Recently I found really cool map of Yiddish dialects in Europe in end of 19 and beginning of 20 century. That actually pushed me to write a small article about origination of Yiddish dialects as well as a current use of the language in today’s warls.
Yiddish has many dialects, which are usually subdivided into western and eastern dialects. The last one is divided into three main dialects: Northern (so-called. Belarusian-Lithuanian dialect:
Baltic States,
Belarus,
north-eastern regions of Poland,
west of Smolensk Oblast of Russia and
part of the Chernigov region of Ukraine),
South-East ( so-called. dialect of Ukrainian:
Ukraine,
Moldavia,
the eastern region of Romania,
first of all - Moldova and Bucovina,
the southern part of the Brest Region of Belarus and
the Lublin Region of Poland),
Central (or south-west, so-called. Polish dialects:
central and western Poland,
Transylvania,
the Carpathian areas of Ukraine).
There are also transitional dialects on a border of dialect regions. In the early twentieth century the united common Yiddish “klal shprakh” was developed, which gained acceptance mainly in the universities of Eastern and Central Europe. In North America, among Hasidim immerged common dialect based on the "Hungarian" Yiddish, widely used earlier in Transylvania. In the USSR, the grammatical basis of the literary standard served as a Ukrainian dialect, whereas the phonetics based on the northern dialect. Yiddish Theater, in accordance with the tradition of its origin from Abraham Goldfaden (Jewish poet, playwright. stage director and actor in the languages Yiddish and Hebrew, author of some 40 plays. Goldfaden is considered the father of the Jewish modern theatre. ), played in averaged Ukrainian dialect (sometimes, referred to as the Volyn).
Western Yiddish, which by some researchers is seen as a separate language, spoken by the Jews in the western regions of Germany, Switzerland and Holland, is now almost dead due to the massive assimilation of West European Jews prior of World War II.
By beginning of XXI century Yiddish speaking world consist of 3 million people of whom 600,000 to 700,000 people considered it as their first language. Here is a short list of countries with a most Yiddish First language speakers.
Israel: 215,000, or 3% of the total Jewish population (1995)
USA: 178,945, or 2.8% of the total Jewish population (2000)
Russia: 29,998, or 13% of the total Jewish population (2002)
Moldova: 17,000, or 26% of the total Jewish population (1989)
Ukraine: 3,213, or 3.1% of the total Jewish population (2001)
Belarus: 1,979, or 7.1% of the total Jewish population (1999)
Canada: 19,295, or 5.5% of the total Jewish population (2001)
Romania: 951, or 16.4% of the total Jewish population
Latvia: 825, or 7.9% of the total Jewish population
Lithuania: 570, or 14.2% of the total Jewish population
Estonia: 124, or 5.8% of the total Jewish population
Yiddish has many dialects, which are usually subdivided into western and eastern dialects. The last one is divided into three main dialects: Northern (so-called. Belarusian-Lithuanian dialect:
Baltic States,
Belarus,
north-eastern regions of Poland,
west of Smolensk Oblast of Russia and
part of the Chernigov region of Ukraine),
South-East ( so-called. dialect of Ukrainian:
Ukraine,
Moldavia,
the eastern region of Romania,
first of all - Moldova and Bucovina,
the southern part of the Brest Region of Belarus and
the Lublin Region of Poland),
Central (or south-west, so-called. Polish dialects:
central and western Poland,
Transylvania,
the Carpathian areas of Ukraine).
There are also transitional dialects on a border of dialect regions. In the early twentieth century the united common Yiddish “klal shprakh” was developed, which gained acceptance mainly in the universities of Eastern and Central Europe. In North America, among Hasidim immerged common dialect based on the "Hungarian" Yiddish, widely used earlier in Transylvania. In the USSR, the grammatical basis of the literary standard served as a Ukrainian dialect, whereas the phonetics based on the northern dialect. Yiddish Theater, in accordance with the tradition of its origin from Abraham Goldfaden (Jewish poet, playwright. stage director and actor in the languages Yiddish and Hebrew, author of some 40 plays. Goldfaden is considered the father of the Jewish modern theatre. ), played in averaged Ukrainian dialect (sometimes, referred to as the Volyn).
Western Yiddish, which by some researchers is seen as a separate language, spoken by the Jews in the western regions of Germany, Switzerland and Holland, is now almost dead due to the massive assimilation of West European Jews prior of World War II.
By beginning of XXI century Yiddish speaking world consist of 3 million people of whom 600,000 to 700,000 people considered it as their first language. Here is a short list of countries with a most Yiddish First language speakers.
Israel: 215,000, or 3% of the total Jewish population (1995)
USA: 178,945, or 2.8% of the total Jewish population (2000)
Russia: 29,998, or 13% of the total Jewish population (2002)
Moldova: 17,000, or 26% of the total Jewish population (1989)
Ukraine: 3,213, or 3.1% of the total Jewish population (2001)
Belarus: 1,979, or 7.1% of the total Jewish population (1999)
Canada: 19,295, or 5.5% of the total Jewish population (2001)
Romania: 951, or 16.4% of the total Jewish population
Latvia: 825, or 7.9% of the total Jewish population
Lithuania: 570, or 14.2% of the total Jewish population
Estonia: 124, or 5.8% of the total Jewish population
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