For the inexperienced ear of a Russian person, Hebrew and Yiddish are interchangeable concepts, one might even say synonyms. But is that so, and what is the difference? Hebrew and Yiddish are two languages spoken by Jews, but they differ from each other in age, origin, areas 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 description of both languages.
Hebrew: Origin
This is truly one of the oldest languages of mankind. He belongs to the Semitic group. There is no consensus among historians regarding its origins. Some claim that it separated from the languages of the northwestern sub-branches of the Semitic group, where Ugaritic, Canaanite, and Aramaic are credited, and became independent in the 13th century BC. The name "Semitic" comes from the name of Shem - a descendant of ancient Noah, from whom the peoples who spoke the above languages sprang. But these are just hypotheses, because there is no clear evidence that these languages were once one. On the contrary, judging by the preserved ancient written monuments, these languages appear as integral and fully formed, and not in the developmental stage.
Is Hebrew the first language of mankind?
If you trust the Holy Jewish Scriptures, then Sim himself, his father Noah, and even the first person on earth, Adam, should have spoken in the ancient Hebrew form. Why? Because the mixing of languages was a punishment for disobedience of the inhabitants of ancient Babylon, and since Shem and his descendants were not among the rebels, therefore, their language was not changed, but continued to exist until the first Jew, Abraham.
Yiddish is a language that cannot boast of such an age; it appeared relatively recently.
The oldest written monuments
Of course, Hebrew has undergone changes over its centuries-old history. For example, the part of the Bible called the Old Testament was written mainly in the Hebrew form of this language from the 15th to the 5th centuries BC. And it is the main document for the study of the original form of Hebrew. Thousands of manuscripts and individual fragments were found, thanks to which it is possible to trace modifications in the writing of letters.
Non-biblical written monuments of the same period are relatively few. Among them, the Geser calendar with a description of months and agricultural work (X century BC), Samaritan clay shards of the VIII century BC and the same from Lachish, dating back to the 6th century BC, as well as the Siloam inscription from the time of Hezekiah.
From these historical documents one can learn about the semantic system and grammatical structure of the language of that time, its development during that period. You can also trace that a number of words appeared, borrowed from Akkadian, Aramaic and Arabic, which are also included in the Hebrew vocabulary.
Yiddish cannot boast of such ancient documents at all, since in those centuries it did not exist. It arose much later.
Hebrew: Further Development
All this time Hebrew was used for both oral and written speech. It was the only language of everyday communication.
But the situation began to change in the 2nd century A.D. Hebrew is no longer a spoken language. Now it is used only for worship. But, despite this, it has survived to this day, although it has undergone some changes. The scribes of the text of the Old Testament, who called themselves masorets, played a large role in this.
The fact is that the Hebrew language has one interesting feature: Hebrew words were written using only consonants, and vowels were inserted already during the reading process. But over time, when Hebrew began to go out of use, and, accordingly, Hebrew speech sounded less and less, new generations began to forget how certain words were spoken, because they doubted which vowels needed to be added. And it was precisely these masorets who came up with a vowel system - vowel symbols so that the sound of words would not be lost forever. This is how Hebrew managed to survive up to our time. Although it was hardly used as a colloquial until the beginning of the 20th century. It was the language of worship, fiction, and journalism.
Looking ahead, I want to say that at the beginning of the last century, it was Yiddish that was used as the spoken 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. A movement has appeared that supports the introduction of Hebrew in all spheres of life. The main goal was to return the original language to spoken language. And this miracle happened. The language, which has been bookish for 18 centuries, again sounds on the streets, in shops, at school lessons.
Hebrew: alphabet
Interestingly, the Hebrew square writing 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. Modern spelling was entrenched after the Babylonian captivity (VI century BC). The letters found a square spelling. The following is the vowel alphabet. The letters are arranged according to the European pattern - from left to right. Vocations are placed on the right side.
Both Yiddish and Hebrew, whose alphabet consists of 22 letters and is called consonant, (because these letters indicate only consonants), do not have separate letters for vowels. But in Hebrew, vowels are sometimes added to facilitate reading, which was mentioned earlier. This mainly applies to children's or religious literature. In Yiddish, there are no vocalizations. This is one of the main differences when writing letters. And here is an example of the Yiddish alphabet, where the letters are located from right to left.
Yiddish: Origin
This language can be considered young in comparison with its relative. It arose 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 eventually - the modern German language. About a fifth of the vocabulary is the same Hebrew, and another 15% of the words were of Slavic origin. In simple words, Yiddish is a mixture of Semitic, Germanic and Slavic linguistic systems. But the Yiddish alphabet is no different from Hebrew.
Most of the words have Germanic roots, sentences are also built using German grammar. Yiddish words are phonetically perceived as a dialect of the same German language. It is not surprising that Yiddish was first considered jargon, and it was not perceived as an independent language, or at least a dialect.
Yiddish: area of distribution
He, of course, is not as wide as that of his rival, Hebrew. Jews spoke Yiddish only within Europe. In other parts of the world, it was not used.
Despite the fact that more than 11 million people spoke it in European countries, officially in some of them it was recognized as a full-fledged language only at the beginning of the 20th century. For example, on the emblem of the Byelorussian SSR the 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 pushed it out of use due to some factors. What contributed to this? Firstly, Hebrew was declared the official language of Israel , secondly, the majority of Jews speaking Yiddish were exterminated during the Second World War, thirdly, it is Hebrew that is the language of the Jews who live on the promised land.
Differences
So, based on all the above facts regarding these two languages, what is the difference? Hebrew and Yiddish have some fundamental differences. Here they are:
- Hebrew is millennia older than Yiddish.
- Hebrew refers exclusively to the Semitic languages, and the basis of Yiddish, in addition to the Semitic, is also Germanic and Slavic roots.
- Yiddish text is written without vocalization.
- Hebrew is much more common.
The native speakers who know both languages can even better explain what the difference is. Hebrew and Yiddish have much in common, but the main difference, most likely, is not in vocabulary or grammar, but in the purpose of use. Here is a proverb that existed among European Jews 100 years ago about this: "God speaks Yiddish on weekdays, and Hebrew on Saturday." Then Hebrew was a language only for religious worship, and everyone spoke Yiddish. Well, now the situation has changed exactly the opposite.