The Detroit times., 1910-09-08
YiddIsh, Strange Language,
Different Even From Itself

doing SO, and their books are publish
ed In the Yiddish language. Every
large American city with a large Rus
sian-Jewish population has it's Yid-
dish theater. Some of The best known
stars on the American stage, such a.
halich and Nazimova. graduated from
the iiddish stage.
N There are oven dialects In Yidish.
Russia has several, and in some other
European countries where Yiddish Is
spoken the Yiddish dialects differ from
those in use In Russia.
The foundation OF the Yiddlsh
tongue Is German, and a poor quality
OF German at that, with interpretations
or words here and there from other
languages. A word OF Hebrew is uses
now and then. In Russia, Russian
words are interpolated. and I'm this
country the language contains a large
number OF English words. which, OF
course, would be uninteliigible to the
fiddish speaking person in Russia.
There is another Yiddish, however,
used by the Jews of Turkey, Morocco
and other parts OF northern Africa.
This Yiddish has Spanish instead OF
German as its foundation. The Jews
In that part OF the world are princi.
pally descended from those exiled
from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella
In lf92. They retained their Spanish
tongue, but In course OF centuries II
became jargon with Spanish as the
basis.
The real Yiddish Is called Juedisch-
Deutsch, or Jewish-German. To show
how easy II Is for a Yiddish-speaking
Jew to understand the pure German,
this incident might be cited: DIR. Har-
ry Friedenwald. one of the professors
OF Johns Hopkins university, Baltimore
Is an American born Jew, and few
American Jews speak Yiddish. At the
national convention Of Zionists held
in Pttsburg early In July, DR.. Fried
enwald was the presiding officer and
conducted the meetings In English.
In the course of the meeting he ex.
planned something OF vast Importance
to the delegates, In English. OF course,
and after he had finished he said
This Is very important and In order
that you might all thoroughly under
stand ii. will translate 1t for you iis
Yiddish" He did translate It, and in
a faultless German such as Schiller,
Goethe or Heine might have used in
writing their poetry.
About two years ago, a great Aus
trian Jewish scholar, DR.. Birnbaum.
came to this country to plead for the
perpetuation of the Yiddish. He de-
liyered lectures In the large cities OF
the country. and in his pleas for the
preservation Of Yiddish he used the
German language in its best and pur-
est form.
While some writer's OF Yiddish claim
that the language has grammar, the
vast majority do not pay the slightest
attention to grammatical rules, and
construct their sentences just as fancy
seizes them
And talk about phonetic spelling!
The Yiddish has Roosevelt's plan
beaten many a mile. Here are a few
English words, names and others TAX
en- at random from a Yiddish news
paper:
Wright-Rayt.
Cook-Kuk
Pictures-piktschers.
Record-rekord.
Building-bilding.
Coupon-kupon.
Chila-Tshili.
Box-baks.
Fight-fayt.
Headquarters-hedkw
Roosevelt-Ruzwelt.
Northumberland.
Wall street-Wol strit
Kansas City-Kenzes Siti.
Island--ayland.
Country-kontry.
Ballinger-Balindzsc
Cousin-kozin.
Experience-ekspirie
Jobber-dzshaber.
Dress goods-dresguds.
Factory-fektori
New York now has Yiddish Esper-
anto society, and the Yiddish news
papers of the metropolis are printing
daily articles translating Yiddish SEN
fences into the universal tongue OF
the future. Students OF Yiddish now
claim that In the course of time, and
almost unconsciously. Esperanto words
will gradually be introduced into the
Yddish.
Yiddish speakers call the language
"Mamme Loshen" which means moth
er's tongue. In Hebrew 1t Is called
Loshen Hakodosh," the holy language.