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Ethnologue: Languages of the World
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Ethnologue > Web version > Country index > Asia > Israel > Yiddish, Eastern

Yiddish, Eastern

A language of Israel

ISO 639-3: ydd

Population  215,000 in Israel (1986). Population total all countries: 1,762,320.
Region  Southeastern dialect in Ukraine and Romania, Mideastern dialect in Poland and Hungary, Northeastern dialect in Lithuania and Belarus. Also in Argentina, Australia, Belarus, Belgium, Canada, Costa Rica, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Panama, Poland, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russian Federation (Europe), South Africa, Sweden, Ukraine, United States, Uruguay.
Alternate names   Judeo-German, Yiddish
Dialects  Southeastern Yiddish, Mideastern Yiddish, Northeastern Yiddish. Many loans from Hebrew [heb] and local languages. Originated east of the Oder River in Poland, extending into Belarus, the Russian Federation (to Smolensk), Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary, Rumania, Ukraine, and pre-state British-Mandate Palestine (Jerusalem and Safed). Western Yiddish [yih] originated in Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Alsace (France), Czechoslovakia, western Hungary, and is nearing extinction. It branched off medieval High German (mainly Rhenish dialects) and received modern German influences during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Eastern and Western [yih] Yiddish have difficult inherent intelligibility because of differing histories and influences from other languages. There are some Western Yiddish [yih] in Israel (1977 M. Herzog).
Classification  Indo-European, Germanic, West, High German, Yiddish
A member of macrolanguage Yiddish [yid] (Israel).
Language development  Magazines. Radio programs. Bible: 1821–1936.
Writing system  Hebrew script.
Comments  SVO. Jewish.

Also spoken in:

Latvia

Language name   Yiddish, Eastern
Population  800 in Latvia.
Alternate names  Judeo-German
Language use  There may be no Yiddish speakers in Latvia now (1995). Of the 1,811,000 Jewish people listed in 1979 USSR census, most spoke Russian as L1 and almost all others spoke Russian as L2. About 50,000 Jews spoke Georgian [kat], Tat, or Tajiki [tgk] as L1.
Comments  Literary status, but very little literature. Jewish.
 

United States

Language name   Yiddish, Eastern
Population  179,000 in United States (2000 census).
Language use  Also use English or Hebrew [heb].
 

Entries from the SIL Bibliography about this language:

Academic Publications

CAHILL, Michael, author. 2005. Review of: Spoken here: travels among threatened languages, by Mark Abley.