|
|
Yiddish is a language of European Jews and their
descendants. It is one of the three major literary languages in the
history of the Jews, the other two being Hebrew and Aramaic. It
developed during the tenth and eleventh centuries AD from several
languages such as French, Italian, German, Hebrew and Aramaic. It
became the language of the West European Jews. When the Jews spread
eastwards in the early fourteenth century, it gathered the flavors
of the different Slavic languages. Towards the end of the nineteenth
Yiddish gathered more add-ons. It borrowed expressions from other
languages, especially English. By then Yiddish had become one of the
most widespread languages. |
|
|
Early literature
Right since inception, Yiddish has been the language of both the
marketplace and the academics. The Yiddish language was written in
Hebrew alphabet. Although it is believed that the earliest documents
date back to the twelfth century AD, there are some scholars who are
working back to three centuries earlier. Yiddish literature began to
develop in the thirteenth century. Until the nineteenth century,
most Yiddish works were based on religious tradition such as poems
on Biblical subjects and guides to rituals and customs. Works on
ethics were written in Yiddish for the benefit of those who could
not read the Hebrew, which was the language of Jewish study and
prayer. Slowly, there appeared nonreligious works in the form of
historical poems. The rise of Yiddish printing in the sixteenth
century stimulated the development of a standardized literary
language.
Modern literature
Modern Yiddish literature began to develop significantly during
a religious and cultural movement called Haskalah or
enlightenment. This was during the nineteenth century. Reformers
tried to bring in modern European culture among the Jews. They wrote
satires that exposed what they believed were mere religious
superstition.
Prominent writers
Three authors emerged as prominent literary figures – a
humorist, Sholom Aleichem, Shalom Jacob Abramovich and Isaac Leibush
Peretz. Their works described the challenges faced by the Jewish
tradition in the non-Jew world and they also told about conflicts
within the Jewish community. When Yiddish flourished after the First
World War, other writers from Poland, Russia and the United States
began to make their mark. Notable among them were Sholem Asch in
Poland, David Bergelson in the Soviet Union and Moishe Leib Halpern
in the United States. During the Second World War, the Nazis
decimated many Yiddish writers when they killed more than six
million Jews in the holocaust. In 1952, the Russian government
executed Yiddish writers too.
Nobel Prize
In spite of so many setbacks and challenges, the Yiddish
language continues to make its presence felt, and that too with big
strides and significant marks. Polish born American writer Isaac
Bashevis Singer became the first Yiddish writer to be awarded the
Nobel Prize for literature in 1978. The major centers of Yiddish are
Israel, Australia, Canada, the United States and parts of South
America and South Africa. It continues to flourish among the secular
students of Yiddish at leading universities such as the Columbia
University, the University of Paris, the Hebrew University
(Jerusalem) and the University of Oxford. |
