluency. These speakers are most often found in Hasidic and Haredi Jewish communities. Interestingly, many of those who consider Yiddish to be their first language may not use it in everyday conversation. Nevertheless, Yiddish continues to hold a significant place in in Jewish culture despite its diminished prevalence.
Image: American World War I-era poster in Yiddish. Translated caption: "Food will win the war – You came here seeking freedom, now you must help to preserve it – We must supply the Allies with wheat – Let nothing go to waste." Public Domain.
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