Hebrew and Yiddish - what is the difference? Hebrew and Yiddish: alphabet

To the untrained ear of the Russian people Hebrew and Yiddish — interchangeable concepts, we can say even synonyms. But is it, and what's the difference? Hebrew and Yiddish — these are two languages spoken by the Jews, but they differ from each other and age, and origin, and fields of use, and many others. This article focuses on the main differences between the two linguistic systems. But first you need to give a General characterization of both languages.

Hebrew: origin

It really is one of the oldest languages of humanity. It belongs to the Semitic group. Regarding its origins among historians there is no consensus. Some say he was separated from the languages of the Northwest Semitic sub-branch of the group, where credit Ugaritic, Canaanite and Aramaic, became independent in the XIII century BC the Name "Semitic" comes from the name Shem — a descendant of the ancient Noah, from whom the Nations were, talking in above mentioned languages. But this is only a hypothesis because of the obvious evidence that these languages were once one, no. On the contrary, judging from the surviving ancient written monuments, these languages appear as a whole and fully formed, not in the development stage.

Hebrew — the first language of humanity?

If to trust the sacred Jewish Scriptures, the ancient form of Hebrew had to talk myself Shem, his father Noah, and even the first man on earth — Adam. Why? Because the confusion of languages was a punishment for disobedience of the inhabitants of ancient Babylon, and as Shem and his descendants was not listed among the rebels, therefore, their language was not changed, but continued to exist until the first Jew-Abraham.

Yiddish — a language which cannot boast of such an age, he emerged relatively recently.

The Earliest written monuments

Of Course, Hebrew in its long history has undergone changes. For example, the part of the Bible called the Old Testament was written mostly in Hebrew the form of the language in the period from the XV to the V century BC And it is the main document for the study of the original forms of Hebrew. Found thousands of manuscripts and fragments, through which you can trace modifications in writing letters.

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The same non-biblical written records of this period are relatively few. Among them Ezerski calendar with a description of the months and farm work (X century BC), Samaritan pottery shards VIII century BC and from Lachish related to the VI century BC, and the Siloam inscription of the time of Hezekiah.

Of these historical documents you can learn about the semantic system and grammatical structure of the language of the time, its development during that period. You can also see that there was a certain amount of words borrowed from the Akkadian, Aramaic and Arabic, who also entered the lexicon of Hebrew.

Yiddish does not boast of such ancient documents because in those ages it did not exist. He emerged much later.

Hebrew: further development

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

But the situation began to change in the second century B. C. Hebrew ceased be a spoken language. Now it is used only for worship. But despite this, he remained still, though has undergone some changes. A large role was played by the scribes of the text of the old Testament, who called themselves masorete.

The fact that the Hebrew language has an interesting feature: the word in Hebrew was written using only consonants, and vowels inserted is already in the process of reading. But over time, when Hebrew began to go out of use, and, accordingly, the Jewish voice sound less, new generations began to forget how to pronounce some words because I doubt what vowels should be added. And that these Maserati invented a system of vowels — symbols of vowels to the sound of the words was not lost forever. That's the way the Hebrew has been preserved until our time. Though spoken barely used until the beginning of XX century. It was a liturgical language, literature, journalism.

Looking ahead, I want to say that in the beginning of the last century as a spoken was used Yiddish — the language of European Jews.

But with the revival of the state of Israel in 1948, Hebrew became the official language of the state. There was a movement supporting introduction of Hebrew into all spheres of life. The main aim was to restore the native language in speaking. And this miracle happened. The language was a book for 18 centuries, again is on the streets, in shops, in school lessons.

Hebrew: alphabet

It is Interesting that the Hebrew square letter served as the basis for writing in both languages, are discussed in this article. But what's the difference? Hebrew and Yiddish do have an identical set of letters. The modern spelling was fixed after the Babylonian captivity (sixth century BC). Letters found square writing. Below is the alphabet with the vowels. The letters are placed on the European model — from left to right. Right side placed punctuation marks.

And Yiddish and Hebrew alphabet which has 22 letters and is called the consonant, (because these letters represent only consonants), has no separate letters for vowels. But in Hebrew the vowels are sometimes added to facilitate reading, about which I mentioned earlier. It is primarily concerned with children's religious literature. In Yiddish the same marks there. This is one of the main differences when writing letters. Here is an example of the alphabet in Yiddish, where the letters are placed from right to left.

Yiddish: origins

This language can be considered young in comparison with its relatives. It originated in the XX-XIV centuries on the territory of Eastern and Central Europe. It is based entered the vocabulary of high German dialects, but with time and the modern German language. Approximately one fifth of the vocabulary — the same Hebrew, and another 15% of the words were of Slavic origin. In simple words, Yiddish is an amalgam of Semitic, Germanic and Slavic linguistic systems. But the alphabet of Yiddish does not differ from the Hebrew.

Most of the words have Germanic roots, the proposals are built using German grammar. Words in Yiddish phonetically perceived as the dialect of the same German language. It is not surprising that the Yiddish was at first considered slang, and it is not perceived as a separate language or at least dialect.

Yiddish: areal distribution

He, of course, is not as extensive as that of his rival — Hebrew. Yiddish speaking Jews were only in Europe. In other parts of the world it was not used.

Despite the fact that in European countries it talked to more than 11 million people, officially in some of them he was recognized as a language only in the early XX century. For example, the coat of arms of the Byelorussian SSR the inscription "Proletarians of all countries, unite!" was written in Belarusian, Russian, Polish and Yiddish. Also it was he, not Hebrew was considered to be one of the official languages of the Ukrainian SSR in 1917.

But over time, the Hebrew ousted him from use due to certain factors. What contributed to this? First, the official language of Israel declared the Hebrew, and secondly, the majority of Jews, speaking in Yiddish, was exterminated in the Second world, and third, that Hebrew is the language of the Jews living in the promised Land.

Distinctions

So, based on all of the above facts relative to these two languages, what's the difference? Hebrew and Yiddish have some fundamental differences. Here they are:

• Hebrew several thousand years older than Yiddish.
• Hebrew refers exclusively to Semitic languages, and Yiddish, in addition to Semitic, there are also Germanic, and Slavic roots.
• Text in Yiddish writing without the vowels.
• Hebrew is much more common.

Native speakers, knowledgeable and he and the other language, might better explain the difference. Hebrew and Yiddish have a lot in common, but the main difference is likely to lie not in the lexicon or grammar, and for the purpose of use. Here's a saying existed among European Jews 100 years ago about this: "God says in Yiddish in everyday life, and Hebrew - in Saturday." Then Hebrew was the language only for religious rites, and the Yiddish spoken all. Well, now the situation has changed exactly the opposite.