Yiddish is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originates from 9th century Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with many elements taken from Hebrew and to some extent Aramaic. Most varieties of Yiddish include elements of Slavic languages and the vocabulary contains traces of Romance languages. Yiddish has traditionally been written using the Hebrew alphabet; however, there are variations, including the standardized YIVO orthography that employs the Latin alphabet.
British Israelism is the British nationalist, pseudoarchaeological, pseudohistorical and pseudoreligious belief that the people of Great Britain are "genetically, racially, and linguistically the direct descendants" of the Ten Lost Tribes of ancient Israel. With roots in the 16th century, British Israelism was inspired by several 19th century English writings such as John Wilson's 1840 Our Israelitish Origin. From the 1870s onward, numerous independent British Israelite organizations were set up throughout the British Empire as well as in the United States; as of the early 21st century, a number of these organizations are still active. In the United States, the idea gave rise to the Christian Identity movement.
Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim, constitute a Jewish diaspora population that emerged in the Holy Roman Empire around the end of the first millennium CE. They traditionally spoke Yiddish and largely migrated towards northern and eastern Europe during the late Middle Ages due to persecution. Hebrew was primarily used as a literary and sacred language until its 20th-century revival as a common language in Israel.
Gog and Magog or Yajuj and Majuj are a pair of names that appear in the Bible and the Quran, variously ascribed to individuals, tribes, or lands. In Ezekiel 38, Gog is an individual and Magog is his land. By the time of the New Testament's Revelation 20:8, Jewish tradition had long since changed Ezekiel's "Gog from Magog" into "Gog and Magog".
Magog is the second of the seven sons of Japheth mentioned in the Table of Nations in Genesis 10.
The story of Dhu al-Qarnayn is mentioned in Surah al-Kahf of the Quran. It has long been recognised in modern scholarship that the story of Dhu al-Qarnayn has strong similarities with the Syriac Legend of Alexander the Great. According to this legend, Alexander travelled to the ends of the world then built a wall in the Caucasus mountains to keep Gog and Magog out of civilized lands.
Dhu al-Qarnayn, appears in the Quran, Surah al-Kahf (18), Ayahs 83–101 as one who travels to east and west and sets up a barrier between a certain people and Gog and Magog. Elsewhere, the Quran tells how the end of the world will be signaled by the release of Gog and Magog from behind the barrier. Other apocalyptic writings predict that their destruction by God in a single night will usher in the Day of Resurrection.
Eldad ben Maḥli ha-Dani was a ninth-century Jewish merchant, traveller, and philologist. Though probably originally from South Arabia, he professed to be a citizen of an "independent Jewish state" in East Africa, inhabited by people claiming descent from the lost Tribes of Dan, Asher, Gad, and Naphtali. Eldad visited Babylonia, Kairouan, and Iberia, where he spread fanciful accounts of the Ten Lost Tribes and halakhot which he claimed he had brought from his native country.
According to rabbinic literature, the Sambation is the river beyond which the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel were exiled by the Assyrian king Shalmaneser V (Sanchairev).
The Alexander Romance is an account of the life and exploits of Alexander the Great. The Romance describes Alexander the Great from his birth, to his succession of the throne of Macedon, his conquests including that of the Persian Empire, and finally his death. Although constructed around an historical core, the romance is mostly fantastical, including many miraculous tales and encounters with mythical creatures such as sirens or centaurs.
The Gates of Alexander, also known as the Caspian Gates, are one of several mountain passes in eastern Anatolia, the Caucasus, and Persia separating the Greco-Roman world from the Persian world. They are often imagined as an actual fortification, or as a symbolic boundary separating the civilized from the uncivilized world. The original Gates of Alexander were just south of the Caspian Sea, at Rhagae, where Alexander crossed while pursuing Darius III. The name was transferred to passes through the Caucasus, on the other side of the Caspian, by the more fanciful historians of Alexander.
Armilus is an anti-messiah figure in medieval Jewish eschatology who will conquer the whole Earth, centralizing in Jerusalem and persecuting the Jewish believers until his final defeat at the hands of the Jewish Messiah. His believed destruction symbolizes the ultimate victory of the Jewish Messiah in the Messianic Age.
Asher Lämmlein was a Jew who appeared in Istria, near Venice, in 1502 and, encouraged by the works of Isaac Abrabanel, proclaimed himself a forerunner of the Jewish Messiah. His place of birth is unknown, but his nicknames Ashkenazi and Reutlingen indicate that he or his family originally came from Germany. Notably, Lämmlein was mentioned by James Joyce in Ulysses.
The vast conquests of the Macedonian king Alexander the Great quickly inspired the formation and diffusion of legendary material about his deity, journeys, and tales. These appeared shortly after his death, and some may have already begun forming during his lifetime. In the third century AD, an anonymous author writing in the name of Alexander's court historian Callisthenes authored the Greek Alexander Romance. This text would spawn a genre of literature about the legends and exploits of Alexander across centuries, going through over one hundred versions in premodern times and appearing in almost every language in both European and Islamic worlds.
Jean Wauquelin, born in Picardy, was a writer and translator in French, active in the County of Hainaut in the Burgundian Netherlands, a county now located in Belgium near the border with France. Wauquelin died on 7 September 1452 in Mons, Hainaut. His date of birth remains unknown.
Paul Wexler is an American-born Israeli linguist, and Professor Emeritus of linguistics at Tel Aviv University. His research fields include historical linguistics, bilingualism, Slavic linguistics, creole linguistics, Romani and Jewish languages.
Andrew Colin Gow is a Canadian historian of medieval and early modern Europe and a noted scholar of early modern witchcraft. He completed his Ph.D. with the Reformation scholar Heiko Oberman. He has served as the Editor-in-Chief of Brill Publishers' book series Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions from 2000-2020 and was succeeded by Christopher Ocker in June 2020.
Composed in Syriac in northern Mesopotamia, the Syriac Alexander Legend, also known as the Neṣḥānā, is a legendary account of the exploits of Alexander the Great. It is independent of the Alexander Romance and served as a source for apocalyptic literature in the 7th century. It is the earliest work to mention the fusion of Alexander's gate with the Biblical apocalyptic tradition of Gog and Magog.
The Hadīth Dhī ʾl-Qarnayn, also known as the Leyenda de Alejandro, is an anonymous Hispano-Arabic legend of Alexander the Great. It dates to the 15th century.
