page_title: Yiddish
section_title: 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: Yiddish / History / 20th century
caption_attribution_description: English: Reverse of the 100 karbovanets government credit note issued by the Ukrainian People's Republic. (Obverse of the banknote is File:100karbovantsevUNR A.jpg. Русский: 100 карбованцев Украинской Народной Республики. Реверс Українська: Сто карбованців. Реверс (аверс: File:100karbovantsevUNR A.jpg). Державний кредітовій білет УНР 1917 р. з написом українською, польською та мовою їдиш. Банкнота 100 карбованців 1917, була першим офіційним платіжним засобом Української Народної Республіки, проголошеної 20 листопада 1917 року. Вона була оголошена Центральною Радою України та введена в обіг 5 січня 1918 року. Офіційна назва бони «Державний Кредітовій Білет». Автором проекту був Георгій (Юрій) Нарбут — професор і ректор Української Академії Мистецтв. Випуск надрукований у Києві, в друкарні Василя Кульженка, яка перебувала на вул. Пушкінська 6. Офіційний тираж — 55 000 штук на загальну суму 5,5 мільйонів карбованців.
context_page_description: Yiddish is a High German–derived language historically spoken by the Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a High German–based vernacular fused with elements taken from Hebrew and Aramaic, as well as Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages. Yiddish writing uses the Hebrew alphabet. As of the 1990s, there were around 1.5–2 million speakers of Yiddish, mostly Hasidic and Haredi Jews.
  The earliest surviving references date from the 12th century and call the language לשון־אַשכּנז‎ or טײַטש‎, a variant of tiutsch, the contemporary name for Middle High German. Colloquially, the language is sometimes called מאַמע־לשון‎, distinguishing it from לשון־קודש‎, meaning Hebrew and Aramaic. The term "Yiddish", short for Yidish Taitsh, did not become the most frequently used designation in the literature until the 18th century. In the late 19th and into the 20th century, the language was more commonly called "Jewish", especially in non-Jewish contexts, but "Yiddish" is again the more common designation today.
  Modern Yiddish has two major forms. Eastern Yiddish is far more common today.
context_section_description: In the early 20th century, especially after the Socialist October Revolution in Russia, Yiddish was emerging as a major Eastern European language. Its rich literature was more widely published than ever, Yiddish theatre and Yiddish cinema were booming, and it for a time achieved status as one of the official languages of the Ukrainian People's Republic, the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic and the short-lived Galician Soviet Socialist Republic, and the Jewish Autonomous Oblast. Educational autonomy for Jews in several countries (notably Poland) after World War I led to an increase in formal Yiddish-language education, more uniform orthography, and to the 1925 founding of the Yiddish Scientific Institute, YIVO. In Vilnius, there was debate over which language should take primacy, Hebrew or Yiddish.
  Yiddish changed significantly during the 20th century. Michael Wex writes, "As increasing numbers of Yiddish speakers moved from the Slavic-speaking East to Western Europe and the Americas in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they were so quick to jettison Slavic vocabulary that the most prominent Yiddish writers of the time—the founders of modern Yiddish literature, who were still living in Slavic-speaking countries—revised the printed editions of their oeuvres to eliminate obsolete and 'unnecessary' Slavisms." The vocabulary used in Israel absorbed many Modern Hebrew words, and there was a similar but smaller increase in the English component of Yiddish in the United States and, to a lesser extent, the United Kingdom. This has resulted in some difficulty in communication between Yiddish speakers from Israel and those from other countries.
caption: 1917. 100 karbovanets of the Ukrainian National Republic. Revers. 3 languages: Ukrainian, Polish and Yiddish.
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