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Yiddish, [a] historically Judeo-German, [11] [b] is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews.It originated in 9th-century [12]: 2 Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with many elements taken from Hebrew (notably Mishnaic) and to some extent Aramaic.
Eastern Yiddish is split into Northern and Southern dialects. [7] Northern / Northeastern Yiddish (Litvish or "Lithuanian" Yiddish) was spoken in modern-day Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, and portions of northeastern Poland, northern and eastern Ukraine, and western Russia. [7] Hiberno-Yiddish spoken by Jews in Ireland is based on this dialect. [8]
Use of Yiddish, which was the main competitor prior to World War II, was discouraged, [11] and the number of Yiddish speakers declined as the older generations died out. However, Yiddish is still often used in Ashkenazi Haredi communities worldwide, and is sometimes the first language for the members of the Hasidic branches of such communities.
Although a far smaller number of Jews still speak Yiddish, Yiddishkeit can be identified in manners of speech, in styles of humor, in patterns of association. Broadly speaking, a Jew is one who associates culturally with Jews, supports Jewish institutions, reads Jewish books and periodicals, attends Jewish movies and theater, travels to Israel ...
Today over 2,500,000 ... though Yiddish is still commonly used in Ashkenazi ... A variety of other languages are still spoken within some Israeli Jewish ...
I’ve spoken Yiddish in a couple of things now — and I don’t [actually] speak Yiddish — but there’s some music to the language that reminds me of French, which I do speak.
For a significant portion of its history, Yiddish was the primary spoken language of the Ashkenazi Jews. Eastern Yiddish, three dialects of which are still spoken today, includes a significant but varying percentage of words from Slavic, Romanian and other local languages. [citation needed]
The ethnologue site says that there were only some Western Yiddish speaking Jews left in Israel as early as the 1970's. Even if it is still spoken today, it remains highly unlikely that the language will be passed down. There are two groups of Yiddish speaking groups today, the ultra-orthodox and a small group of (mostly secular) Jews.