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The Yiddish language is written with the 22-letter Hebrew alphabet. Words of Aramaic and Hebrew language origin are normally written using this alphabet unmodified in the traditional orthographies of the source languages. All other Yiddish vocabulary is represented with a phonetic orthography that uses some letters that are consonants in Hebrew to indicate vowels. Other letters that can serve as either vowels or consonants are differentiated by combining diacritical marks with the base character. Additional phonetic distinctions between letters that share the same base character are also indicated by diacritics, or by the adjacent placement of otherwise silent base characters.
The Yiddish combining marks, commonly referred to as "points", are derived from the Hebrew nikud. Several Yiddish points are, however, not commonly used in any present-day Hebrew context and others are used in a manner that is specific to Yiddish orthography. There is significant variation in the way this is applied in literary practice. There are also several differing approaches to the disambiguation of characters that can be used as either vowels or consonants. The traditional and phonetic orthographies can also both appear in a single word, for example, where a Yiddish affix is applied to a Hebrew stem.
Early 20th century reform
In the early twentieth century, for both cultural and political reasons, focused efforts were made at developing a uniform Yiddish orthography. A specimen initial orthographic practice is described in detail by the Yiddish lexicographer Alexander Harkavy in a Treatise on Yiddish Reading, Orthography, and Dialectal Variations first published in 1898 together with his Yiddish-English Dictionary (Harkavy 1898), and available online (beginning with the section headed Yiddish reading). Additional illustrations of this variation are provided in source excerpts in Fishman 1981, which also contains a number of texts specifically about the need for a uniform orthography. A detailed chronology of the major events during this normative action, including rosters of conference participants, bibliographic reference to the documents they produced, and summaries of their contents, is given in Yiddish in Schaechter 1999. A less detailed (but extensive nonetheless) English language review of this process is provided in Estraikh 1999.
The first action formally undertaken by a government was in the Soviet Union in 1920, with the abolition of the separate etymological orthography for words of Semitic origin. This was extended twelve years later with the elimination of the five separate final-form consonants (as indicated in the table in the following section) which were, however, reintroduced in 1961. The efforts preliminary to the 1920 reform resulted in other devices that were not implemented by governmental mandate. These were further considered during the 1930s by YIVO in the development of a Standard Yiddish Orthography ("SYO", also known by the Yiddish "takhones" or corresponding English "Rules") which has become the most frequently referenced such system in present-day use (SYO 1999). Although it is being adopted in a growing number of contexts, it would be significantly misleading to suggest that it is now universal. Major Yiddish periodicals in the United States, including Forverts, only adopted it within the past ten years. A representative comment is found in Katz 1987, "A widely taught (but less widely used) variant of modern standard orthography is that of the Yivo....". Alternative orthographies are still frequently encountered in contemporary practice. A useful descriptive review of this variation is provided in the Oxford Rules published in 1992. Individual contributions to the standardization effort are described in detail in Schaechter 1999.
Transliteration
Individual Yiddish letters and letter combinations may be pronounced quite differently in the various Yiddish dialects. Whatever impact this may have on the discussion of standardized orthography, it becomes a significant concern when Yiddish is transliterated into other scripts. It is entirely possible to assign a specific character or sequence of characters in, for example, the Roman alphabet to a specific character or character sequence in the Yiddish alphabet. This is a fundamental consideration in the preparation of multilingual dictionaries and any such work will either explicitly or implicitly be associated with a single consistent transliteration system. The transliterated form of an individual word will, however, be pronounced in a manner that appears natural in the target language. A choice therefore needs to be made about which of the several possible pronunciations of the Yiddish word is to be conveyed prior to its transliteration.
The Harkavy treatise cited above describes a system of romanization that is based on the pronunciation of the Northeastern Yiddish dialect, Litvish. This was also a mainstay of the standardization efforts of YIVO, resulting in the romanization system described in detail below. These two initiatives provide a convenient framework within which the intervening developments may be considered. There was significant debate about many aspects of that sequence, including contention about the need for any form of standardized orthography at all (Fishman 1981).
There was also consideration of the outright replacement of Hebrew script with Roman script in the native representation of written Yiddish. Romanization can therefore not be seen exclusively in a lexicographical perspective. A number of Yiddish books are currently available in romanized editions, including Yiddish dictionaries.
There is no general agreement about the transliteration of Hebrew into the Roman alphabet. The Hebrew component of a Yiddish text will normally reflect the transliterator's preference without being seen as a component of the methodology applied to the romanization of words presented in the phonetic orthography.
Transcription
A transliteration system uses one script to represent another as closely as possible. It will normally permit unambiguous conversion back and forth between the two scripts. Where the intent is to indicate phonetic variation, some form of transcription will be required. This is frequently done by using the International Phonetic Alphabet ("IPA"). There are also many contexts in which phonetic distinctions are indicated by the diacritical marking of the base characters, or through the similar use of some alternate script with which the audience is expected to be familiar. All approaches are seen in Yiddish texts, indicating distinctions that cannot be directly represented with the basic Yiddish script by using Hebrew combining marks, with Roman letters, and with the IPA.
There is no intrinsic reason why a transcription scheme cannot also be used for transliteration. In general, however, there is no expectation that the representation of a word in the source script can be retrieved from a transcription. Its purpose is to indicate how a word is pronounced, not its native orthography.
The table in the following section indicates two alternatives each for romanized transliteration and phonetic transcription. It is keyed to the Yiddish character repertoire as codified by YIVO. Other transliteration systems are also regularly employed in a variety of contexts but no single one of them represents the full range of variant pronunciation in Yiddish dialects. Nor is the YIVO system equally appropriate phonetically to all languages using Roman script. This issue becomes particularly intricate when dealing with older texts where little is known about pronunciation and transmitting the fullest possible detail of their notation is historically important. There are several approaches to the romanization of such material. The YIVO transliteration system is solely intended to serve as an English-oriented phonetic counterpart to the modern Standard Yiddish described (and to some extent prescribed) in the SYO. That work does, however, consider the transcription of variant pronunciation as will be discussed below.
YIVO published a major study of the range of Yiddish phonetic variation in The Language and Cultural Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry, commonly referred to as the LCAAJ. This uses an elaborate systems of decorated Roman characters to indicate this variation and does not apply standard YIVO transliteration at all. (The phonetic transcription scheme is not amenable to tabular presentation and is therefore not included here.)
The Yiddish alphabet
This table lists the Yiddish alphabet as described in the Uriel Weinreich English-Yiddish-English Dictionary (Weinreich 1968). The YIVO romanizations are taken from the same source, where they are presented as "sound equivalents". The romanizations indicated in Harkavy 1898 are included for comparison. The IPA transcriptions correspond to the examples provided by YIVO at http://yivo.org/about/index.php?tid=57&aid=275. The phonetic transcriptions are taken from Jacobs 2005.
| Symbol | YIVO Romanization | Harkavy Romanization | IPA Transcription | Phonetic Transcription | Name | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| א | (none) | (none) | (none) | (none) | shtumer alef | Indicates that a syllable starts with a vocalic ו ,י, or digraph form of these letters. Neither pronounced nor transcribed. |
| אַ | a | a | a | pasekh alef | ||
| אָ | o | o | o | komets alef | ||
| ב | b | b | b | beys | ||
| בֿ | v | v | v | veys | Only used in words of Semitic origin. | |
| ג | g | g | g | giml | ||
| ד | d | d | d | daled | ||
| ה | h | h | h | hey | ||
| ו | u | u | u | vov | ||
| וּ | u | (none) | u | melupm vov | Only used adjacent to ו or before י. | |
| װ | v | v | v | tsvey vovn | ||
| ױ | oy | oi | oj | vov yud | ||
| ז | z | z | z | zayen | ||
| זש | zh | zh | ž | zayen shin | ||
| ח | kh | ch | x | khes | Only used in words of Semitic origin. | |
| ט | t | t | t | tes | ||
| י | y, i | y, i | j, i | yud | Consonantal at the beginning of a syllable (except where preceded by א). Vocalic [i otherwise. | |
| יִ | i | (none) | i | khirik yud | Only used following a consonantal י or adjacent to another vowel. | |
| ײ | ey | ei, ai | ej | tsvey yudn | ||
| ײַ | ay | (none) | aj | pasekh tsvey yudn | ||
| כּ | k | k | k | kof | Only used in words of Semitic origin. | |
| כ | kh | ch | x | khof | ||
| ך | kh | ch | x | lange khof | Final form. Only used at the end of a word. | |
| ל | l | l | l | lamed | ||
| מ | m | m | m | mem | ||
| ם | m | m | m | shlos mem | Final form. Only used at the end of a word. | |
| נ | n | n | n | nun | ||
| ן | n | n | n | lange nun | Final form. Only used at the end of a word. | |
| ס | s | s | s | samekh | ||
| ע | e | e | e | ayin | ||
| פּ | p | p | p | pey | Has no separate final form. | |
| פֿ | f | f | f | fey | ||
| ף | f | f | f | lange fey | Final form. Only used at the end of a word. | |
| צ | ts | tz | c | tsadek | ||
| ץ | ts | tz | c | lange tsadek | Final form. Only used at the end of a word. | |
| ק | k | k | k | kuf | ||
| ר | r | r | r | reysh | ||
| ש | sh | sh | š | shin | ||
| שׂ | s | s | s | sin | Only used in words of Semitic origin. | |
| תּ | t | t | t | tof | Only used in words of Semitic origin. | |
| ת | s | s | s | sof | Only used in words of Semitic origin. |
Standard Yiddish orthography
The SYO is presented in Yiddish and only includes a few romanized transcriptions where needed to indicate variant pronunciation. These are German rather than English phonetic equivalents, for which reason they are not included in the preceding table. Given that the YIVO standardization initiative has been severely criticized for failing to accommodate dialectic variation, it may be worth noting that the SYO explicitly references the three major branches of Eastern Yiddish — Litvish (Northern), Poylish (Central), and Ukrainish (Southern), as developed in the regions centered on present-day Lithuania/Belarus, Poland, and Ukraine. The SYO gives dialect-specific romanized equivalents for the following characters:
| Symbol | Litvish | Poylish | Ukrainish | Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ו | u | i | i | vov |
| ײ | ej | aj | ej | tsvey yudn |
| ײַ | aj | ā | ā | pasekh tsvey yudn |
A few further romanized equivalents are provided but do not indicate dialectic differences. These are identical to what is contained in the table in the preceding section, with the following exceptions:
| Symbol | Romanization | Name | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| כ | ch, x, * | khof | kh is not included in earlier SYO editions |
| ש | š | shin |
Litvish is often considered a "standard" dialect. It is the basis for the YIVO transcription and is the form most widely taught in academic contexts. There are however several other important distinctions between Litvish, Poylish, and Ukrainish that are not indicated in either the SYO or Weinreich dictionary. These are however discussed in detail in the LCAAJ, to which Weinreich was also a major contributor. It is worth noting that the Roman characters appearing in the SYO largely correspond to those used for the phonetic transcriptions in the fifth column of the main table. Decorated Roman letters used according to Central European orthographic convention provide greater flexibility in the representation of relevant phonemic distinction than does the English-based repertoire adopted by YIVO for purposes of transliteration. Phonetic transcription is therefore a common alternative in linguistic discourse about Yiddish. It is also the basis for many of the alternatives to YIVO romanization, which often include a greater range of diacritical marking. Again, such an approach was extensively developed by YIVO itself in the LCAAJ.
It should also be noted that the SYO listing of the Yiddish alphabet (which predates the Weinreich dictionary) explicitly states that the vowels with combining points, and the vov and yud digraphs, are not counted as separate letters:
אַ, אָ, וּ, װ, ױ, יִ, ײ, ײַ רעכענען זיך ניט פֿאַר קײן באַזונדערע אותיות אין אַלף־בית
The order of the letters in the alphabet is as follows:
א, ב, בֿ, ג, ד, ה, ו, ז, ח, ט, י, כּ, כ, (ך), ל, מ, (ם), נ, (ן), ס, ע, פּ, פֿ, (ף), צ, (ץ), ק, ר, ש, שׂ, תּ, ת
אַ, אָ, וּ, װ, ױ, יִ, ײ, ײַ are not counted as separate letters in the alphabet.
Common variation
There are several areas in which Yiddish orthographic practice varies. Although consonants are basically represented in the same manner, the indication of vowels differs more widely. This ranges from redundant full Hebraic pointing to largely undecorated text. Most systems do use a certain amount of pointing, although there are frequent inconsistencies in the way this is applied internally in any given system. The pointing of Yiddish text is described in detail in Harkavy 1898 and is also treated briefly in the SYO. A more extensive character repertoire is provided and discussed (in German) by Solomon Birnbaum in Birnbaum 1918. He also presents a romanized transcription system that is frequently cited in academic contexts and was intended to provide extreme flexibility in the representation of differences between dialects. This is futher illustrated in his later English work Birnbaum 1979.
One situation that does pertain to the representation of consonants is the indication of phonetic distinctions between each the four character pairs beys/veys, kof/khof, pey/fey, and tof/sof. The 'hard' pronunciation of the first letter in each pair is unequivocally denoted by a dot (dagesh) in the middle of the letter. The 'soft' pronunciation is similarly notated with a horizontal bar over the letter (rafe). However, most orthographic systems, including the SYO, point no more than one of the two characters in a pair and may be inconsistent from pair to pair in indicating the hard or soft alternative.
A second frequent variation is in the indication of the distinction between yud when used as a consonant or as a vowel, and the equivalent difference between the two uses of vov. There is a related need for marking the boundary between a yud and tsvey yudn where they appear adjacent to each other and, again, in the corresponding situation with vov and tsvey vovn. The use of a dot under a yud (khirik yud) and to the left of a vov (melupm vov) unambiguously indicates the vocalic form of that letter. It will be noted in the main table above that Harkavy does not use these pointed forms. They were among the details codified in the early 20th century, together with the pasekh tsvey yudn. In orthographies where these letters are not pointed, the vowel may be indicated by preceding it with a shtumer alef. The single and digraph forms of, for example, vov can be separated either with a dot or an embedded alef as װוּ or װאו. The reduction of the use of the shtumer alef was, itself, a major focus of the normative efforts.
A further example of this distinction may be seen graphically in an official announcement of the change in editorial policy of Forverts made on 14 November 1997, adopting the YIVO orthography. The following is included among several similar details:
"And then we removed the alef in the words ײד and ײדיש (previously איד and אידיש) and ייִנגל (previously אינגל), and now will spell the words with a khirik under the second yud as: ייִדיש ,ייִד and ייִנגל".
The appearance of three alternate spellings for the name of the Yiddish language in a statement intended to describe its orthographic standardization would not require any comment if it were not for the clear indication that the cardinal representation of the word — ײדיש — was neither the older nor the newer editorial preference. Regardless of any possible unintentional imprecision in this wording, it illustrates some of the dialectic breadth of the Yiddish language, the name of which is both written and pronounced with and without an initial consonant.
Finally, letters other than shtumer alef may be used as silent indications of syllable boundaries and in compound consonants, as well as for extending the length of an adjacent vowel. This became particularly common in Germanized orthographies dating from the late 19th century and the desire to reverse that trend was one of the reasons for the effort toward the standardization of Yiddish orthography. The Yiddish daily press was particularly conservative in its attitude toward that development and the preceding editorial statement in Forverts provides a useful capsule summary of the details about which opinions differed (quoted in full in Schaechter 1999, p. 109). Extensive additional source material relevant to the press stance on orthographic reform is provided in Fishman 1981.
Computerized text production
Digraphs
There are two different ways in which each of the digraphs tsvey vovn, vov yud, and tsvey yudn can be typed on Yiddish and Hebrew keyboards. If each digraph appears on an individual key, as is normal with a Yiddish keyboard layout, pressing that key will produce a single-character ligature. Whether or not that option is available — it is frequently missing from Hebrew keyboards — some people may also type the digraphs as two-key combinations, giving the corresponding two-letter sequences.There is no clear basis for the selection of one typing method over the other and application software does not usually normalize them. This is often without consequence beyond personal preference in the typographic appearance of the digraphs. However, in applications that compare two sequences of characters to determine if they match exactly, as for example database queries and spell checkers, differing representations of the digraphs can give unexpected or incorrect results. The potential for such confusion is increased by the digraph pasekh tsvey yudn only being available as a single-character ligature, and the digraph zayen shin only existing as two consecutive characters. The ambiguity in the representation of all the Yiddish digraphs may prove a particular concern for Internet users as Yiddish becomes available for use in Internationalized Domain Names, and begins to appear in Web and e-mail addresses (see, for example, http://about.museum/idn/yiddish.html).
See also
References
- Birnbaum, Salomo A., Praktische Grammatik der Jiddischen Sprache für den Selbstunterricht, Hartleben Verlag, Vienna, 1918, (in German).
- Birnbaum, Solomon A., Yiddish: A Survey and a Grammar, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1979, ISBN 0-8020-5382-3.
- Estraikh, Gennady, Soviet Yiddish: Language Planning and Linguistic Development, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1999, ISBN 0-19-818479-4.
- Fishman, Joshua A. (ed.), Never Say Die: A Thousand Years of Yiddish in Jewish Life and Letters, Mouton Publishers, The Hague, 1981, (in English and Yiddish), ISBN 90-279-7978-2.
- Frakes, Jerold C., Early Yiddish Texts 1100-1750, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004, ISBN 0-19-926614-X.
- Harkavy, Alexander, Harkavy's English-Jewish and Jewish-English Dictionary, Hebrew Publishing Company, New York, 1898. Expanded 6th ed., 1910. scanned facsimile
- Harkavy, Alexander, Yiddish-English-Hebrew Dictionary, Hebrew Publishing Company, New York, 1925. Expanded 2nd ed., 1928, reprinted, Yale University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-3001-0839-7.
- Herzog, Marvin, et.al. (ed.), YIVO, The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry, 3 vols., Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tubingen, 1992-2000, ISBN 3-484-73013-7.
- Jacobs, Neil G., Yiddish: A Linguistic Introduction, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005, ISBN 0-521-77215-X.
- Katz, Dovid, Grammar of the Yiddish Language, Duckworth, London, 1987, ISBN 0-7156-2161-0.
- Katz, Dovid (compiler), Code of Yiddish Spelling, Oxforder Yidish Press, Oxford, 1992, (in Yiddish), ISBN 1-8977-4401-3.
- Schaechter, Mordkhe, The Standardized Yiddish Orthography: Rules of Yiddish Spelling, 6th ed., and The History of the Standardized Yiddish Spelling, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York, 1999, (in Yiddish with introductory material in English), ISBN 0-914512-25-0.
- Weinreich, Uriel, Modern Yiddish-English English-Yiddish Dictionary, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York, 1968, ISBN 0-8052-0575-6.
- Weinreich, Uriel, College Yiddish: an Introduction to the Yiddish language and to Jewish Life and Culture, 6th revised ed., YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York, 1999, ISBN 0-914-51226-9.
External links
- Jewish Language Research Website
- Yiddish Typewriter - Online interconversion of Hebrew script and YIVO transliteration
"Yiddish orthography"