page_title: Yiddish
section_title: United States
hierarchical_section_title: Yiddish / Status as a language / United States
caption_attribution_description: English: Women surrounded by posters in English and Yiddish supporting Franklin D. Roosevelt, Herbert H. Lehman, and the American Labor Party teach other women how to vote, 1935. International Ladies Garment Workers Union Photographs (1885-1985) Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives,Cornell University Library.
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 United States, at first most Jews were of Sephardic origin, and hence did not speak Yiddish. It was not until the mid-to-late 19th century, as first German Jews, then Central and Eastern European Jews, arrived in the nation, that Yiddish became dominant within the immigrant community. This helped to bond Jews from many countries. פֿאָרווערטס‎ (Forverts – The Forward) was one of seven Yiddish daily newspapers in New York City, and other Yiddish newspapers served as a forum for Jews of all European backgrounds. In 1915, the circulation of the daily Yiddish newspapers was half a million in New York City alone, and 600,000 nationally. In addition, thousands more subscribed to the numerous weekly papers and the many magazines.
  The typical circulation in the 21st century is a few thousand. The Forward still appears weekly and is also available in an online edition. It remains in wide distribution, together with דער אַלגעמיינער זשורנאַל‎ (der algemeyner zhurnal – Algemeiner Journal; algemeyner = general), a Chabad newspaper which is also published weekly and appears online. The widest-circulation Yiddish newspapers are probably the weekly issues Der Yid (דער איד‎ "The Jew"), Der Blatt (דער בלאַט‎; blat "paper") and Di Tzeitung (די צייטונג‎ "the newspaper"). Several additional newspapers and magazines are in regular production, such as the weekly אידישער טריביון Yiddish Tribune and the monthly publications דער שטערן‎ (Der Shtern "The Star") and דער בליק‎ (Der Blik "The View"). (The romanized titles cited in this paragraph are in the form given on the masthead of each publication and may be at some variance both with the literal Yiddish title and the transliteration rules otherwise applied in this article.) Thriving Yiddish theater, especially in the New York City Yiddish Theatre District, kept the language vital. Interest in klezmer music provided another bonding mechanism.
  Most of the Jewish immigrants to the New York metropolitan area during the years of Ellis Island considered Yiddish their native language; however, native Yiddish speakers tended not to pass the language on to their children, who assimilated and spoke English. For example, Isaac Asimov states in his autobiography In Memory Yet Green that Yiddish was his first and sole spoken language, and remained so for about two years after he emigrated to the United States as a small child. By contrast, Asimov's younger siblings, born in the United States, never developed any degree of fluency in Yiddish.
  Many "Yiddishisms", like "Italianisms" and "Spanishisms", entered New York City English, often used by Jews and non-Jews alike, unaware of the linguistic origin of the phrases. Yiddish words used in English were documented extensively by Leo Rosten in The Joys of Yiddish; see also the list of English words of Yiddish origin.
  In 1975, the film Hester Street, much of which is in Yiddish, was released. It was later chosen to be on the Library of Congress National Film Registry for being considered a "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" film.
  In 1976, the Canadian-born American author Saul Bellow received the Nobel Prize in Literature. He was fluent in Yiddish, and translated several Yiddish poems and stories into English, including Isaac Bashevis Singer's "Gimpel the Fool". In 1978, Singer, a writer in the Yiddish language, who was born in Poland and lived in the United States, received the Nobel Prize in Literature.
  Legal scholars Eugene Volokh and Alex Kozinski argue that Yiddish is "supplanting Latin as the spice in American legal argot".
caption: Women surrounded by posters in English and Yiddish supporting Franklin D. Roosevelt, Herbert H. Lehman, and the American Labor Party teach other women how to vote, 1936.
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