Author Topic: The evolution of Yiddish?  (Read 1478 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline billwhite2

  • New JTFer
  • *
  • Posts: 13
    • CB Software Solutions, LLC
The evolution of Yiddish?
« on: July 09, 2008, 06:16:08 PM »
Hi all,

Another question for my Jewish mentors:

How did Yiddish evolve?
Is it a slang version of Hebrew?
Did Yiddish serve as a safe way to preserve the Hebrew language?
Am I giving too much importance to Yiddish?

Thank you all!

Regards,

Bill White

Offline mord

  • Global Moderator
  • Platinum JTF Member
  • *
  • Posts: 25853
Re: The evolution of Yiddish?
« Reply #1 on: July 09, 2008, 06:24:41 PM »
I don'nt know too much about Yiddish i think it's closer to Low German then Hebrew
Thy destroyers and they that make thee waste shall go forth of thee.  Isaiah 49:17

 
Shot at 2010-01-03

Offline Americanhero1

  • Silver Star JTF Member
  • ********
  • Posts: 7617
  • I ain't going anywhere
Re: The evolution of Yiddish?
« Reply #2 on: July 09, 2008, 06:27:34 PM »
I don't know too much about Yiddish i think it's closer to Low German then Hebrew
Yiddish is a nonterritorial High German language, spoken throughout the world and written with the Hebrew alphabet.

The language originated in the Ashkenazi culture that developed from about the 10th century in the Rhineland and then spread to central and eastern Europe and eventually to other continents.

Offline mord

  • Global Moderator
  • Platinum JTF Member
  • *
  • Posts: 25853
Re: The evolution of Yiddish?
« Reply #3 on: July 09, 2008, 06:31:25 PM »
I don't know too much about Yiddish i think it's closer to Low German then Hebrew
Yiddish is a nonterritorial High German language, spoken throughout the world and written with the Hebrew alphabet.

The language originated in the Ashkenazi culture that developed from about the 10th century in the Rhineland and then spread to central and eastern Europe and eventually to other continents.

Yes that sounds right whats high German
Thy destroyers and they that make thee waste shall go forth of thee.  Isaiah 49:17

 
Shot at 2010-01-03

Offline Americanhero1

  • Silver Star JTF Member
  • ********
  • Posts: 7617
  • I ain't going anywhere
Re: The evolution of Yiddish?
« Reply #4 on: July 09, 2008, 06:32:32 PM »
I don't know too much about Yiddish i think it's closer to Low German then Hebrew
Yiddish is a nonterritorial High German language, spoken throughout the world and written with the Hebrew alphabet.

The language originated in the Ashkenazi culture that developed from about the 10th century in the Rhineland and then spread to central and eastern Europe and eventually to other continents.

Yes that sounds right whats high German

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_german

Offline mord

  • Global Moderator
  • Platinum JTF Member
  • *
  • Posts: 25853
Re: The evolution of Yiddish?
« Reply #5 on: July 09, 2008, 06:35:54 PM »
I don't know too much about Yiddish i think it's closer to Low German then Hebrew
Yiddish is a nonterritorial High German language, spoken throughout the world and written with the Hebrew alphabet.

The language originated in the Ashkenazi culture that developed from about the 10th century in the Rhineland and then spread to central and eastern Europe and eventually to other continents.

Yes that sounds right whats high German

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_german
Interesting O0
Thy destroyers and they that make thee waste shall go forth of thee.  Isaiah 49:17

 
Shot at 2010-01-03

Offline billwhite2

  • New JTFer
  • *
  • Posts: 13
    • CB Software Solutions, LLC
Re: The evolution of Yiddish?
« Reply #6 on: July 09, 2008, 06:37:05 PM »
Wow, thanks for the great information!

Bill W.

Offline zachor_ve_kavod

  • Master JTFer
  • ******
  • Posts: 2179
Re: The evolution of Yiddish?
« Reply #7 on: July 09, 2008, 06:59:17 PM »
Yiddish is a hybrid language of mostly German and some Hebrew.  It is written in Hebrew but unlike Hebrew, it is pronounced completely phoenetically.  Yiddish was spoken since roughly the tenth century in Eastern Europe and is most closely associated with the Jews living in the Pale of Settlement.  It was a language of the home and the street, not a particularly scientific language, but very expressive and poetic.  Hebrew was spoken and read only for religious purposes.  Yiddish literature and theatre is in my opinion unparalleled in its artistic beauty.  A couple of Yiddish writers were Isaac Bashevis Singer and Sholem Aleichem.  Sholem Aleichem wrote 'Tevie the Milkman', which would later be adapted into a Broadway play 'Fiddler on the Roof'.  Yiddish is still spoken by some Chasidic and Haredi communities, but the language was murdered in Europe by the Nazis ym"sh.

Offline MassuhDGoodName

  • Ultimate JTFer
  • *******
  • Posts: 4542
Re: The evolution of Yiddish?
« Reply #8 on: July 09, 2008, 10:36:00 PM »
Re:  "...How did Yiddish evolve?"

Yiddish developed as Jews of the Exile living in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germanic territories began intermixing German language and some other European linguistical syntax and grammar into the Hebrew which they spoke at home.
Thinks of it in terms of how the English of Americans today must sound & look totally unintelligible by those who speak only proper Elizabethan Queen's English. 
There are so many assimmilated Negro ghetto slangs and grammatical ruinations, along with adopted concepts and words from other countries and languages in modern American English, that what sounds just fine to us as we speak and write every day is actually nowhere near being the original mother English tongue.
This is true of all living languages...they are constantly undergoing mutations and in some instances, degradations.

Offline YESHA

  • Honorable Winged Member
  • Pro JTFer
  • *
  • Posts: 553
  • I love our Yesha residents - Judea & Samaria.
Re: The evolution of Yiddish?
« Reply #9 on: July 10, 2008, 07:30:20 AM »
Today you have a lot of Yi-nglish!