Yiddish vs. German: an experiment.

A comparison between Yiddish and German. I made up a bunch of sentences to highlight some of the differences between German and Yiddish with respect to vocabulary, grammar (especially word order), phonology (sounds) and vowels. The sentences were read aloud in English and my friend Frank, a native German speaker from Bavaria (but speaking Hochdeutsch/standard German) translated them into German and I translated them into my non-native Ukrainian Yiddish. Even if you don't speak either language you can hear where the two are different and perhaps pick up a bit of either one or both. German speakers should note that other Yiddish dialects (Litvak, northern Ukrainian) pronounce "u" the same way as in German so "und" (and) is "und" but in my dialect it becomes "in". Otherwise all of the differences in the vowels between the two languages are pretty normal. You may also notice that there are words in Yiddish that exist in German dialects but not Hochdeutsch ("epes" for "etvas", "do" for "hier") and there are words in German that Frank uses that are also used in Yiddish (Geschaft, Stunde) but which I don't use. Of all the German dialects Yiddish is probably closest to some forms of Badisch and Swiss German. Yiddish was the language of Eastern European (Ashkenazi) Jews until the Holocaust and is now primarily spoken in Hasidic communities in Israel, the USA, England, Australia, Canada and Belgium. It is written in the Hebrew alphabet.

, דײַטש, ייִדיש, אידיש, שפּראַך, דיִאַלעקט, דײַטשיש , גרמנית, ידיש, דיאלקט, שפה, מדגישה, בלשנות

Category:

Education

Tags:

• linguistics
• Yiddish
• German
• Jiddisch
• Deutsch
• Dialekt
• dialects
• German Dialects
• Deutsche Dialekte
• Jewish culture
• German culture
• accent
• Philadelphia accent
• translation
• laughing
• humor
• German stereotypes
• Jewish stereotypes
• Hochdeutsch
• Ariel Linguistics
• Areal Linguistics
• Sociolinguistics
• language contact
• bilingualism
• aleman
• yidish
• yidis
• bilinguismo
• cultura aleman
• cultura judia
• shprakhe
• learn german
• learn yiddish
• yiddish lesson
• german lesson

[nicolestrange]

Great and interesting video! Just one correction, the book «der kleine Prinz», shown at the beginning is written by a French author.

[ikhveysnit]

@nicolestrange Thanks, that's just the German translation of the book. It's been translated into upwards of 200 languages. When I made the film I wanted to have both the Yiddish and German copies.

[Voynich16]

Is it the eastern Yiddish? Does somebody know anything about western Yiddish from Germany?

It's sad that western Yiddish is forgotten and rare documented!

[ikhveysnit]

@Voynich16 This is Eastern Yiddish, the vast majority of info on Western Yiddish is available in German so I'm not too familiar with it. There is a lot of research into it at the university of Trier.

[Phototopas]

Der Deutschamerikaner sagt: TEAM. Das ist englisch.

Der Jude sagt (jiddisch): MANNSCHAFT. Das ist deutsch.

Sprachen leben, solange sie Vokabeln transformieren und transportieren.

[ikhveysnit]

@kamasis Those are French words that are in many Eastern European languages.

[MarvellousMuffin]

@jab3785

Yiddish has elements of Romance languages in it along with Slavic and German. The Jews did spend a lot of time in France and Italy before heading up to Germany and beyond, so my understanding is that's where they picked up the romance stuff, such as plage for beach.

[Phototopas]

@MyBella5555 Recht haste. Städtle ist schwäbisch. Im Fränkischen heißts Städtl.

[jab3785]

Interesting that the Yiddish speaker uses the word plage for beach which is actually French. The languages while sounding similar they are a lot more different than I thought they would be.

[Lagolop]

@Voynich16

See my comment to ikhveysnit. I meant to reply to you too. Sorry.

[promo2]

@MyBella5555 Mag sein. In meinem Aufenthalt in Nürnberg, habe ich dieses Wort oft gehört :-)

[MyBella5555]

@promo2 nicht schwäbisch?