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Yiddish is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a High German-based vernacular fused with many elements taken from Hebrew and to some extent Aramaic; most varieties also have substantial influence from Slavic languages, and the vocabulary contains traces of influence from Romance languages. Yiddish writing uses the Hebrew alphabet. In the 1990s, there were around 1.5–2 million speakers of Yiddish, mostly Hasidic and Haredi Jews. In 2012, the Center for Applied Linguistics estimated the number of speakers to have had a worldwide peak at 11 million, with the number of speakers in the United States and Canada then totaling 150,000. An estimate from Rutgers University gives 250,000 American speakers, 250,000 Israeli speakers, and 100,000 in the rest of the world.
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Sarah Reisen was a Belarusian-American Yiddish poet and translator.
Vaybertaytsh or mashket, is a semi-cursive script typeface for the Yiddish alphabet. From the 16th until the early 19th century, the mashket font distinguished Yiddish publications, whereas Hebrew square script were used for classical texts in Hebrew and Aramaic, and "Rashi" script for rabbinic commentaries and works in Ladino.
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References
- 1 2 3 4 Liptzin, Sol, A History of Yiddish Literature, Jonathan David Publishers, Middle Village, NY, 1972. ISBN 0-8246-0124-6. pp.16-17.
- ↑ Katz, Dovid (2007). Words on Fire: The Unfinished Story of Yiddish (2 ed.). New York: Basic Books. p. 95. ISBN 978-0-465-03730-8.
- ↑ "Sarah Bas Tovim". Jewish Women's Archive . Retrieved 2021-11-01.