Yiddish

[yid-ish]

noun

1. a Germanic language of Ashkenazi Jews, based on Middle High German dialects with an admixture of vocabulary from Hebrew, Aramaic, the Slavic languages, and Old French and Old Italian, written in Hebrew letters, and spoken mainly in eastern and central Europe and by Jewish emigrants from these regions and their descendants.

adjective

1. of, relating to, or characteristic of Yiddish.

Yiddish

/ ˈjɪdɪʃ /

noun

1. a language spoken as a vernacular by Jews in Europe and elsewhere by Jewish emigrants, usually written in the Hebrew alphabet. Historically, it is a dialect of High German with an admixture of words of Hebrew, Romance, and Slavonic origin, developed in central and E Europe during the Middle Ages

adjective

1. in or relating to this language

Word History and Origins

Origin of Yiddish¹

First recorded in 1885–90; from Yiddish yidish; yid, -ish ¹

Word History and Origins

Origin of Yiddish¹

C19: from German jüdisch, from Jude _Jew

Example Sentences

Caesar did a Japanese samurai warrior into whose ersatz-Japanese monologue would slip in the occasional Yiddish word.

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A push to revitalise Yiddish and its cultural traditions has gained momentum in Germany, the very place where the Nazi regime's Holocaust sought to eradicate the Jewish communities who spoke it.

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When my mother was young and she was over at her cousin Ruth’s house with family, Ruth’s mom would say in Yiddish, “Ruth, play the violin.”

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Performing “Fiddler” in Yiddish returns the characters to the language of Sholem Aleichem’s stories, the fictional world from which they sprung.

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With a pioneering sense of eclecticism, he connected the dots between John Cage and James Brown, between Mahler and MTT’s famous grandfather, Boris Thomashefsky, a star of the New York Yiddish theater.

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