The Casualties of Yiddish in Litvishe Chadorim

There are 600,000 jews in France and another 100,000 in Quebec and another 50,000 in belgium. gtranted not all speak french, but probably most of them do. There are not as many Chassidic jews (Sephardic frum jews speak Hebrew, not yiddish)

There are 450k Jews in France (including those speaking languages other than French) and 50k in Quebec (including Yiddish speaking ones.) There are more Yiddish speaking Jews.

Yiddish is a language with few words.

Think of all the time wasted (aka bitul torah) by yidden attempting to learn a dead or dying language for “ole times sake”….Its fine for those who are already fluent in English or Hebrew who find comfort in learning in the style of the their parents/grandparents but only contributes to dysfunction if kids are forced to live in a “Yiddish -only” world at school and at home.

The problem is that the kids come in not speaking hebrew or tiddish, the teacher takes hebrew (which the kids don’t understand) and translates it to Yiddish (which the kids don’t understand) and then the kids have to figure it out nack yo English.
So if you’re smart you can do it, if not you suffer

The bottom line is that yiddish is a language and needs to be taught as a language. Chumash is a subject and should not be used as a tool to teach yiddish.
It’s simply bad pedagogy.

770chabad- back to the Yiddish in Chabad school issues. I’m asking out of curiosity, not to put down. I still don’t see how this works- I can see how it works in other chasidus, where they are insular and Yiddish speaking at home. But I never suspected that Chabad, with the large influx of BTs, was the same way- so you are saying that kids from BT homes, who never spoke Yiddish in their lives, whose parents don’t speak Yiddish, will switch out of public school, say at age 9, and go to a Yiddish speaking school, and the sefarim you described is enough to get them through? Or maybe these kids stay in the local Chabad day schools? But then you are creating a sub-community within the community, the BTs will never integrate.
The other issue that you did not answer, is how a boy who only learned to speak, read, and write English at home in his after-cheder time, can grow up to be an eloquent Shaliach who can communicate articulately with the people in his very out of town communities where the locals do not speak Yiddish. I imagine that shlichus goes beyond putting tefillin on someone and teaching them how to say shema and serving lots of meals on yomim tovim- they must talk and express themselves, teach deep concepts etc. How do they manage?

“The rebbe is with them” last I checked the Lubavitcher rebbe ZT”l was niftar 24 years ago..,,,

I grew up in a home where Yiddish was spoken as well as English so I did not encounter much difficulty in understanding Taitch. The problem these days is that most American born Rebbis (except those in Chassidishe communities) don’t really speak Yiddish very well so most of what they teach in is “Yinglish” (sometimes called Yeshivish). I maintain that Instruction should be in English. English has, by far, the largest and most nuanced vocabulary of any language, enabling precise translation of the most complicated concepts. Of course, the problem with that is that most American born Rebbis don’t speak English very well either.

P.S. RMF maintained that all Ashkenazi Jews should learn Yiddish as a Minhag Kadosh.

The US State Department ranks language learning difficult levels on a scale from 1 to 3. 1 being easiest for an english speaker to learn and 3 being the Hardest. Germanic Languages (Except German) and Romance Languages are 1 and Asians languages are usualy a 3. German is a 2 they estimate it will take 1000 hours to become fluent in german as opposed to 400 hours to become fluent in French or Spanish. It is not so easy for an english speaker to learn german.

I agree that learning a foreign language is useful and good and yiddish is a secondary language, my issues with it are that is languages are more than just speaking, its reading and writing. There are very few books a frum jew would read in yiddish and the only sefer I know of is the Tsnea Urena . The other good books in yiddish are unlikley to be taught in a chassidic school like Tevye the Milkman (Fiddler on the Roof).

I also strongly disgree with making yiddish primary over english (or Hebrew in Israel) as one must communicate in the local language and people treat you by how well you know the local lanaguge and I dont care what you are told. Most people who come from these places have very poor english skills, not matter what they are told. If you want to make a good english speaker and reader and then teach Yiddish as a secondary language, that is fine

Chabad speaks Yiddish not yinglish

“Does the practice of speaking Yiddush have value as an anti-assimilation tool?”

If the only way people will be frum is to make them speak a language nobody else understands and not let people speak the language of the country, then there is something wrong with your yiddishkeite

Nobody forces them to know Yiddish

The Torah is the Tool and the only tool to keep someone Frum. Not any language.

To Mammele….I was seeking to be a bit over the top in response to someone suggesting that restricting the language skills of children to Yiddish only is a good idea because it might help reduce or prevent assimilation. I personally find that abusive to the child in that it makes it more likely that such child will have major difficulties when he seeks to marry and support a family and discovers his inability to communicate renders him dysfunctional for most professions and careers and unable to earn a good parnassah to support himself and his family.

Yiddish is not Pidgin german, it is Yiddish its own language. With a whole history , culture and Literature with it.

The problem none of these are taught and the yiddish spoken is lousy Yiddish and its taught at the expense of English and Hebrew. if AFTER your kids speak , read and write perfect english you want them to learn Yiddish, Gezun Deh heh. And when you do, make sure its GOOD Yiddish and not Yinglish

Avi K, you wish. Learning German as a Yiddish speaker is almost as hard as learning it knowing only English.

iacisrmma, by that logic English is not its own language either.

It’s from Russian Hebrew German polish

In any case, I still see no value in studying it, much less speaking it unless one wants to be an anthropologist or historian.

ZD,
1. A language is a dialect with an army and a navy (the adage was popularized by the sociolinguist and Yiddish scholar Max Weinreich).
2. Actually, you used that term once. However, upon further examination I see that Yiddish is actually a creole language. “A creole language is a stable natural language developed from a mixture of different languages. While the concept is similar to that of a mixed or hybrid language, in the strict sense of the term, a mixed/hybrid language has derived from two or more languages, to such an extent that it is no longer closely related to the source languages. Creoles also differ from pidgins in that, while a pidgin has a highly simplified linguistic structure that develops as a means of establishing communication between two or more disparate language groups, a creole language is more complex, used for day-to-day purposes in a community, and acquired by children as a native language. Creole languages, therefore, have a fully developed vocabulary and system of grammar.” (Wikipedia)
3. In fact, Chazal take a shot at the Romans for not having their own language and alphabet.

770, do you also celebrate the birthday of the Tsar yarum hodo?

RY, I am presently studying German (and French) on Duolingo. Actually the relationship to English (and the few Yiddish words I know) make it easier (so sayeth The Foreign Service Institute of the US Department of State, which ranks both Germna and French in the easiest learning category for English-speakers ) and more interesting.

Who is Tsar yarum hodo? A czar ? Pls explain…
Gh have a convo with any lubav u ll see the yiddishs real
U can start lol

RedLEg
“English has, by far, the largest and most nuanced vocabulary of any language, enabling precise translation of the most complicated concepts.”

what makes you say that? I have some familiarity with French and it is far more nuanced than English. Admittedly that is subjective.

On wikipedia yo uwill find that French, Italian, German. dutch, Swedish among others have more twords than English. Im curious what led you to make your assertion :

Bottom line – yiddish is the jewish language whether its as popular as it once was or not doesnt matter it should be. It the (just about) universal language amoung chasidim, chabad included as its the language of crown heights. Like many before me have said, hebrew is strongly based of loshon hakoidesh which isnt b’chaviddik to be spoken in non toradik discussions. Yiddish avoids this problem.
BTW (there are still many litvaks in America who grew up or are growing up in a yiddish speaking home though it is the minority.

To Yiiddeshe Kop

More than four million yidden living in heretz hakodesh speak Hebrew including most of the gadolim living in EY. A large percentage of Israelis are also fluent in English. Its embarrassing when you see videos of some of these “asifahs” and speakers get up to the podium in front of thousands and cannot communicate in either Hebrew or English so that their message is intelligible to all the attendees.

everyone on this thread should read the “Frum Revolution” for an insider view of language issues in the yeshivos…