Yiddish

Yiddish belongs to the Germanic group of Indo-European languages. It is also referred to as Judeo-German and is spoken by about three million people in Israel, United States, and throughout Europe and Russia. Linguists believe that the Yiddish language arose around the eleventh century in Germany and Central Europe, where Ashkenazic Jews began writing Middle German with Hebrew letters.

The language continued to develop through Judaic poetry, song, and daily use in through late Middle Ages and into the modern period, borrowing from German, Hebrew, and Slavic languages. It is estimated that the number of Jews speaking Yiddish before World War II and the Holocaust was close to 11 million.