We are pleased to announce that we have a Yiddish High Court interpreter available, who is experienced in Court procedure and civil Court cases, and who can also read, write and translate Yiddish if required.
What is Yiddish?
The earliest identifiably Yiddish documents date back to the fourteenth century. Yiddish is most closely related to German but incorporates words from other languages including Aramaic and Hebrew. Yiddish is traditionally written in the Hebrew script, but there is also a transliteration into the Latin alphabet, which is based on the Lithuanian pronunciation of Yiddish.
What is the current total number of Yiddish speakers?
Before the Second World War, the total number of Yiddish speakers was well over five million. About three-quarters of its speakers were killed by the Nazis during the war. Today it is estimated that Yiddish is spoken by circa two million people. These speakers are likely to be the children of the pre-war generation when Yiddish was widely spoken.
Yiddish today is still spoken in ultra-Orthodox communities across the world, with the largest such communities in Israel, New York and London. Yiddish is now an endangered language because due to increasing globalization, young families may be under pressure to speak their national language, such as Hebrew or English, or Spanish in Argentina. However, in Sweden, Yiddish is listed as a minority language and in the UK, Yiddish is encouraged and nurtured in some schools. Since Yiddish is spoken across the world, rather than nurtured in a specific territory, it has come under threat from changes in political situations or repressive regimes.
Mayrev Yiddish is the Western dialect spoken in Germany and Bohemia, whilst Mizrakh Yiddish or Eastern Yiddish encompasses Polnish, Litvak, and Galitzianish-Ukraynishe. In dealing with customers who speak Yiddish, since there are many different dialects of Yiddish, a starting point would be to ascertain which country the customer is originally from.
To get a competitive quote for a Yiddish interpreter, please telephone Freecall 0800 633 5985 or….
