"Yiddish (ייִדיש, יידיש or אידיש, yidish/idish, pronounced [ˈ(j)ɪdɪʃ], lit. "Jewish"; in older sources ייִדיש-טײַטש Yidish-Taitsh, lit. Judaeo-German) is the historical language of the Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during ...
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the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a High German-based vernacular fused with elements taken from Hebrew and Aramaic as well as from Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages. Yiddish writing uses the Hebrew alphabet.
The earliest surviving references date from the 12th century and call the language לשון־אַשכּנז (loshn-ashknaz, "language of Ashkenaz") or טײַטש (taytsh), a variant of tiutsch, the contemporary name for Middle High German. Colloquially, the language is sometimes called מאַמע־לשון (mame-loshn, lit. "mother tongue"), distinguishing it from לשון־קודש (loshn koydesh, "holy tongue"), meaning Hebrew and Aramaic. The term "Yiddish", short for Yidish Taitsh ("Jewish German"), did not become the most frequently used designation in the literature until the 18th century. In the late 19th and into the 20th century the language was more commonly called "Jewish", especially in non-Jewish contexts,[clarification needed] but "Yiddish" is again the more common designation today.[citation needed]" - (en.wikipedia.org 19.09.2019)