Are Yiddish and Hebrew Similar?

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Yiddish and Hebrew are often thought to be closely related languages because of their shared script, and because they are both connected with the Jewish people. But the truth is that Yiddish and Hebrew and basically unrelated to each other. Hebrew is a Semitic language, most closely related with Arabic, while Yiddish is a Germanic language most closely related to German.
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[@Langfocus]

Hi everyone! If you're currently learning Hebrew, visit HebrewPod101 ( bit.ly/HebrewPod ) for a huge collection of Hebrew lessons for students of all levels. A free account gives you access to hundreds of audio and video lessons with text transcripts. It's a great resource. I'm a member of HebrewPod101 and several other Pod101 sites, and I hope you like them as much as I do! For 33 other languages, check out my review! langfocus.com/innovative-language-podcasts/ (Full disclosure: if you sign up for a premium account, Langfocus receives a small referral fee. But if I didn't like it, I wouldn't recommend it!)

[@MrLantean]

I would like to hear an expert opinion from you. I am aware that Hebrew has ceased being a vernacular language for nearly 2000 years and its usage is limited as liturgical language of Jewish religion as well as some Jewish philosophical works. When the language is revived during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it is an archaic language lacking modern and contemporary words, terms and phrases. Eliezer ben Yehuda reinvented new words from archaic Hebrew terms and gives new meanings to them. He also adopted loanwords from existing Semitic languages like Arabic and Aramaic into Hebrew vocabulary. According to Ghilad Zuckerman, the modern Hebrew is actually a hybrid language with Hebrew as the core and blends with various languages spoken by Jewish communities. He argues that the modern Hebrew should be renamed as Israeli language rather. According to him, the language is strongly influenced by European Jewish languages especially Yiddish rather than the Semitic family of languages. He even argued that had the proponents of Hebrew revival are Middle Eastern Jews who speak Arabic and Aramaic, the modern Hebrew will be a totally different language being more Semitic than the current Hebrew language. What do you think? Is Modern Hebrew strongly influenced by Yiddish rather than Semitic family of languages?

[@anthonyoregan3281]

Would you be interested in a Yiddish speaking part in our podcast

[@orinattiv]

אני אישית מדבר עברית מלידה אבל זה נורא כיף לראות מישהו שבאמת טרח ללמוד את השפה הקשה הזאת (שדי קרובה ללבי) ועוד עברית תנכית וארמית!

[@joshuatift4640]

Don’t visits them at all they are scam artist I paid $130 for their course and I didn’t learn not one thing at all.

[@itsytyt5192]

יי

[@DieAlteistwiederda]

I'm German and can understand a lot of Yiddish if it's spoken. It's sounds like a "dialect" of German to my ears and I can understand about 70%.

[@ledzepgirl92]

a friend of mine visited NYC last year and told me she was surprised to hear a weird german dialect so often in the streets only to realise a moment later she was in NYC and this was Yiddish, ha.

[@axisboss1654]

Yiddish is basically Old German. Like from the Middle Ages.

[@penand_paper6661]

That was the Russian dialect, where "u" is "u" and "a" (Not "ä") is "a". In the Polish dialect of Yiddish, "u" is "i" (Not ü) and "a" is "u"! (not ü)

[@dilennoris6547]

Wario Toad 32 it's high German.

[@justinweaver4004]

It sounds a lot like Pennsylvania Dutch to me. :-)

[@hamsterama]

My maternal grandfather was a Yiddish speaking Pole. The Yiddish in Poland was not just a mix of Hebrew and medieval German, but it also included a lot of Polish words, sometimes modified for a more Germanic pronunciation. For example, my grandfather referred to blueberries as "yagdeh," which comes from the Polish word for berries, "jagody." Also, he was fluent in Polish. I think that, in general, Yiddish speakers tended to be fluent in the local language as well, be it Polish or something else.

[@bski_boys]

Actually, before ww2 only 15% out of about 3 300 000 Jews in Poland used to speak Polish. That was very closed society. Very often they had their own separated area, where the Poles didn't come (there was no purpose, it wasn't racism). In Poland many people miss this oryginal jewish culture and Yiddish spoken on the streets.

[@scottadler]

@Nicholas Ennos Nonsense. Sorb is a Slavic language.

[@LeeGee]

Here in Hungary they use lots of Yiddish often without knowing it. I found the same in Hamburg.

[@Kai-xr6vs]

@Jakub Bończak I know this is a little random, but my paternal grandfather was Polish and our coat of arms (herb) is called Bończa. From my understanding families with the same coat of arms (ród) participated in many activities together and even rode into battle together. I couldn't help but notice that your surname is very similar to my coat of arms... does your family have this coat of arms as well? Maybe our ancestors rode into battle side by side, or maybe your family is just from a village called Bończa or maybe its just a coincidence but an interesting anecdote nonetheless.

[@Kai-xr6vs]

@Jakub Bończak Very interesting. My Grandfather was born in Warsaw and his mother was born in China (Harbin) while his father was born in modern Belarus (Gomel, they called it Russia) while his grandfathers were working on the Trans-Siberian railway. However all four of his grandparents were born in what was then the Łomża Gubernia, more specifically in the vicinity of the towns of Ostrów Mazowiecka and Maków Mazowiecki. Some branches of the family may have been wealthy, but any wealth they did have was taken in the January 1863 Uprising. It's interesting that you mention the Rawicz coat of arms because my grandfather's grandmother had this coat of arms (I know the coats of arms of each of my grandfathers four grandparents but can goo no further than that). My family has a signet ring that was given to my father by my great-grandfather on a visit to Poland. My great grandfather had it in his childhood (~1900) in Russia, possibly to prove or emphasize his noble heritage while at boarding school. Anyways, the ring is Gold with a very intricate carving of the Bończa coat of arms in a red stone. My grandfather didn't know how old it is, perhaps it was made c.1900 for his father or possibly it is much older. Do you know of other families who have such rings? Were they used to seal letters with wax? I am also wondering if there is somewhere I can take the ring (once this situation with Covid-19 has improved) to get an estimate of how old it is and possibly where it was made.

[@royxeph_arcanex]

I'm a native Hebrew speaker. Sometimes because it uses the same script and because it shares some vocabulary with Hebrew I like to change a website form Hebrew to Yiddish and laugh hard because it looks like it was written by a drunk Hebrew speaker. Just try to imagine if someone wrote this video's name as "Sind Yiddish and Hebrew Cimiler?" or something like that xD

[@SideWalkAstronomyNetherlands]

+Omri Levin und

[@SideWalkAstronomyNetherlands]

+Wim V (ilGatoNero) gleich

[@royxeph_arcanex]

Wim V​ you missed my point... the bad German was on purpose

[@gabe3907]

+Omri Levin I think this is because Yiddish people were up until some 100 years ago, mostly functionally illiterate in the Latin script. Those who knew how to read could not read using the script, and when they adopted it, it was using English phonetics instead of German phonetics.

[@mattgarbe2607]

+GABE I wish that I could agree with you, but the Yiddish language has been written and published since at least the 16th century (look up the hugely popular Yiddish classic 'Tseno Ureno' and it's history). The orthography of Yiddish hasn't changed very much in the last 3 to 4 centuries, and it's much, much closer to German phonetics than it is to English phonetics.

[@ShadeyBangs]

I absolutely adore your videos, Paul! I’ve just finished watching Unorthodox (highly recommend) and rushed to your channel to learn more about Yiddish. I studied German for 4 years and could pick out many words in Yiddish :)

[@לואיסרוסאס-ספיר]

I recommend you watching Shtisel, so you get a view on the 99.99% of Haredim that like being Haredim.

[@amichair]

@@לואיסרוסאס-ספיר חחח תגובה משונה במקצת.

[@ennykraft]

I'm German. My grandpa spoke Yiddish because his best friend was a Hungarian Jew. Both ended up in a Nazi prison and my grandpa's friend died there. In college there was a seminar "Introduction to Yiddish" by a professor in the Middle German department. I took it because of my family history, It was very easy to learn. All you had to remember that the 2nd consonant shift didn't affect Yiddish, there are no umlauts and learn a couple words from Hewbrew and Slavic languages. The alphabet took me a bit but it's easier to read because - unlike in Hebrew - vocals usually aren't omitted. I had zero problems understanding the people in Mea She'arim when visiting Jerusalem and I could read at least the street signs.

[@gpl992]

Interesting story as my Grandfather was a Hungarian speaking Jew from Translvania,now part of Romania and he also ended up in a Nazi prison..

[@quimiorlando]

And Ladino, it would be interesting to make a video about Ladino.

[@itaibh1]

It's the same deal. A form of ancient Spanish, can communicate to some extent with modern Spanish, cannot communicate at all with Hebrew.

[@the-thane]

To a large extent, actually. Spanish people can understand Ladino very well and vice versa.

[@robertofeldmann9914]

I'm probably a rather uncommon bird; I'm Jewish, and speak both Spanish and German as my native languages. (I'm Chilean, Austrian parents). While Ladino and Sapnish speaking people understand each other perfectly, Understanding Yiddish by ear, isn't that easy. I understand only half of it. But reading it -albeit slowly- in its Hebrew script, allows me to understand a lot more, maybe 80%. Finally, on a subjective note, Ladino is so hearwarmingly beautiful for a Spanish speaker. Generally, Yiddish doesn't sound so beautiful to German speaking Jews, or German speaking people in general. Thank you so much to Paul and all of you. I really LOVE LANGUAGES AND CULTURES.

[@Meirstein]

You should try listening to Galitzianer Yiddish. The pronunciation is much closer to German than the YIVO standard Litvak Yiddish.

[@bookmouse770]

It sounds like Spanish actually.

[@nadogi]

I speak German (basically native level), and Yiddish is pretty easy to understand, kind of like slighty funny-sounding German with a few slavic sounding words thrown in.

[@Langfocus]

+Nameless User Hi N.U. Yeah, I know an older Israeli woman who speaks Yiddish (she learned it from her parents) and I remember her telling me that she could easily get by when she was in Germany. I don`t speak Yiddish myself but I`ve examined the two languages together on paper and I see how similar they are.

[@axisboss1654]

+Langfocus +Nameless User Yiddish sounds like a very weird dialect of Dutch.

[@nadogi]

WARIO TOAD 32 Well, Dutch and German are related, so that's not too surprising.

[@royxeph_arcanex]

+Nameless User I am a native Hebrew speaker and it sounds the same to me lol It sounds like Hebrew with many German words thrown in and some Russian words

[@axisboss1654]

Omri Levin To me Yiddish sounds like Dutch or German with Arabic and Hebrew words mixed in.

[@ashleymarks3726]

we speak Hebrew and Yiddish in my family. my cousins are Israeli and they mostly speak Hebrew, so to communicate better with them the rest of us learned it. I think yiddish and Hebrew are beautiful languages. it makes me proud to be able to speak 2 of the languages related to my Jewish heritage.

[@ashleymarks3726]

@@applejuice9468 what the fuck?!?

[@els3099]

@@applejuice9468 LMFFAOOO

[@akoden2667]

Nice! My dad speaks Hebrew and is learning Yiddish with me on duolingo.

[@drorcohen7972]

I'm a native hebrew speaker , I lived few years next to a hasidic community. They spoke yiddish behind my back so I would not understand. I started to learn Yiddish rapidly until I knew basic grammer and about 500 words of vocabulary , and they can't surprise me anymore. Now when I hear german I understand 60% of the words

[@swensandor]

Very fascinating. German native speaker here. Can you read german texts, like for example Wikipedia articles? I can read yiddish and dutch wikipedia articles and understand most of what is written there. And have you ever tried reading medieval german texts? Like strophes from Wolfram von Eschenbachs "Parzival" or from the "Nibelungenlied" in mittelhochdeutsch original? Mittelhochdeutsch should be the language most closest related to modern yiddish at all, so I wonder how it is the other way aroung. :)

[@Some_Jihadi_Warrior-me1rz]

@@swensandor But Yiddish is Written in hebrew letters and German is latin letters. How could he read German?

[@phuphokibaatain9498]

@@Some_Jihadi_Warrior-me1rz he wrote his comment in Latin script. So he might can also read Latin script

[@truetalk5023]

Y:id,Dish ⚽️👀🤚, PUTin PUT in, I'm not sure why I'm here right now but we all get to say stuff, Goodbye hello

[@גכגכגכמ273]

זה כמו גרמנית ואסור לנו ללמד את זה זה לא שפה יהודית

[@moof99]

as an Israeli - Hebrew is my native language, who studied German (lived in Berlin for about a year) i can definitely say Yiddish is much more German related then Hebrew related. now a days - knowing both languages i still straggle with understanding Yiddish - because of the pronunciation. but when i read Yiddish i can pretty much understand most of it - grammar and vocabulary is mostly German - and when a word isn't German related it usually comes from Hebrew - so i can understand.,

[@multilingual972]

כל הכבוד

[@khurasankhan3092]

Yiddish have so beautiful pronunciation. I like more than german

[@venividivici373]

Can you gives us some examples used in every day life?!

[@גכגכגכמ273]

מה אצה עושה שם אחי

[@RafaMiura1]

Even the Hebrew what's spoken now is a total other thing than the old Hebrew

[@rainerwinkler8635]

Me, as a German, I worked in Israel for a while and had a yiddish speaking coworker. If spoken slowly, we could understand eacht other. Main difference though is yiddish has got very specific russian, polish and hebrew words or uses german words in a different meaning. But it was certainly 90% understandable.

[@renedupont1953]

You don't know what you're talking about. Have you read some good Yiddish literature? How about Sholem Aleykhem's monologs? You'll understand very little. Ihre Äusserungen sind nicht wissenschaftlich begründet und sind unannehmbar. Sie haben keine Jiddischkenntnisse und ihre Eindrücke entsprechen nicht der Wirklichkeit.

[@dnz09]

My mother tongue is Turkish, I am learning German. My level is B1. Even I can understand some Yiddish, that’s amazing!

[@nosferatuferatu5241]

Hi, I am a native German speaker and need to say Yiddish is more like a dialect for me. For sure it depends and not every German would say so. It is more related to the region were you raised. In my dialect we do also use a lot Hebrew/Yiddish based words e.g. meschugge, Hechtsuppe (hech supha). My granny spoke German, High Prussian and Yiddish. For her it was normal. She said to me that in that region everybody spoke this languages when she was a kid (before WWI). When I was a kid she also tried to teach me Yiddish and still I remember a bit. How I also learned Polish and with the combination of German and Polish it is very easy to understand Yiddish, somehow I have the feeling that Yiddish is a big mix of Hebrew, German and some Slavic language. Just as a side note. For me Yiddish sound like a language spoken by a drunken comedian. ;)

[@murrayaronson3753]

Yiddish and Ladino aren't the only Jewish Diaspora languages: There's also or were Judeo-Italian which is still known to a few people in Rome; Judeo-Provencal; Judeo-Arabic; Judeo-Persian; Tat spoken in and around the Caucasus mountains; and a variety of Aramaic or Neo-Syriac spoken by the Jews of Kurdistan. All were/are written in Hebrew characters. The excellent scholar Raphael Patai has some wonderful insights into the Jewish use of languages in his superb TENTS OF JACOB and THE JEWISH MIND.

[@MyRevengeContinues]

And Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) spoken by the Sephardic Jews.

[@MordFustang1966]

Ladino is very common in the Turkish Jewish communities

[@ForeverRepublic]

+Murray Aronson And Shaudit (like a mix of Medieval French and Hebrew). The last speaker died in the 70's.

[@murrayaronson3753]

Yes I'm aware of that being Judeo-Provencal, not exactly French. And the last speaker of it or at least knew it, was a writer by the name of Armand Lunel.

[@penand_paper6661]

Shame what happened to it... Wait, do you think Rashi spoke it?

[@ledzepgirl92]

fun fact: a lot of words used on modern day german have yiddish and/or hebrew roots: Mischpoke, kotzen, Ramsch, meschugge.

[@irenegronegger8972]

In addition, we often use "Massl" (luck) in Bavarian-Austrian dialect.

[@bookmouse770]

I noticed that too.....in Ulpon. they discussed Mishpoke mishpacha, and meshugana meshugge.

[@ghenulo]

Mischpoke? Is that a dialectal form of Missgesprochen? ;)

[@Kramoar]

Ganove is another one.

[@HesseJamez]

Mischpoke = Sippe (relatives/ family / lineage)

[@sontodosnarcos]

Nice video. You forgot the most important fact: the name "Yiddish" itself is none other than the German word "jüdisch", which means jewish".

[@מושקי1]

As a Hebrew speaker I tried to talk to an American Jew who speaks Yiddish and it was so much more difficult than I thought (although my father who speaks Yiddish at a high level tried to teach me some basic words in Yiddish)

[@artsofthemusic2442]

Yiddish is similar to german

[@HesseJamez]

Native Germans can understand it quite well.

[@SteveSmith-lk1tb]

Geschleppeled gongy yagdeh schmultz

[@randomvideos1699]

yes it is

[@coolbluetunes9885]

A bit.

[@worldpapermoney]

As a fluent speaker of both Hebrew and Yiddish I agree 100%. I also speak German and Dutch, since Yiddish is so similar to German it was very easy to learn. מיין מאמע לשון איז אידיש, און ביי מיין משפחה רעדט מען נאר אידיש, ווי אויך בין איך א אידישע צייטונגס שרייבער.

[@clivegoodman16]

Although most of Yiddish is Germanic, there are some words of Slavic origin, for example 'prost' meaning low or uncultured appears to come from the Russian 'prostoi' meaning simple.

[@HesseJamez]

"Prost" means "cheers" in German.

[@bumpriderolling9158]

Is Dutch language similar to German language I always thought it was. I am getting ready to try to learn Hebrew. I said I never would, but I plan to spend about two hours a day to self-teach myself. I only know English language.

[@HesseJamez]

Dutch and German are very similar, native Germans can understand 70% of (written) Dutch and 95% of the Dutchmen are fluent in German as well. It's sth. like Danish to Norwegian f.e.

[@bizh7715]

bist a khosid? ikh ken oukh mame lushn

[@alo5301]

In Vienna we use: Tacheles (talk clear), Haberer (Friend) Masel (Luck), Tinef (dirt, nonsense)

[@haroldgoodman130]

At least 20% of Yiddish is Hebrew but pronounced in an Askhkenazi way. We call it loshn koydesh, not Hebrew. Ivrit, modern Israeli Hebrew, contains many words from Yiddish, too.

[@karayildiz1410]

Don't forget about Slavic influences o Yıddish. Since it was spoken by Ashkenasis it has many vocabulary from Polish and otehr slavic languages. As a Polish who speaks German I can understand Yiddish pretty well, I would say 70%.

[@pischpilot]

Git far dir , zols di huben a groisse bruche vehatzluche , zei gezint poilishe froind

[@exampleemail848]

@@pischpilot Gut far dir, sollst du hoben a groisse ברכה והצלחה, sei gesunt poilishe froind

[@galeinnight]

Wait, your surname is in Turkish?

[@Freshbott2]

You said Hebrew died as a spoken language. Has it been purposefully resurrected with the creation of Israel?

[@Langfocus]

+Bannicus Yes, that`s right. The Zionist movement sought to recreate Hebrew as the language of the Jews for the Jewish homeland. It`s not completely the same, of course. I have a couple of videos on Hebrew that explain it in more detail.

[@Freshbott2]

Langfocus Would that make it the only case of resurrecting a major language? As far as I'm aware, attempts in Wales, New Zealand, Australia and other places to even bring back *still existing* languages have been unsuccessful.

[@Langfocus]

Bannicus Yes, I think so. I guess the Zionist movement was very motivated and organized, with a strong vision in mind of what they wanted to achieve. I think it takes that kind of big movement to resurrect a language.

[@swingbeatnik7]

+Bannicus What? Welsh is the primary language used in Wales. English is actively discouraged.

[@Langfocus]

swingbeatnik7 I assumed he was thinking of Irish - which isn`t dead, but I think the efforts to keep it thriving have been lackluster from what I hear.

[@danieltorrealba3155]

Yiddish is still spoken by Hasidim Jews. They do not use hebrew on their daily basis.

[@EmptyNickAble]

+Daniel Torrealba Bullshit...

[@lamaddussa]

+RowDot it's not b.s., it's correct. many continue to speak yiddish and use hebrew only for religious practices.

[@CORNCAKE80]

+RowDot he is right, I remember walking by some Hasidic Jews when there was an event for them and I couldn't understand a thing they were saying, they believe that Hebrew is a language only to pray with and too holy to be used as a slang and daily.

[@Langfocus]

+CORNCAKE80 +CORNCAKE80 That`s often the case, but there are some Hasidic Jews who speak Hebrew as a daily language too. And there are Hasidic Jews who speak Yiddish as their main language but *can* speak Hebrew too (not just read it and pray in it).

[@Meirstein]

+RowDot Go to hasidic towns in New York. The street signs are all English/Yiddish bilingual.

[@BrunuAndrade]

Your Channel is the best!

[@corhydron111]

It's worth mentioning that Yiddish was greatly influenced by Polish. For example, in German you ask closed-ended questions by inversion (similarly to English), but in Polish and Yiddish you use the word "Tschi" (Spelled "Czy" in Polish), which is a particle signifiyng exatcly that - an closed ended question. There are also many lexical overlaps.

[@averagepolishguy3730]

That's true, there were more Jews in Poland in the 19th/early 20th century than in Germany. I'm kind of surprised Yiddish is a Germanic language and not Slavic.

[@sugoiya3981]

I'm a near-native speaker of Yiddish and I've never heard any family member of mine using that word.

[@corhydron111]

It's interesting that it is not longer used, but I double checked and it turns out that it really was used, at least in the 80's it was. If you open this book: dovidkatz.net/dovid/PDFLinguistics/2-1987-Grammar-Yiddish.pdf at page 198, you'll find an example of this interrogative in the question "Are you coming tomorrow?". You can find other examples of POlish-Yiddish mutual influences in this article: culture.pl/en/article/how-much-polish-is-there-in-yiddish-and-how-much-yiddish-is-there-in-polish.. Where do you live? I know that Yiddish-speaking communities are rare and small these days. Are you from Israel?

[@sugoiya3981]

corhydron111 Yes, I am. I'll have to read through these articles, though.

[@BerkeleyBass]

Only speakers of the Polish variety of Yiddish start a question with "tschi." Though I grew up hearing the Russian and Lithuanian dialects of Yiddish around me, I never heard this particle used in Yiddish until I moved to Israel.

[@gabriellavedier9650]

Hearing this topic makes me long for a video on Ladino, the Spanish version of Yiddish. Once a mighty Mediterranean lingua franca it's now endangered. I had a linguistics professor who spoke most Romance and Semitic languages and he showed me old Ladino texts and how it was written out with a form of the Hebrew alphabet.

[@annkathrinhanamond2982]

As a German, I am often surprised how many words I use in daily language turn out to be of yiddish origin.

[@yukihikoyamada2006]

Happy to know your video. This is also my favourite areas especially the comparison of gap of syntax and semantics when you make multiple languages' translation especially those among European languages and also Japanese as well.

[@yaiyasmin]

I'm Spanish and I can understand Ladino very well, it sounds like medieval spanish. I don't speak much german but when I hear Yiddish it does sound a lot like it. Love your videos!

[@lilliedoubleyou3865]

My best friend's mom grew up in Israel and she said that when her mom went to school (this would've been the 1960s), the teacher would yell at the students if they spoke Yiddish. I always found that strange. The takeaway, I think, is that people assume that Yiddish is associated with all Jews when...it's really only associated with the European Jews? Maybe?

[@yarpen26]

Well, about 85% of the Yiddish-speaking Jewish population (almost all of them Ashkenazi, obviously) were killed during the war and Hebrew was revived based on the Sephardic (Ibero-Spanish) dialect of the Jews living in Maghreb and the Middle East (the most notable difference being the prevalence of the "a" vowel sound in the latter, as opposed to "o" in Ashkenazi). Still, almost the entire elite of the State of Israel was and still is comprised of Ashkenazis themselves: the reason being that the Sephardic Jews, while generally faring better than the Muslims, didn't really outperform the local Christians the same way the Ashkenazis did in Europe. In terms of IQ, the "superior Jewish" stereotype really only holds true to the Ashkenazis, not the Sephardis or the Yemenites, not to mention those that came from Ethiopia. And yet they did allow for Yiddish to fall into disuse, despite talking it themselves. Hell, they were actually more likely to speak other European languages instead, such as Polish during the first Knesset meeting (they even used Polish as a sort of aviation code during the Six Day War to confuse the Egyptians). I guess it makes sense when you think about it though: most of the Holocaust-surviving Ashkenazis were secular Zionists, often with a strong communistic incline and dislike for the Jewish religion. Making Hebrew the official language of Israel would not only strengthen the national identity much more than the highly Europeanized Yiddish (and, probably not least importantly, very much influenced by the language of the people who almost wiped them out of the face of the earth) but also deal a significant blow to the hegemony of the Orthodox Jews, most of whom were coming from the Middle East rather than Europe. I guess I would have done the same, although I still think they could have retained the Yiddish-style vowel-marking for all words rather than just revert to the Old Hebrew in its entirety. It would also have made reading the ancient scriptures much harder, thus making it more difficult for the Orthodox to gain a wider appeal among younger generations. That was partly the reason why Mustafa Kemal of Turkey forced the Latin alphabet upon his nation: he didn't want the young to be able to read Arabic and thus hinder their sense of Turkish nationalism for the sake of sam sort of pan-Islamist sentiment.

[@lilliedoubleyou3865]

yarpen26 thank you for your detailed and very interesting response! In my friend's case, her family was Orthodox coming from...Lithuania? I think?...so it's news to me that the majority of the Ashkenazi Jews coming from Europe would have been secular. Interesting. In my friend's case, she speaks Hebrew fluently but says she doesn't understand Yiddish at all.

[@yellowsugar5096]

@Nicholas Ennos I went to Georgia ( The country) a few years back and was blown away by the strong physical similarities , the music , the general mood and the type of food eaten there with the ashkenazi jews . It was very clear to me then that European Jews have their roots in the region bordering Turkey , Russia , Ukraine, Mongolia and they mixed themselves up with the slavic populations too and the middle eastern jews as well. Genetic studies has been proving that they are majoritarily of Central -Asian and European descent .Let's not forget that GPS traced nearly all Ashkenazy Jews to major ancient trade routes in northeastern Turkey adjacent to four primeval villages whose names resemble “Ashkenaz:” İşkenaz (or Eşkenaz), Eşkenez (or Eşkens), Aşhanas, and Aschuz. More here : www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5478715/

[@raymondkidwell7135]

Despite the similarities ashkenazim are only about 10% Kazar genetically (extinct east European group). Yet many people claim they are "really" east European kazars. Primarily they came from male middle easterners marrying female Europeans. Some Greek or Italian but primarily west slavs such as the sorts (slavic people found in modern germany). The physical similarities between sorts and askenazim are obvious.

[@raymondkidwell7135]

Sorbians or sorbs not sorts

[@CantorClassics]

Great video. Regarding Hebrew words imported into Yiddish, there is an old joke about David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, who supposedly said, in Yiddish, that in Israel there is Bi-TA-khon (faith), but no Bi-ta-KHON (security). Same word, but a different meaning and pronunciation in each language.

[@455fardeen]

Paul, watching your old videos now shows how much you have improved in terms of your confidence in speaking and your clarity in explaining!

[@g10bus]

Yiddish is a Hindo-European language based on German with Semitic (Yivrit and Aramaic) and Slavonic influence, spoken by Ashkenazi Jews in Europe. Yiddish is related to other Germanic languages; it is so German it even has the German consonant shift "special effect" in Semitic loanwords, so beit (house) became beis in Yiddish, peyot became "peys", Shabbat became Shabbos, brit became bris and so on, much like modern English has "shiT" and "streeT" vs modern German "sheiSSe" and "straSSe". Hebrew re-constructed Semitic language based on written/Biblical Hebrew with some influence of Yiddish, Ladino, Russian, Polish and whatever else the founding fathers of Israel were speaking. Cross-influences and shared "square script" is all there is to these two being related. They are fairly far apart, like Finnish and, say, Norwegian (different language families)

[@Eviroonairam]

Actually the current standard spanish from Spain has a "th" sound and it's represented with a "Z". But by the time when jews were forced to leave Spain this sound didn't exist.

[@nikolausgrill7371]

And the word beis became - by adding the southern German diminutive ending -(e)l - the word Beisl in Viennese German, meaning "pub". Cool how languages influence each other.

[@YTscheiss]

And a lot of Arabic influence!! Really a lot!

[@raymondkidwell7135]

Hebrew accent is European. The early Israeli settlers accents became standard whereas a local Arab accent is closer to original Hebrew and there are a few sounds that are difficult for European speakers to make thus modern Hebrew has sound shifted to a European type of sounds.

[@MenacingRabbit]

My 4 year old was speaking Yiddish, I didn’t know what she was saying but she carried on some conversations with someone I couldn’t see. She seemed fine so I wasn’t worried

[@leonsverdov2208]

There's a version (not a dialect) of Yiddish that was (and particularly is) spoken in Belarus. When Russia occupied the eastern part of the Great Duchy of Lithuania, it was prohibited to speak belarusian in the cities, and since Yiddish was widespread in eastern Europe, the belarusians started speaking Yiddish. However, the Belarusian version of Yiddish has almost no Hebrew words - almost all of them were replaced with belarusian words (and some Polish and Lithuanian).

[@leonsverdov2208]

+Sardeth 42 it's kind of a dialect, but a dialect is a variation of a language that is spoken in a specific place... and the belarusian yiddish was spoken in the same place the jewish yiddish was spoken so it's not rly a dialect (formally)

[@tFighterPilot]

Christian Belorussians spoke Yiddish? Interesting, never knew it.

[@leonsverdov2208]

tFighterPilot Well... It wasn't really Yiddish but a dialect of German that was pretty close to Yiddish (just without the Hebrew words)... They pretty much had to because it was forbidden to speak Belorussian in public and you could go to prison if you did, or even get executed if you were advertising it or you preached in Belorussian (though some spoke Polish but it was also kind of forbidden but not as much as the Belorussian language).

[@vickylaszkiewiczlaszkiewic7060]

Absolutely nonsence/ I am from Belorussia/ The Belorussians never spoke Yiddish? because of high antidemitic level . Russian was the official language. But after revolution of 1917 there were 4 official languages -Belorussian, Russian, Polish and Yiddish. You can see it on the coat of arms of Belorussia between 1922 and 1941

[@peternikitin2910]

The first time I hear something like this. My ancestors are Belorussian Jews. they spoke Yiddish inside their own community, Russian with the authorities, and Belorussians could always speak Belorussian. It was not encouraged, but I really have never heard that anyone was persecuted or executed for speaking the language. I never heard that it was actually forbidden to speak Belorussian in Belorus.

[@miroirs-jumeaux]

אלוהא עליכם Paul! I may be the only one who feels this way, but I'd love to see you take another crack at this question. You've obviously gotten a lot better at what you do in the years since you posted this! ❤

[@Langfocus]

There’s not much more to say about it than what I said in this video, though.

[@unitrvl]

all of the DIY words in Hebrew come from German because of the German Jews who came to Israel. diebel , sprachtel , schiber, wischer

[@-kalia-]

Just before I watched this video I actually saw a photo showing language branches so I knew about Yiddish similarities with German! Nice video.

[@ForeverRepublic]

There is also Ladino.

[@ForeverRepublic]

***** תודה חבר :)

[@davidcarson7855]

+ForeverRepublic different region--Yiddish is associated with Ashkenazi and Ladino with the Sephardim (Spanish(

[@ForeverRepublic]

David Carson Yeah I know, I'm Jewish lol. I was just saying.

[@Eviroonairam]

it has preserved the spanish pronunciation of the medieval times. For me as a spaniard it's easy to understand it and somehow funny also. I find it an unvaluable treasure. No matter how it's called (judeo-español, djudio, djudezmo or ladino) it should be preserved.

[@Rubiagirl86]

There was also a knaan language (judeoslavic) used in Poland and yavanit in Greece :)

[@KingRichTDM]

Even though Yiddish uses the Hebrew script for its writing system, it is a Germanic language with WW2 Jewish eastern-European and Germanic-jewish roots and *some* loanwords and roots from Hebrew. Kind of like Farsi using the Arabic script but Farsi is an Indo-european language and Arabic is an Afro-asiatic language, and some Japanese vocabulary is loanwords and characters from Chinese, but Chinese is a Sino-tibetan language and Japanese is a Japonic language.

[@elkiness]

Nice idea: listen to Leonard Cohen's ''Hallelujah'' in Yiddish! Sounds great. (English subtitles, on You Tube.)

[@billwalderman3943]

My father, born in Baltimore in 1896 to Jewish parents from Russia, apparently grew up in a Yiddish-speaking household (though he spoke English with no trace of an accent). When we visited a German-speaking part of Switzerland in 1959, (Bern, I think), he seemed to be able to communicate with local people at some level. And I should add that having learned the Hebrew characters when I was around 6 or 7 (though I only know a smattering of Hebrew) and having studied German later in school and college, I can generally read Yiddish with a degree of comprehension.

[@-so4im]

Yiddish and Swiss German have a lot of similarities since they both evolved from High German

[@elkiness]

Well done! I'm also American, living in Israel. I became very aware of this--as my mother in law was German speaking, and managed to communicate with Yiddish speaking store owners (little grocery shop, clothes store). As that older European generation, she was increasingly isolated--so up when the grocery closed and she had to manage in a supermarket. In more than 50 years here, she never really learned Hebrew--not untypical of the German Jewish community. Now I'm going to check out more of your videos!

[@bizh7715]

Was your mother in Israel or America?

[@caio6896]

You should do a new video about yiddish language and its similarities and differences with German. You have great videos and I can imagine the high quality of a video about this language. Cheers.

[@Langfocus]

I'd like to do that. It's just hard to find Yiddish speakers to work with, and to know which dialect of Yiddish to use.

[@MrLantean]

Yiddish is composed of various dialects and variants. The predominant variants are Eastern European. Yiddish began during the 9th Century CE when Jews from Italia migrated to the Holy Roman Empire and settled in the Rhineland and Palatinate regions either for seeking economic opportunities or refuge from religious persecution. They later became known as Ashkenazi Jews. They changed their language from Judeo-Latin and Judeo-Romance languages for a Judeo-Germanic one which became Yiddish. Like any other Jewish languages, it had Hebrew and Aramaic loanwords. From 1300-1500CE, large numbers of Ashkenazi Jews fled east to Poland-Lithuania where they found refuge from persecutions. In later years, many Jews got absorbed into the Russian Empire. While in Eastern Europe, they retained Yiddish as language of their own communities while adopting local Slavic languages. Overtime time, Slavic loanwords were incorporated. They were still many Ashkenazi Jews remained in the Rhineland and Palatinate regions and continue to speak Yiddish. Then during the Age of Enlightenment in the 1700s, the Jews started to speak German instead of Yiddish within their own communities. This led to the decline of Western Yiddish as it is known in order to be distinguished from Eastern European varieties of Yiddish. Only a handful of pockets in the West that Western Yiddish is still spoken. Perhaps German speakers may be able to understand Western Yiddish better than Eastern European Yiddish as the latter has Slavic loanwords that the former lacks.

[@kenstrauss5841]

My moms parents were Sephardic Jews from Spain. She spoke modern day Spanish and ladino . As kids we understood spoken Spanish but when my mom and grandmother didn’t want us kids to hear what they were talking about they switched to French !!!

[@Doigt101]

My sister-in-law once worked for a dentist-wife couple from Switzerland. They had a Yiddish-speaking patient who would converse to the couple in Yiddish, while they each responded to her in their Swiss German dialect. They apparently had no difficulty understanding each other.

[@walterross9057]

Swiss German is the nearest contemporary relative of medieval Middel High German (Upper German dialects, not the Central German ones).

[@pischpilot]

I'm a native *Yiddish* speaker. Sometimes because it uses the same script and because it shares some vocabulary with Yiddish I like to change a Wikipedia website form Yiddish to Hebrew and laugh hard because it looks like it was written by a drunk Yiddish speaker. Just try to imagine if someone wrote this video's name as " *Ar Yiddish nd hbrw smlr* ?" or something like that xD

[@vesperblack7391]

I speak German, Yiddish, and Hebrew. Yiddish is mostly German with Hebrew and some words out of nowhere.

[@edydon]

Great stuff Although I thought Yiddish was constructed because, given that Hebrew was the language of prayer and scripture, it was considered improper to use it for the crass needs of everyday life.

[@Langfocus]

+edydon I think that`s partly true, except that it wasn`t constructed (not in the way that Esperanto was constructed, or Modern Hebrew was sort of reconstructed). They just adopted a local form of German but used it in isolated Jewish communities so it developed on its own path.

[@jeffreysiegel8165]

The idea came in later, and is still current in some ultra-Orthodox circles, that Hebrew is too holy for ev everyday use.

[@bumpriderolling9158]

Because the Jews were forced away from Italy around 1492, many went to Germany, and it became natural for them to learn a least a language that could be understood in the German ghetto they were forced too. I believe that was the first ghetto in history. It may have actually been in Venice.

[@walterross9057]

@@bumpriderolling9158 Jews lived on the Rhine in Roman times. They migrated to many towns in Germany. They were irreplaceable for international trade and financial administration and were closely connected to bishops and the emperior. As long as Germans were just superficial Christian there were no persecutions. The start of persecutions during the crusades indicates the progress of Christianization.

[@walterross9057]

@@bumpriderolling9158 Jews lived on the Rhine in Roman times. They migrated to many towns in Germany. They were irreplaceable for international trade and financial administration and were closely connected to bishops and the emperior. As long as Germans were just superficial Christian there were no persecutions. The start of persecutions during the crusades indicates the progress of Christianization.

[@SDDPSJ]

My great grandfather used to speak Yiddish and Russian. My great grandmother used to talk with him in Yiddish but she also knew Arabic and Turkish. My family used to live peacefuly in the Russian empire, it was a good life (cause we were a very rich family), but when the Soviets came in, my great grandfather had to flee because he was very monarchist person, he lost all his lands and he putted all his fortune in a trunk. So, in time they arrived to Uruguay and they stayed and they died there. But in that time there was no way to make an Currency exchange, so He Burned it all up. It was very difficult, start again from zero.

[@lazeroad]

Good

[@astroo1991]

That's a strange story. I 've never heard of Jews in the Russian empire being monarchists. Jews were also forbidden from owning land, so your story does not add up

[@sabre01]

Yiddish is primarily a middle high German language with influence from hebrew, aramaic, old french, old italian, and some slavic admixture likely through czech initially. While Yiddish pronounciation did have an impact in modern hebrew initially. That is no longer the case as modern hebrew has moved back towards a middle eastern phonology over the past several decades due to inglux from yemen and morocco and iraq. Some sound mergers have resulted from askenazi pronounciation such as Chet with Chaf and Aleph with ayin which should sound differently. There are other examples as well. Hebrew word order has changed at various periods as well. Some favouring one word order over another and the current one tends towards the yiddish word order but all word orders are easily understood as is ancient hebrew and mishnaic hebrew. Sephardic hebrew and pronounciation also had a strong impact on modern hebrew.

[@SimalatusEstriaSongs]

Yiddish is very closely related to my dialect (I speak a kind of Austrian dialect). That means, that I understand almost everything in Yiddish. I only can't understand the Hebrew loanwords that this language contains.

[@shootayibyukhrabaytak674]

Yiddish is also influenced by Polish and contains quite a lot of Polish words and some Russian - "Papirosen" (cigarettes) "pushkes" (container) and many more.....and depending upon where it is spoken it also incorporates words from the language of that area.

[@Kanal7Indonesia]

So interesting, the language is so multicultural 😊

[@Marny5580]

spanish is written with the same basic alphabet as english ... but i sure can't speak spanish. my family spoke yiddish to each other - but we first cousins were not taught that language - or any of the other languages our parents all spoke before coming to the usa. i can read hebrew but cannot speak it ... except for a few words, like i can understand some spanish and yiddish. but when i went to germany, it was a pleasant surprise that i could better understand what was being said - only because of my hearing yiddish as a child. but i cannot speak yiddish and cannot speak german. lucky / blessed are the people who are able to speak more than one language - and wish i could speak hebrew and yiddish. thank you for the video!!

[@Xgckl]

Basically the first time I was confronted with Yiddish in a Let's Play I watched I was like "wtf, he's just speaking German".

[@renedupont1953]

As a professional Yiddish linguist, a Yiddish journalist, and a professor of Yiddish on the college level (with training in German and Slavic linguistics), I would like to state that many of the comments on this site concerning Yiddish reflect PURE IGNORANCE. Unfortunately, the sophisticated and expressive Yiddish language has a bad press and is often mistreated, maligned and misrepresented contemptuously. Nowadays, when it comes to Yiddish, every dabbler and ignoramus becomes an "expert" and makes the most ridiculous statements. I invite our friend Paul (Langfocus) to contact me if he has any questions and, in general, to get some enlightening information on Yiddish. Yiddish is my mother tongue and I am an active user of the language. My Yiddish articles have been published in the Yiddish press in America, Israel and France. I have given and participated in many concerts of Yiddish folk, theater and art songs.

[@Langfocus]

Thank you for the offer. I will probably do a video on Yiddish at some point in the future, as well as a comparison of German and Yiddish (since people frequently ask about that). Do you have an address where I can contact you? You can contact me at [e-mail] Best regards

[@Mrkva22296]

I personally dont like that modern hebrew pronounces R the german way, instead of rolling the R as it did originally

[@walterross9057]

Only after1700 uvular r became dominant over alveolar trill in most German speaking regions.

[@tutu3909]

I really love your channel , i'm someone who's interested in languages as well

[@patricioiglesias]

Watching this video (which taught me nothing) and comparing it with your last creations (which are the "vademecum" I use when I want to learn the basics about any language) I can assure you that the quality of your content has undoubtedly ramped up! Congratulations! ¡Felicitaciones!

[@ibnyahud]

there are many "dialects" of Yiddish itself with some glaring vowel pronunciation differences...some Yiddish speakers can even have difficulty making out each other's accents, mostly based on location in Europe incurring additional respective influence of other European languages, like Romanian, Polish, Russian etc...

[@mistermagoo8685]

It feels like if I learn Yiddish I’ll finally be able understand what all those old school comedians were saying when they threw out random Yiddish words🤔

[@dontroutman6699]

Thanks for that clarification.

[@ayjay10016]

Luv u Man for bringing this knowledge to us! :)

[@taghridismaiel1991]

Thank you for your amazing videos!!!!

[@M.athematech]

There is very little influence on modern Hebrew from Yiddish. The majority of Israelis are Mizrachi (of middle eastern origin) having no exposure to Yiddish and while although Jews from Europe were very influential in the early Zionist movement they despised Yiddish and actively avoided influences from it. This is why modern Hebrew pronunciation is very different from eastern Europe "Ashkenazi" prayer Hebrew pronunciation and instead reflects the pronunciation of Sephardi and Mizrachi traditions. Modern Hebrew syntax and grammar is very different from German due to these languages being from completely different language families. There is a common myth that Yiddish influenced modern Hebrew pronunciation due to a silly misconception that Hebrew is meant to sound like standard Arabic because its Semitic, which makes and little sense as thinking that English should sound like Hindi because its Indo-European. Modern Hebrew has a guttural R which people unfamiliar with such sounds think is the same as that of Yiddish, but is a subtly different sound and instead reflects the middle eastern Hebrew pronunciation of Old Community Palestinian Jews and Iraqi Jews (the same sound is found in isolated Arabic dialects as well.) Similarly modern Hebrew has an affricative pronunciation of the letter tzadi which many assume is European because Arabic does not have such a sound, but the affricative pronunciation is found in Ethiopic languages and within the pronunciation traditions of middle eastern Jewish communities in addition to those of European Jews.

[@mujemoabraham6522]

Mathematech Thank you for your comments but give me chance to let you know the reasons behind not able to pronounce these typical Semitic letters details as follow : When the Ashkenazim revived the language as they were the pioneers no doubt and they should be appreciated for their accomplishment but in the other hand they destroyed the spirit of the language as they Germanized it which means they changed many typical pure Semitic letters to sound like their German or Yiddish language ( Yiddish derived from German ) as they were/are unable to pronounce them so they shifted from east to west and I will give you some examples : 1- The letter ח Hhet converted to German CH ( KH ) 2- The letter ט Ttet converted to normal T 3- The letter ע A"yen converted to sound like A 4- The letter צ Ssadi converted to German Z ( TS ) 5- The letter ק Qof converted to sound like K 6- The letter ר Resh converted to German R ( GH ) 7- The letter ו Waw converted to German W ( V ) they did not change all these letters sound by bad intention but because these pure Semitic letters were/are so heavy on their tongues, then Mizrahim or eastern Jews followed them step by step as the Ashkenazim were/are the founders / leaders of the new state and they are who run the state departments, schools, educational institutes and media like TVs so their broken accent prevailed . This is the fact.

[@cherylcogan3542]

It is closer to Hebrew than what it seems like but it's the Ashkenazi pronunciation of Hebrew that people don't use anymore, possibly the older generation (I'm retired and I"m referring to older than me). Some of the vowels are different and also, for instance, the tav without a dot is pronounced like an s. So there actually is quite a difference in the pronunciation and I'm not sure if I could understand someone who spoke only Ashkenazi Hebrew. However, as some people already mentioned, each version of Yiddish has words added from their own country. So it would even be possible for someone who understands Yiddish not to understand a person who comes from another country.

[@alterglobo]

It would be interesting if you made an update comparing Hebrew, Yiddish and LADINO (the language of our Sefarad Jews in the Iberian peninsula)

[@murrayaronson3753]

Update? All three languages are different. They are written in Hebrew script, but the letters do not have the same value. Both Yiddish and Ladino might use the same Hebrew word for an item. For instance the Hebrew word for bread Lekhem might be used in both Hebrew and Ladino, but brot would also be used in Yiddish and pan also used in Ladino.

[@SideWalkAstronomyNetherlands]

Not even close, Yiddish is a Germanic language, Hebrew is Semitic, nobody would confuse them, if they finished primary school...

[@FireBug666]

My grandparents on both sides spoke Yiddish,. i speak Hebrew, i know some Yiddish words and phrases.. but i can't speak or understand it. Yiddish is a dialect of German (Middle Old German) with some Hebrew (old Hebrew) words mixed in and some Slavic (mostly Russian and Polish) words mixed in. both my mother's and my father's parents could understand 80% of spoken German..

[@paulayoung2027]

This was extremely informative. Thank you soo much.

[@Langfocus]

You’re welcome! I’m glad to hear that.

[@joseluiszambrano]

You should mention the ladino hebrew languague spoken by spanish hebrew

[@Langfocus]

+JOSE L. Zambrano That's for a different video sometime.

[@BennyPowers]

yes, please!

[@hakanstorsater5090]

Ladino and Spanish seem even closer than Yiddish and German, I think.

[@XXRolando2008]

It's basically Spanish with little different words and pronunciation closer to Italian or Portuguese.

[@elhermeneutico]

Please make at some point language documentaries about Yiddish and Ladino. Thank you.

[@saiyajedi]

Speaking as someone who had to take Hebrew classes as a kid for his bar mitzvah, there was a definite divide between the pronunciation of [mostly Yiddish-speaking] elderly members of the congregation and some of the younger members who could speak Modern Hebrew. I… can read the letters and that’s about it. ^^;

[@hans-jurgenstoffels9441]

In the 1980's they sold the Britannica here with Webster's Dictionary which contains a several language dictionary. English, Spanish, French, German, Itlaian and Yiddish. Yiddish sounds like a twisted German but actually is an old German dialect which they kept for themselves and altered maybe a bit. The ü-sound is replaced consistantly by i so sounds like a strong dialect with very old words in it. But there, for a long time, were many words from Hebrew in the German language, like Meshugge (stupid). These days such words become more and more forgotten. My Generation may be the last that may remember these.

[@azmanabas8425]

compare aramaic and arabic

[@KaB0s]

yeah we need it

[@mikelaranaetxarri2934]

azman abas Aramaic was Jesu's language

[@claudiaf.2236]

Mikel Arana Etxarri z

[@RVered]

Aramaic it is actually closer to Hebrew. they are both from the Northwest Semitic group. Arabic came from the Southern Semitic language group.

[@libafried5840]

R. Vered Yes Arabic is very close to Hebrew. Very many words are exactly alike.

[@howdoyouturnthison7827]

I've heard that when the Hebrew was formed, letter resh was pronounced as alveolar trill but Influence of Yiddish speakers made it Uvular Trill.

[@derred.7646]

That was a quick, but very accurate explanation. Thank you so much.

[@memitolinares1]

After 4 years on line this video and the fantastic work you made, Don´t you think is time for an upgrade? I'm not saying it si bad, but for your preparation and last videos, You leave us in starving for more detail aproach. Anyway it's great to have your channel on KZbin.

[@Langfocus]

Well, if I do this topic again it will be at the expense of another topic. My current videos take weeks of hard work to make, so re-doing topics is not a decision to take lightly.

[@memitolinares1]

@@Langfocus the great takes time and everyone could get noticed, maybe if you compare German VS Yiddish.

[@colorado13]

I'm not saying Paul should (and I doubt he would) redo it, but this is probably the video that gets me wondering the most on how would he do it today.

[@GmilionRBLX]

actually Yiddish as much as i know it's very similar to Germany so it's no suprise

[@yannickluishamilton1342]

+GmilionRBLX Similar to German, not to Germany.

[@GmilionRBLX]

Samuel Montecarlo lol my bad x3x

[@HesseJamez]

Native Germans can understand it quite well.

[@jothaeffe]

Paul, you're the best!👏👏👏

[@OrkarIsberEstar]

as a native speaker of german who knows jews speakind yiddish - it is difficult but communication can be done. its similiar enough that i would actually consider Yddish a german dialect cause, while its hard to grasp at first, just like the swiss german dialect, once you get used to it you can understand like 80% of it - by that i mean iof the other person speaks slow. if they just speak as they would to each other its almost impossible to get what they are saying

[@gabe3907]

+Orkar Isber (Estar) If you can easily communicate with Swiss Germans, you can communicate easily with Yiddish speakers.

[@a.s.5262]

+GABE I'd even go so far to say that it's easier to understand the Yiddish dialect than the Swiss one

[@HesseJamez]

Wiki says Yiddish is High German. Even closer than Dutch or Swiss.

[@zackmano]

Sounds about right to me! 😉👍 I'm an Egyptian Jew who happened to also learn Yiddish and I agree w your assessment. Bc of my Yiddish knowledge, I'm actually able to understand about 80/90% of German when I read it, although when listening to it I probably only pick up about 50/60% Thanks for the great videos! 💙😉👍

[@lostboy4207]

You can't be Arab jew, that's why we have Isreal.

[@zackmano]

@@lostboy4207 I mean that my family are Jews from Egypt (and before that from Iraq)... They call us "Arab Jews" or "Oriental Jews". I didn't invent the names. Israel has nothing to do with it. No offense, but read up on some history and you'll understand. ✌

[@lostboy4207]

F*cking leftist, if you love Arabs so much, go to Egypt and see what are they gonna do to you.

[@zackmano]

@@lostboy4207 I think you must be confused. You didn't understand what I wrote at all.

[@zackmano]

@Khaver 25 אדאנק! 😉 צו דיר אויך. Yes, I guess it might sound like an oxymoron, but "Sefaradim" or "Mizrahiyim" make up a good portion of world Jewry, and I'm one of them. 😉👍

[@simbbam]

Another interesting issue with Yiddish is that apart from the Hassidic world, it's a pretty much dead language. I'm an Ashkenazi Israeli, and native Hebrew speaker. My grandparents spoke Yiddish, my parents understand some Yiddish, by me and my siblings don't understand at all, except for some words that have become kind of Hebrew slang. This is true for my entire generation of course. No one in my generation (I'm 27) speaks Yiddish, at least in Israel. I have no idea what's the case for American Jews. since they're all Ashkenazi Jews Yiddish is perhaps less prone to disappear like it has in the melting pot that is Jewish Israeli society.

[@elimalinsky7069]

+simbbam I'm also from Israel. I remember back in the 1990s some elderly people still spoke considerable amounts of Yiddish among their age group but the language has completely died out in the secular Ashkenazi society by 2005-2010. Secular American Jews speak English unanimously. I read somewhere that Yiddish is still spoken by a few secular communities in countries like Mexico and Argentina, but these people are nearly all over 90 years old. We truly live in the last years of Yiddish as being spoken by secular communities. Yiddish is alive and well among ultra-orthodox Jews, of course.

[@יעקבחייםדנציגר-ב6פ]

Yiddish is dead? In my community there are people who only speak Yiddish. In isrsel, many of our community can't understand Hebrew.

[@elimalinsky7069]

Chaim Abramowicz I was referring to Yiddish in secular communities, not ultra-orthodox. Yiddish among the secular communities is nigh extinct.

[@murrayaronson3753]

+Eli Malinsky There are groups like Workmen's Circle who try maintaining Yiddish and they are definitely secular, but this doesn't exactly disprove your comment. Many Haredi Jews speak Yiddish. I've noticed some whose parents and grandparents especially who would be amazed at the sight.

[@lru1116]

When my an ancestors came to the US 100+ years ago, since they worked hard to come here, they made great strides like other European immigrants to become American which meant using English. Non-Chassidic Jews in the US (who aren’t ALL Ashkenazi) speak only English but often use Yiddish words in everyday speech like schmutz and shlep.

[@PedroHenrique-hy6gs]

We need a remake of this video, pls!

[@sugarfrosted2005]

1:45 My great grandmother was able to get around fairly well in the Rhineland Palatinate knowing only Yiddish (which isn't surprising because Mainz was where one of the three big medieval Jewish communities that birthed Yiddish lived). She was totally lost in Northern Germany though. In an unrelated note, I can almost completely understand pennsylvania Dutch knowing Yiddish and German.

[@BobTheHatKing]

Hi, could you make another more in-depth video on Yiddish? Maybe do a Yiddish vs German video? Thanks!

[@marleneroscher441]

did you do German and Yiddish lang video. what about sephardic jewish "ladino" Video?

[@Langfocus]

Hi Marlene. I haven't made videos on those topics yet, but they sound like interesting ideas.

[@marleneroscher441]

:-)

[@joffreykim]

The music in the background🎺🎺

[@le.evellin]

I HAVE THIS BOOK! 😀

[@roylevymusic]

2:18 Actually it's was called Palestina by the british

[@iddoariel7565]

It was called palestina by the Germans and most Jews, who where German/Yiddish speakers. The Brits called it Palestine. The Arabs falastin

[@omarfatsbsj4418]

No

[@marcosesteban4392]

Attempting to speak Yiddish in Israel will likely get you stares and people wondering what planet your from, unless you happen to be talking to an old peerson or a Holocaust survivor. Yiddish is frowned upon by Israelis as a "shetetel language" and it is practically a dead language there. Ladino spoken by Sephardic Jews gets more respect than Yiddish does. I lived and worked in Israel for 10 years so I am well familiar with all of this. As for its relationship with German, people in Deutschland may indeed understand it, but they will likely consider it like a bastardised version of Hochdeutsch. When I visited Germany I saw some older American Jews trying it out on Germans and it did not really go over very well with the Deutschlanders who likely wondered if it was some obscure dialect from somewhere. I noticed that Germans will speak Hochdeutsch for foreigners, in school and in government, but among themselves they all speak the dialect of the region they come from....Bavarian for example.

[@sharperguy]

One question: if you know a good amount of german would it be worth learning a little yiddish and reading some text in yiddish as a way to learn the Hewbrew alphabet (and also to be able to distinguish between written hebiew and yiddish)? would one word in yiddish be pronounced the same if it were taken to be a hebrew word?

[@Langfocus]

+sharperguy I think it would be better to do it the other way around. Learn the Hebrew alphabet for Hebrew, and then as some extra fun practice you can try reading some Yiddish words. But the pronunciation of Yiddish might mess up your Hebrew reading, because Hebrew is based on a lot of word patterns that are very different in Yiddidh.

[@ShnoogleMan]

+sharperguy It's actually not that hard to learn the Hebrew alphabet anyway. I don't know German or Yiddish, but I know the Hebrew alphabet pretty well.

[@MikJFr]

+sharperguy You've hit on a complicated point! Hebrew words used in Yiddish are pronounced according to the traditional Ashkenazi pronunciation of Hebrew, which is very different from the Sephardi-based Israeli pronunciation. Yet they are not re-spelt according to Yiddish rules, which means that the very same word, e.g. שבת (Sabbath) comes out as 'shábes' in Yiddish but 'shabbát' in Hebrew.

[@TheWegeg]

+Michael F Also Yiddish uses the Hebrew letters as an actual alphabet, i.e vowels are represented (אַ for a, אָ for o, ע for e, י for i, etc) whereas in Hebrew these are all consonants ( although sometimes in modern Hebrew some may be used as vowels). So for instance in Hebrew the word "television" is טלוויזיה which is sort of like "tlvizih" but pronounced "televizia"whereas in Yiddish it's טעלעוויזיע i.e written and pronounced "televizie". Don't know if I'm making any sense, but basically they use the alphabet in very different ways.

[@penand_paper6661]

But in the polish dialect, SHABBOS becomes SHUBBIHS (I'm not joking)

[@seeingdragons4319]

Very nice video

[@granzert1711]

Yiddish is great, it's quite close to my mother tongue, Luxembourgish.

[@peternikitin2910]

Luxembourgish is Franconian. Yiddish I believe is Allemanic (towards Austria and Switzerland).

[@gunnarkaestle9405]

Luxemburgisch ist ein moselfränkischer Dialekt.

[@savvageorge]

That is interesting. I wonder if many of the Yiddish speaking Jews originated from the area around Luxembourg? I think this area of Europe has been very wealthy for a long time in European history.

[@בוריסטללאי]

I'm fluent Hebrew speaker with very limited knowledge of Yiddish. I herd that it remind in large extent Alsace German (probably due to their common origin - High German.

[@בוריסטללאי]

There are lot of discussions about the genrtic origins of current Ashkenazi Jews, but first recorded communities were in Alsace, Lorraine, Rhine valley cities in IX-XI ages.

[@Bob-jm8kl]

I took several years of German, and I remember hearing a Hanukah special on NPR featuring songs in Yiddish, and I could half understand them.

[@BirdBroadcastingLTD]

Arabic uses an abjad, not an alphabet

[@Langfocus]

+James Clifford That`s true. But few people use the term. I have a lot of books on both Hebrew and Arabic and I think they all call it an alphabet, or a consonant alphabet.

[@yannickluishamilton1342]

+James Clifford They may call it an abjad in Arabic, but when speakng English they don't. Noone else, (someone not arabic wouldn't understand what they are actually talking about).

[@penand_paper6661]

I know. We hidden call it an Aleph-Bet. Don't worry, I know the correlation.

[@friendinpotentia]

The abjad IS an alphabet. And they've changed the entire original sequence of letters.

[@abdx7777]

@@friendinpotentia abjad means ABCD etc in Arabic, and that is alpha bet , we just give it a local name abjad as away to teach it to kids

[@julianhe7348]

Speaking german, I can confirm that germans can understand Yiddish almost perfectly, depending on speed and foreign vocabulary influence. I don't know about Yiddish speakers understanding german, but from what I heard so far and since the two are so similar I think there no bigger communication issues on both sides. Yiddish is literally just german with a funny accent and a few Hebrew words thrown in. I believe Yiddish is a very interesting language, and I really hope it will be preserved, since it clearly shows how much german and jewish culture and history are intertwined. Just as modern german has still many words from Hebrew, Jews all around the globe still maintain an ancient form of german. Just amazing.

[@Amis7683]

Im German and we sometimes use the word "bissl" i think it means some kind of "a bit" . Does this come from yiddish?

[@Langfocus]

+Amis7 I had to look it up, but it seems that both languages have the same word (in Yiddish it`s 'bis' or 'bisn'. I don`t think it comes from Yiddish though. My understanding is that Yiddish draws from mostly German and some Hebrew vocabulary (and 'bis' is not Hebrew). I don`t know if there are native Yiddish words that have entered German.

[@Amis7683]

Langfocus Sometimes we say "n` bisn" aswell which kind of means the same i guess

[@CamelDance]

+Langfocus there are. Schmusen = kissing.

[@Langfocus]

Stultum Stulto Oh really! Interesting. In English we sometimes say "smooch" for kiss. It must be related. Some Yiddish words entered North American English because of the cultural influence of New York City, where there used to be a lot of Yiddish speakers.

[@argh523]

+Langfocus I think Schmusen might be related to Smooch in a "regular" way. Compare for example english Snow to german Schnee. The S->Sch is a prominent soundchange in high german (also Stone/Stein, Spew/Speuen, with the st/sp in german pronounced as sht/shp)