Are all Ashkenazi Jews descendants of Yiddish

zaq

Sun, Oct 22 2017, 9:49 pm

Maya wrote:

Of course. But as an institution, YIVO preserves a dialect that is not Chassidish. That's all I'm saying, as a response to the OP's claim that only Chassidish/Hungarian Yiddish is being preserved.

I am personally doing all in my power to preserve authentic Lithuanian Yiddish, which has virtually disappeared. This consists mainly of designating my dishes milchik, not milchig (or worse yet, milshig), saying that unbecoming behavior passt NIT, not passt NISHT, and looking pained when my own cousin, who should know better, wishes me a GIT yontiff. I try to correct her but es helft vee a teit in bankes.

amother

Rose

Sun, Oct 22 2017, 10:41 pm

zaq wrote:

That's "vee a a teiten bankes", translated to - like for a dead one, cups [or cupping therapy].
Sorry, the Yiddish grammarian in me couldn't resist...
And I definitely do applaud your efforts.

chanchy123

Mon, Oct 23 2017, 4:58 am

I am Ashkenazi Jew, I don't see a huge importance in preserving Yiddish besides for research purposes. I don't have any emotional connection to the language. My parents don't speak it, three of my four grandparents spoke Yiddish as children but never really as adults, I'm not sure they are/were fluent in it, one grandmother knows no Yiddish.
Yiddish has nothing to do with my identity as a Jewish person today, it is not a holy language. My ancestors also spoke English, Aramaic, German, Russian, Lithuanian, probably Spanish and Ladino too, besides the only Jewish language - Hebrew.

Raisin

Mon, Oct 23 2017, 5:42 am

chanchy123 wrote:

I don't speak great yiddish but many Lubavitchers speak yiddish. (the lithuanian form, not hungarian) I found it easier to learn in school since it is so similar to English.

I've read a few good books on yiddish. One is called something like a million yiddish books, about a guy trying to preserve all the old yiddish books everyone throws out. Another looked at the path yiddish took. Basically all ashkenazi Jews originated in Ashkenaz - Northern France/Germany. They spread out to Poland, Russia, Holland and other parts of Europe. Each part of Europe thus has its own yiddish dialect.

My polish born grandmother spoke yiddish but I don't think she spoke polish. (She left there when young)

amother

Wine

Mon, Oct 23 2017, 8:07 am

chanchy123 wrote:

Your ancestors definitely didn't speak Modern Hebrew, which is the Hebrew dialect of today.

Ruchel

Mon, Oct 23 2017, 8:30 am

Yiddish might be one of the reasons I'm FTB today. it is a huge part of who I am even though I'm not "good" at it. I would probably leave a very parve, Israeli Judaism (or just retain the core halachos) as I am not Middle Eastern at heart at all. I love Ladino too, as I am a quarter, but I'm so strongly Ashkenazi. Yiddish is less holy than lushoin kodesh but so much more than the modern Ivrit mumbo jumbo...

amother

Goldenrod

Mon, Oct 23 2017, 8:34 am

Maya wrote:

Of course. But as an institution, YIVO preserves a dialect that is not Chassidish. That's all I'm saying, as a response to the OP's claim that only Chassidish/Hungarian Yiddish is being preserved.

It's preserving a dialect that is not Chassidish, but it's not a dialect that I would be particularly interested in preserving. The whole point of preserving Yiddish is to preserve the flavor, the purity, and a certain way of thinking that was unique to the Jewish people. These people are preserving a more secular flavored Yiddish which is only very distantly related to the rich and nuanced Yiddish that both dh and I grew up with.

For example, on the Yiddish website they have one section translating Yiddish curses. None of my grandparents ever used any of these expressions, and I'm pretty sure they hardly ever cursed, either. I remember that when my grandmother was upset, she would say "Zolst du zein gebentcht". (I didn't think at the time she was being sarcastic), or she would say "a bracha oif dein kepel". It's like the expression 'loshon saginahar".

Many of the words in this site are based on Yiddish literature, and while it IS Yiddish, it's also not my grandparents Yiddish.

yo'ma

Mon, Oct 23 2017, 8:38 am

When I used to work in a retail store in a jewish neighborhood, I've had a few times older people ask me why I don't speak jewish. Jewish=Yiddish. True, yiddish is jewish, but lashon hakodesh is holy, not yiddish.

When my father in law met my parents, they're common language was yiddish. None of them are chassidish, but come from a chassidish ancestors, but more so Eastern European parents.

chanchy123

Mon, Oct 23 2017, 9:57 am

amother wrote:

Your ancestors definitely didn't speak Modern Hebrew, which is the Hebrew dialect of today.

I'm pretty sure this comment was meant to offend. I'm not sure why I deserve this offense.
Of course the Hebrew our ancestors spoke was somewhat different than spoken Hebrew today. All languages evolve, that's only natural. However Hebrew is still Hebrew is still Hebrew -the language of the Jews.
Yes, it has evolved but it is still the same language.
There were many local jargons that Jews spoke among themselves. But the only language that has been with the Jewish people since its inception is the Hebrew language that Jews from Yemen to Irkutzk could share.
Avraham Avinu was the first Hebrew and we follow in his footsteps.

Mommyg8

Mon, Oct 23 2017, 10:04 am

chanchy123 wrote:

Yiddish IS considered to be a holy language. Even us litvaks agree on that! But for some reason it didn't catch on.

As an aside, I think it's weird that my boys (and some girls) still teitch (translate) chumash into yiddish. Nobody speaks the language anymore, so what are they trying to accomplish? It's even weirder when you have a young rebbe try to teitch the chumash in yiddish - they don't know the language any better than their students, and they can sometimes make comical mistakes!

Mommyg8

Mon, Oct 23 2017, 10:06 am

amother wrote:

I believe Yekkes didnt speak Yiddish. They spoke German.

I don't know what yekkes spoke, but Yiddish is very, very similar to German, and I think it's actually based off the old German.

When I was a kid, my mother had this lady who came to help who was from Austria. I was shocked at how well we were able to communicate. Perhaps the Austrian version of German is much more similar to Yiddish Question

amother

Apricot

Mon, Oct 23 2017, 10:18 am

amother wrote:

Yiddish is a very colorful language, and if one stops to think about it, many words are downright crass. I'm always amused when I hear people use certain Yiddish words or expressions whose English translations they'd never say.

etky

Mon, Oct 23 2017, 10:24 am

chanchy123 wrote:

Grammatical constructions may have changed and vocabulary added to bring it up to date with modernity but at core it is the same language. Even the new-fangled words - those that are not loan words from other modern langauges - are based on existing roots.
In order to have a real appreciation of modern Hebrew you have to be acquainted with the sources: tanach and rabbinic literature. So many of the idioms and expressions that we use today are taken directly from these sources. Modern Hebrew is inextricably tied to biblical and rabbinic Hebrew (which itself absorbed many,many words from Greek and Aramaic).
Saying that one is pure and holy and the other not is ridiculous.

amother

Goldenrod

Mon, Oct 23 2017, 10:24 am

amother wrote:

Maybe I was unique, but a lot of these words that you are talking about I never heard my grandparents say.

Chayalle

Mon, Oct 23 2017, 10:26 am

Mommyg8 wrote:

My father grew up in Vienna, and he has told me that when he came to Yeshiva in the US, he had a hard time understanding the yiddish spoken here. Austrians speak Deutch, pretty much the same as Germans (not to be confused with Swiss German, which they can't stand and consider to be peasant speech.)

Many people who spoke yiddish incorporated words from their host country's language, so people living in Poland, for example, would speak polish yiddish, and people living in Hungary would speak Hungarian yiddish. Only the yiddish is similar to German - not the other words.

When I got married, DH's Litivish grandparents spoke "yiddish" words I had never heard before.

When I went to Vienna as a teen, I slept in the first morning, and then went to meet my grandparents at their shop. I had no trouble asking for and following directions in German.

Chayalle

Mon, Oct 23 2017, 10:30 am

Mommyg8 wrote:

I don't think it's considered holy on the level of Lashon HaKodesh. It's just that it's a Jewish dialect. Wherever Jews lived there have been Jewish dialects that set us aside from the host countries we lived in. Aramaic, Ladino, etc...were also languages of the Jews.

When I was in high school, they used to incorporate one yiddish song into our annual concert. I used to grit my teeth at their pronunciations, and the girls who sang them often had no clue what they were singing.....