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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]
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]
4.1 Languages spoken in Armenia ... a number of Indo-Aryan languages not native to Europe are spoken in Europe today. [2] ... Yiddish is a Jewish language developed ...
Out of these 2,000–6,000 claim to have at least some knowledge of Yiddish according to various reports and surveys. The number of native speakers among these has been estimated by linguist Mikael Parkvall to be 750–1,500. It is believed that virtually all native speakers of Yiddish in Sweden today are adults, and most of them elderly. [11]
Yiddish, once a native language of some 11 to 13 million people, remains in use by some 1.5 million speakers in Jewish communities around the world, mainly in North America, Europe, Israel, and other regions with Jewish populations. [11] Limburgish varieties are spoken in the Limburg and Rhineland regions, along the Dutch–Belgian–German border.
Yiddish is a Germanic language with significant Hebrew and Slavic influence, written with a variant of the Hebrew alphabet (see Yiddish orthography) and, formerly spoken by most Ashkenazic Jews (although most now speak the language of the country in which they live).
Yiddish has been spoken by more Jews in history than any other language, [201] but it is far less used today following the Holocaust and the adoption of Modern Hebrew by the Zionist movement and the State of Israel. In some places, the mother language of the Jewish community differs from that of the general population or the dominant group.