just wondering because it is made up of a lot of german words.
2007-04-27 16:18:18 · 6 answers · asked by hhh 2 in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
According to my Jewish relatives, Yiddish is considered to be a bastardization of German. Basically, that means it is a highly specialized dialect, not understood by those who only speak German.
Wikipedia has a good article with better information.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiddish
2007-04-27 16:27:48 · answer #1 · answered by Uther Aurelianus 6 · 4⤊ 1⤋
It is very much a West Germanic language but with numerous Hebrew and Slavic loan words. The Slavic loan words like jabe (frog), lopete (shovel), potkeve (horseshoe) and kutshme (fur cap) are mostly of Polish and Russian origin.
It most closely resembles the Middle High German (spoken roughly between Bonn and Leipzig) of the 15th century but has some links to Dutch and even English. After all, there were sizeable Jewish communities nearby in Holland and England too.
After Frisian and Dutch, Yiddish may be the closest relative of English in the Germanic family.
Sadly, the number of Yiddish speakers was drastically reduced as a result of Nazi atrocities during World War II and continues to decline.
2007-04-28 04:04:54 · answer #2 · answered by Brennus 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Yiddish is considered to be a Germanic language. Yiddish means Judisch, or Jewish.
2007-04-28 01:07:07 · answer #3 · answered by Fred 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Yiddish is a combination of English and Hebrew(Jewish). Spoken frequently in Israel and where ever Jews congregate en-masse! There would appear to be some German words tossed into the language,but no more than you would find some French,Greek or Latin...in the English language!
2007-04-27 23:27:45 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 5⤋
German is considered to be a Yiddish language.
2007-04-27 23:21:26 · answer #5 · answered by Anpadh 6 · 0⤊ 8⤋
it must b....i'm german . i have no problem understanding it!
2007-04-28 11:49:39 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋