Hebrew and Yiddish - what's the difference? Hebrew and Yiddish: the alphabet

For the unsophisticated ear of a Russian man, Hebrew and Yiddish are interchangeable concepts, one might say, even synonyms. But is it so, and what's the difference? Hebrew and Yiddish are two languages spoken by Jews, but they differ from each other in age and origin, and spheres of use, and many others. This article is devoted to the main differences between the two linguistic systems. But first you need to give a general description of both languages.

Hebrew: origins

This is indeed one of the most ancient languages of mankind. He is referred to the Semitic group. Regarding its origins among historians, there is no consensus. Some say that it separated from the languages of the north-western sub-branch of the Semitic group, which includes Ugarit, Canaanite and Aramaic, and became independent in the 13th century BC. The name "Semitic" comes from the name of Sim, a descendant of the ancient Noah, from which the nations who spoke the above mentioned languages occurred. But these are just hypotheses, because there is no clear evidence that these languages were once a single whole. On the contrary, judging by the ancient written memorials preserved, these languages appear as integral and fully formed, and not at the stage of development.

Hebrew is the first language of humanity?

If you trust the sacred Hebrew Scriptures, then Sim, his father Noah, and even the first person on earth, Adam, were to speak on the ancient form of Hebrew. Why? Because the confusion of languages was a punishment for disobedience of the inhabitants of ancient Babylon, and since Sim and his descendants were not among the rebels, their language was therefore not changed, but continued to exist until the first Jew, Abraham.

Yiddish is a language that can not boast of such an age, it appeared relatively recently.

The oldest written monuments

Of course, Hebrew has undergone changes in its centuries-old history. For example, part of the Bible, which is called the Old Testament, was written mainly in the Hebrew form of this language from the 15th to the 5th century BC. And it is the basic document for the study of the original form of Hebrew. Thousands of manuscripts and fragments have been found, thanks to which it is possible to trace changes in the writing of letters.

Non-biblical written monuments of the same period are relatively small. Among them is the Geser calendar with descriptions of months and agricultural works (X century BC), Samaritan clay crocks of the 8th century BC. And the same from Lakhish, dating back to the 6th century BC, as well as the Silo inscription of Hezekiah's time.

From these historical documents one can learn about the semantic system and the grammatical structure of the language of that time, its development throughout that period. It can also be seen that a number of words were derived from Akkadian, Aramaic and Arabic, which are also included in the Hebrew vocabulary.

Yiddish can not boast of such ancient documents, because in those centuries it did not exist yet. It arose much later.

Hebrew: further development

All this time Hebrew used for both oral and written speech. It was the only language of everyday communication.

But the situation began to change in the II century AD. Hebrew is no longer a spoken language. Now it is used only for worship services. But, despite this, it has survived until now, although it underwent some changes. A great role in this was played by copyists of the Old Testament text, who called themselves masorets.

The fact is that the Hebrew language has one interesting feature: words in Hebrew were written using only consonants, and vowels were inserted already during the process of reading. But over time, when Hebrew began to emerge from everyday life, and, accordingly, Jewish speech sounded less and less, new generations began to forget how some words were uttered, because they doubted which vowels to add. And it is these masoreans who come up with a system of vocalizations - the conventional designations of vowels, so that the sound of words is not lost forever. That's how Hebrew managed to survive until our time. Although as a colloquial it was hardly used until the beginning of the 20th century. It was the language of divine services, fiction, journalism.

Looking ahead, I want to say that at the beginning of the last century Yiddish was used as a colloquial language - the language of European Jews.

But with the revival of the State of Israel in 1948, Hebrew becomes the official language of the state. There was a movement supporting the introduction of Hebrew into all spheres of life. The main goal was to return the original language to spoken language. And this miracle happened. A language that has been bookish for 18 centuries, again sounds on the streets, in shops, at school lessons.

Hebrew: the alphabet

It is interesting that the Hebrew square letter served as the basis for the writing of both languages discussed in this article. But what is the difference? Hebrew and Yiddish do have an identical set of letters. The modern spelling was fixed after the Babylonian captivity (VI century BC). The letters have found a square spelling. Below is an alphabet with vowels. Letters are located on the European pattern - from left to right. Side vowels are placed on the right.

And Yiddish, and Hebrew, the alphabet of which consists of 22 letters and is called consonant, (because these letters designate only consonant sounds), does not have separate letters for vowels. But in Hebrew there are sometimes added vowels to facilitate reading, which were mentioned earlier. This mainly applies to children's or religious literature. In Yiddish, there are no vowels. This is one of the main differences when writing letters. Here is an example of the alphabet in Yiddish, where the letters are located from right to left.

Yiddish: ancestry

This language can be considered young in comparison with his congenital. It originated in the XX-XIV centuries on the territory of Eastern and Central Europe. It was based on the vocabulary of the High German dialects, and over time - and modern German. About a fifth of the vocabulary is the same Hebrew, and another 15% of the words were of Slavic origin. In simple terms, Yiddish is a mixture of Semitic, Germanic and Slavic linguistic systems. But the Yiddish alphabet is no different from Hebrew.

Most words have German roots, sentences are also constructed using German grammar. The Yiddish words are phonetically perceived as a dialect of the same German language. Not surprisingly, Yiddish was at first considered a jargon, and it was not perceived as an independent language or even a dialect.

Yiddish: distribution area

He, certainly, not such wide, as at the competitor - the Hebrew. In Yiddish, the Jews spoke only within Europe. In other parts of the world, it was not used.

Despite the fact that in European countries it was spoken by more than 11 million people, officially in some of them it was recognized as a full-fledged language only at the beginning of the XX century. For example, on the arms of the Byelorussian SSR inscription "Workers of all countries, unite!" Was written in Belarusian, Russian, Polish and Yiddish. It was also he, and not Hebrew, who was considered one of the official languages of the Ukrainian SSR in 1917.

But over time, Hebrew ousted him from everyday life due to some factors. What has contributed to this? First, Hebrew was declared the official language of Israel , and secondly, the majority of Jews speaking Yiddish were exterminated during World War II, and thirdly, Hebrew is the language of the Jews who live on the Promised Land.

Differences

So, proceeding from all the above facts about these two languages, what's the difference? Hebrew and Yiddish have some fundamental differences. Here they are:

• Hebrew is several thousand years older than Yiddish.
• Hebrew refers exclusively to Semitic languages, and at the core of Yiddish, apart from Semitic, there are also Germanic and Slavic roots.
• The text in Yiddish is written without vowels.
• Hebrew is much more common.

Aboriginal carriers, who know both languages, can even better explain the difference. Hebrew and Yiddish have much in common, but the main difference is, most likely, not in vocabulary or grammar, but in the purpose of use. This is the proverb that existed among European Jews 100 years ago about this: "God speaks Yiddish on weekdays, and Hebrew speaks Saturday." Then Hebrew was a language only for religious departures, and in Yiddish everyone said. Well, now the situation has changed exactly the opposite.