Reply To: Is Yiddish Holy?

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american_yerushalmi
Participant

I realize that my comments won’t carry any weight with the other commenters who have an anti-Yiddish agenda. But, Rav Kook spoke to my grandparents in Yiddish, and they heard him speaking to others in Yiddish as well. So, all the stories about him only prove that he was not absolutely one way or the other. Sometimes Yiddish was OK, and other times he preferred Hebrew. And yes, both grandparents were fluent in Hebrew and Yiddish.
Regarding Yiddish being holy, I heard the previous mashgiach of Lakewood, Rav Nosson Wachtfogel zt”l say a number of times that the Rishonim in Europe invested some “sanctity” to Yiddish (I believe he said, “a bissele mekadesh gevein”) , somewhat like the Sages “sanctified” Aramaic that was used to transmit the Torah She’baal Peh. I imagine anyone who heard the mashgiach’s shmuessen and va’adim some decades back would also have heard him say this.
Oh, and one more thing. Nearly all languages today are “creole” — that is a mixture of tongues. Including English, and the ostensibly revered Israeli Hebrew, which nowadays is highly adulterated with English and Arabic words. among others. So, Israeli Hebrew is just as “creole” a language as Yiddish.