Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics
Variant of German which arose during the Middle Ages as a trade language of Jews in important centers of commerce (countries along the Rhine and Danube). Today the East European branch of Yiddish (language of the Ashkenazic Jews) has approx. 5 million speakers as either a native or a second language in Israel, Poland, Lithuania, the United States, Latin America, Argentina, Russia, and other countries. Yiddish, based on German from the late Middle Ages, is mixed with influences from Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic, and the Romance languages. Due to migrations in the late Middle Ages, two branches of Yiddish developed: West Yiddish (extinct) and East Yiddish, differing primarily in their lexicons and sound systems. The unity of Yiddish was preserved until the nineteenth century by the use of the Hebrew alphabet, which is written from right to left. Because it did not undergo the changes of standard German, Yiddish represents a conservative phonological stage, which in many ways is identical to the German of the Middle Ages. Yiddish influence on English can be seen primarily in loan-words: meshuggene, shlock, etc.
References
Fishman, J.A. 1965. Yiddish in America: sociolinguistic description and analysis. Bloomington, IN. (=IJAL 31:2, pub. 36).
——1991. Yiddish: turning to life. Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA.
Herzog, M. 1965. The Yiddish language in northern Poland: its geography and history. Bloomington, IN. (=IJAL 31:2, pub.
37.)
Katz, D. 1987. Grammar of the Yiddish language. London.
——(ed) 1988. Dialects of the Yiddish language: papers from the second annual Oxford Winter symposium in Yiddish language and literature. Oxford.
Weber, M.H. 1987. Yiddish. Cahiers de linguistique sociale 10. 6–129.
Weinreich, U. 1960. College Yiddish: an introduction to the Yiddish language and to Jewish life and culture, 3rd rev. edn. New York.
——1980. History of the Yiddish language. Chicago, IL.
Dictionaries
Harduf, D.M. 1985. English-Yiddish, YiddishEnglish dictionary. Willowdale.
Weinreich, U. 1968. Modern English-Yiddish, Yiddish-English dictionary. New York.
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