Yiddish and German. Although Yiddish and German share a large vocabulary, there are significant differences in grammar. When deciding whether something is German in Hebrew characters, or Yiddish it is important to look at the placement of the verb, use of ayn/ayne (ein, eine) versus a as the indefinite article, in addition to a general absence of Slavic words.
Older Yiddish tends to be more Daytschmerish and use extra hey's where more modern Yiddish does not (compare the Harkavy orthography to that of Weinreich). Therefore orthography can be misleading. As to language or dialect, the most appropriate answer is probably a Creole. Yiddish is as intelligible to a German speaker as Creole to a French speaker or Krio and Gullah to an English speaker. Yiddish and German differ more than Serbian and Croatian or Moldovan and Romanian, both pairs of languages written in Latin and Cyrilic. Miriam Gloger Librarian Database Management Team (CMA) (917) 229-9575 The New York Public Library Library Services Center 31-11 Thomson Ave Long Island City, NY 11101-3006 --- Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) =========================================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: hasaf...@osu.edu SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listproc @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 @ osu.edu Ha-Safran Archives: Current: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html History: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/history.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
