The astronomical unit (symbol: au, or AU or AU) is a unit of length, roughly the distance from Earth to the Sun
and approximately equal to 150 million kilometres (93 million miles) or
8.3 light-minutes. The actual distance from Earth to the Sun varies by
about 3% as Earth orbits the Sun, from a maximum (aphelion) to a minimum (perihelion)
and back again once each year. The astronomical unit was originally
conceived as the average of Earth's aphelion and perihelion; however,
since 2012 it has been defined as exactly 149597870700 m.
The astronomical unit is used primarily for measuring distances within the Solar System or around other stars. It is also a fundamental component in the definition of another unit of astronomical length, the parsec.
History of symbol usage
A variety of unit symbols and abbreviations have been in use for the astronomical unit. In a 1976 resolution, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) had used the symbol A to denote a length equal to the astronomical unit. In the astronomical literature, the symbol AU was (and remains) common. In 2006, the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) had recommended ua as the symbol for the unit, from the French "unité astronomique". In the non-normative Annex C to ISO 80000-3:2006 (now withdrawn), the symbol of the astronomical unit was also ua.
In 2012, the IAU, noting "that various symbols are presently in
use for the astronomical unit", recommended the use of the symbol "au". The scientific journals published by the American Astronomical Society and the Royal Astronomical Society subsequently adopted this symbol. In the 2014 revision and 2019 edition of the SI Brochure, the BIPM used the unit symbol "au".ISO 80000-3:2019, which replaces ISO 80000-3:2006, does not mention the astronomical unit.
Earth's orbit around the Sun is an ellipse. The semi-major axis of this elliptic orbit is defined to be half of the straight line segment that joins the perihelion and aphelion.
The centre of the Sun lies on this straight line segment, but not at
its midpoint. Because ellipses are well-understood shapes, measuring the
points of its extremes defined the exact shape mathematically, and made
possible calculations for the entire orbit as well as predictions based
on observation. In addition, it mapped out exactly the largest
straight-line distance that Earth traverses over the course of a year,
defining times and places for observing the largest parallax
(apparent shifts of position) in nearby stars. Knowing Earth's shift
and a star's shift enabled the star's distance to be calculated. But all
measurements are subject to some degree of error or uncertainty, and
the uncertainties in the length of the astronomical unit only increased
uncertainties in the stellar distances. Improvements in precision have
always been a key to improving astronomical understanding. Throughout
the twentieth century, measurements became increasingly precise and
sophisticated, and ever more dependent on accurate observation of the
effects described by Einstein's theory of relativity and upon the mathematical tools it used.
Improving measurements were continually checked and cross-checked by means of improved understanding of the laws of celestial mechanics,
which govern the motions of objects in space. The expected positions
and distances of objects at an established time are calculated (in au)
from these laws, and assembled into a collection of data called an ephemeris. NASA'sJet Propulsion Laboratory HORIZONS System provides one of several ephemeris computation services.
In 1976, to establish an even precise measure for the astronomical unit, the IAU formally adopted a new definition.
Although directly based on the then-best available observational
measurements, the definition was recast in terms of the then-best
mathematical derivations from celestial mechanics and planetary
ephemerides. It stated that "the astronomical unit of length is that
length (A) for which the Gaussian gravitational constant (k) takes the value 0.01720209895 when the units of measurement are the astronomical units of length, mass and time".
Equivalently, by this definition, one au is "the radius of an
unperturbed circular Newtonian orbit about the sun of a particle having
infinitesimal mass, moving with an angular frequency of 0.01720209895 radians per day"; or alternatively that length for which the heliocentric gravitational constant (the product GM☉) is equal to (0.01720209895)2 au3/d2, when the length is used to describe the positions of objects in the Solar System.
Subsequent explorations of the Solar System by space probes made it possible to obtain precise measurements of the relative positions of the inner planets and other objects by means of radar and telemetry. As with all radar measurements, these rely on measuring the time taken for photons to be reflected from an object. Because all photons move at the speed of light
in vacuum, a fundamental constant of the universe, the distance of an
object from the probe is calculated as the product of the speed of light
and the measured time. However, for precision the calculations require
adjustment for things such as the motions of the probe and object while
the photons are transiting. In addition, the measurement of the time
itself must be translated to a standard scale that accounts for
relativistic time dilation. Comparison of the ephemeris positions with
time measurements expressed in Barycentric Dynamical Time (TDB) leads to a value for the speed of light in astronomical units per day (of 86400 s). By 2009, the IAU had updated its standard measures to reflect improvements, and calculated the speed of light at 173.1446326847(69) au/d (TDB).
In 1983, the CIPM modified the International System of Units (SI) to make the metre defined as the distance travelled in a vacuum by light in 1 / 299792458
second. This replaced the previous definition, valid between 1960 and
1983, which was that the metre equalled a certain number of wavelengths
of a certain emission line of krypton-86. (The reason for the change was
an improved method of measuring the speed of light.) The speed of light
could then be expressed exactly as c0 = 299792458 m/s, a standard also adopted by the IERS numerical standards. From this definition and the 2009 IAU standard, the time for light to traverse an astronomical unit is found to be τA = 499.0047838061±0.00000001 s, which is slightly more than 8 minutes 19 seconds. By multiplication, the best IAU 2009 estimate was A = c0τA = 149597870700±3 m, based on a comparison of Jet Propulsion Laboratory and IAA–RAS ephemerides.
In 2006, the BIPM reported a value of the astronomical unit as 1.49597870691(6)×1011 m. In the 2014 revision of the SI Brochure, the BIPM recognised the IAU's 2012 redefinition of the astronomical unit as 149597870700 m.
This estimate was still derived from observation and measurements
subject to error, and based on techniques that did not yet standardize
all relativistic effects, and thus were not constant for all observers.
In 2012, finding that the equalization of relativity alone would make
the definition overly complex, the IAU simply used the 2009 estimate to
redefine the astronomical unit as a conventional unit of length directly
tied to the metre (exactly 149597870700 m).
The new definition also recognizes as a consequence that the
astronomical unit is now to play a role of reduced importance, limited
in its use to that of a convenience in some applications.
This definition makes the speed of light, defined as exactly 299792458 m/s, equal to exactly 299792458 × 86400 ÷ 149597870700 or about 173.144632674240 au/d, some 60 parts per trillion less than the 2009 estimate.
Usage and significance
With the definitions used before 2012, the astronomical unit was dependent on the heliocentric gravitational constant, that is the product of the gravitational constant, G, and the solar mass, M☉. Neither G nor M☉
can be measured to high accuracy separately, but the value of their
product is known very precisely from observing the relative positions of
planets (Kepler's third law
expressed in terms of Newtonian gravitation). Only the product is
required to calculate planetary positions for an ephemeris, so
ephemerides are calculated in astronomical units and not in SI units.
The calculation of ephemerides also requires a consideration of the effects of general relativity. In particular, time intervals measured on Earth's surface (Terrestrial Time,
TT) are not constant when compared with the motions of the planets: the
terrestrial second (TT) appears to be longer near January and shorter
near July when compared with the "planetary second" (conventionally
measured in TDB). This is because the distance between Earth and the Sun
is not fixed (it varies between 0.9832898912 and 1.0167103335 au) and, when Earth is closer to the Sun (perihelion),
the Sun's gravitational field is stronger and Earth is moving faster
along its orbital path. As the metre is defined in terms of the second
and the speed of light is constant for all observers, the terrestrial
metre appears to change in length compared with the "planetary metre" on
a periodic basis.
The metre is defined to be a unit of proper length. Indeed, the International Committee for Weights and Measures
(CIPM) notes that "its definition applies only within a spatial extent
sufficiently small that the effects of the non-uniformity of the
gravitational field can be ignored". As such, a distance within the Solar System without specifying the frame of reference
for the measurement is problematic. The 1976 definition of the
astronomical unit was incomplete because it did not specify the frame of
reference in which to apply the measurement, but proved practical for
the calculation of ephemerides: a fuller definition that is consistent
with general relativity was proposed, and "vigorous debate" ensued until August 2012 when the IAU adopted the current definition of 1 astronomical unit = 149597870700metres.
The astronomical unit is typically used for stellar system scale distances, such as the size of a protostellar disk or the heliocentric distance of an asteroid, whereas other units are used for other distances in astronomy. The astronomical unit is too small to be convenient for interstellar distances, where the parsec and light-year are widely used. The parsec (parallax arcsecond) is defined in terms of the astronomical unit, being the distance of an object with a parallax of 1″.
The light-year is often used in popular works, but is not an approved
non-SI unit and is rarely used by professional astronomers.
The book On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and Moon, which is ascribed to Aristarchus, says the distance to the Sun is 18 to 20 times the distance to the Moon, whereas the true ratio is about 389.174. The latter estimate was based on the angle between the half-moon and the Sun, which he estimated as 87° (the true value being close to 89.853°).
Depending on the distance that van Helden assumes Aristarchus used for
the distance to the Moon, his calculated distance to the Sun would fall
between 380 and 1,520 Earth radii.
According to Eusebius in the Praeparatio evangelica (Book XV, Chapter 53), Eratosthenes found the distance to the Sun to be "σταδιων μυριαδας τετρακοσιας και οκτωκισμυριας" (literally "of stadiamyriads 400 and 80000″) but with the additional note that in the Greek text the grammatical agreement is between myriads (not stadia) on the one hand and both 400 and 80000 on the other, as in Greek, unlike English, all three (or all four if one were to include stadia) words are inflected. This has been translated either as 4080000stadia (1903 translation by Edwin Hamilton Gifford), or as 804000000stadia (edition of Édourad des Places [de], dated 1974–1991). Using the Greek stadium of 185 to 190 metres, the former translation comes to 754800 km to 775200 km, which is far too low, whereas the second translation comes to 148.7 to 152.8 million kilometres (accurate within 2%). Hipparchus also gave an estimate of the distance of Earth from the Sun, quoted by Pappus as equal to 490 Earth radii. According to the conjectural reconstructions of Noel Swerdlow and G. J. Toomer, this was derived from his assumption of a "least perceptible" solar parallax of 7′.
A Chinese mathematical treatise, the Zhoubi Suanjing (c. 1st century BCE),
shows how the distance to the Sun can be computed geometrically, using
the different lengths of the noontime shadows observed at three places 1,000li apart and the assumption that Earth is flat.
In the 2nd century CE, Ptolemy estimated the mean distance of the Sun as 1,210 times Earth's radius.
To determine this value, Ptolemy started by measuring the Moon's
parallax, finding what amounted to a horizontal lunar parallax of 1°
26′, which was much too large. He then derived a maximum lunar distance
of 64+1/6
Earth radii. Because of cancelling errors in his parallax figure, his
theory of the Moon's orbit, and other factors, this figure was
approximately correct.
He then measured the apparent sizes of the Sun and the Moon and
concluded that the apparent diameter of the Sun was equal to the
apparent diameter of the Moon at the Moon's greatest distance, and from
records of lunar eclipses, he estimated this apparent diameter, as well
as the apparent diameter of the shadow cone of Earth traversed by the
Moon during a lunar eclipse. Given these data, the distance of the Sun
from Earth can be trigonometrically computed to be 1,210
Earth radii. This gives a ratio of solar to lunar distance of
approximately 19, matching Aristarchus's figure. Although Ptolemy's
procedure is theoretically workable, it is very sensitive to small
changes in the data, so much so that changing a measurement by a few per
cent can make the solar distance infinite.
After Greek astronomy was transmitted to the medieval Islamic
world, astronomers made some changes to Ptolemy's cosmological model,
but did not greatly change his estimate of the Earth–Sun distance. For
example, in his introduction to Ptolemaic astronomy, al-Farghānī gave a mean solar distance of 1,170 Earth radii, whereas in his zij, al-Battānī used a mean solar distance of 1,108 Earth radii. Subsequent astronomers, such as al-Bīrūnī, used similar values. Later in Europe, Copernicus and Tycho Brahe also used comparable figures (1,142 and 1,150 Earth radii), and so Ptolemy's approximate Earth–Sun distance survived through the 16th century.
Johannes Kepler
was the first to realize that Ptolemy's estimate must be significantly
too low (according to Kepler, at least by a factor of three) in his Rudolphine Tables (1627). Kepler's laws of planetary motion
allowed astronomers to calculate the relative distances of the planets
from the Sun, and rekindled interest in measuring the absolute value for
Earth (which could then be applied to the other planets). The invention
of the telescope allowed far more accurate measurements of angles than is possible with the naked eye. Flemish astronomer Godefroy Wendelin repeated Aristarchus’ measurements in 1635, and found that Ptolemy's value was too low by a factor of at least eleven.
A somewhat more accurate estimate can be obtained by observing the transit of Venus.
By measuring the transit in two different locations, one can accurately
calculate the parallax of Venus and from the relative distance of Earth
and Venus from the Sun, the solar parallaxα (which cannot be measured directly due to the brightness of the Sun). Jeremiah Horrocks had attempted to produce an estimate based on his observation of the 1639 transit (published in 1662), giving a solar parallax of 15″, similar to Wendelin's figure. The solar parallax is related to the Earth–Sun distance as measured in Earth radii by
The smaller the solar parallax, the greater the distance between the Sun and Earth: a solar parallax of 15″ is equivalent to an Earth–Sun distance of 13750 Earth radii.
Christiaan Huygens believed that the distance was even greater: by comparing the apparent sizes of Venus and Mars, he estimated a value of about 24000 Earth radii, equivalent to a solar parallax of 8.6″.
Although Huygens' estimate is remarkably close to modern values, it is
often discounted by historians of astronomy because of the many unproven
(and incorrect) assumptions he had to make for his method to work; the
accuracy of his value seems to be based more on luck than good
measurement, with his various errors cancelling each other out.
Transits
of Venus across the face of the Sun were, for a long time, the best
method of measuring the astronomical unit, despite the difficulties
(here, the so-called "black drop effect") and the rarity of observations.
Jean Richer and Giovanni Domenico Cassini measured the parallax of Mars between Paris and Cayenne in French Guiana when Mars was at its closest to Earth in 1672. They arrived at a figure for the solar parallax of 9.5″, equivalent to an Earth–Sun distance of about 22000
Earth radii. They were also the first astronomers to have access to an
accurate and reliable value for the radius of Earth, which had been
measured by their colleague Jean Picard in 1669 as 3269000toises. This same year saw another estimate for the astronomical unit by John Flamsteed, which accomplished it alone by measuring the martiandiurnal parallax. Another colleague, Ole Rømer,
discovered the finite speed of light in 1676: the speed was so great
that it was usually quoted as the time required for light to travel from
the Sun to the Earth, or "light time per unit distance", a convention
that is still followed by astronomers today.
A better method for observing Venus transits was devised by James Gregory and published in his Optica Promata (1663). It was strongly advocated by Edmond Halley
and was applied to the transits of Venus observed in 1761 and 1769, and
then again in 1874 and 1882. Transits of Venus occur in pairs, but less
than one pair every century, and observing the transits in 1761 and
1769 was an unprecedented international scientific operation including
observations by James Cook and Charles Green from Tahiti. Despite the Seven Years' War,
dozens of astronomers were dispatched to observing points around the
world at great expense and personal danger: several of them died in the
endeavour. The various results were collated by Jérôme Lalande to give a figure for the solar parallax of 8.6″. Karl Rudolph Powalky had made an estimate of 8.83″ in 1864.
Date
Method
A/Gm
Uncertainty
1895
aberration
149.25
0.12
1941
parallax
149.674
0.016
1964
radar
149.5981
0.001
1976
telemetry
149.597870
0.000001
2009
telemetry
149.597870700
0.000000003
Another method involved determining the constant of aberration. Simon Newcomb gave great weight to this method when deriving his widely accepted value of 8.80″ for the solar parallax (close to the modern value of 8.794143″), although Newcomb also used data from the transits of Venus. Newcomb also collaborated with A. A. Michelson
to measure the speed of light with Earth-based equipment; combined with
the constant of aberration (which is related to the light time per unit
distance), this gave the first direct measurement of the Earth–Sun
distance in kilometres. Newcomb's value for the solar parallax (and for
the constant of aberration and the Gaussian gravitational constant) were
incorporated into the first international system of astronomical constants in 1896, which remained in place for the calculation of ephemerides until 1964. The name "astronomical unit" appears first to have been used in 1903.
The discovery of the near-Earth asteroid433 Eros and its passage near Earth in 1900–1901 allowed a considerable improvement in parallax measurement. Another international project to measure the parallax of 433 Eros was undertaken in 1930–1931.
Direct radar measurements of the distances to Venus and Mars
became available in the early 1960s. Along with improved measurements of
the speed of light, these showed that Newcomb's values for the solar
parallax and the constant of aberration were inconsistent with one
another.
Developments
The astronomical unit is used as the baseline of the triangle to measure stellar parallaxes (distances in the image are not to scale)
The unit distance A (the value of the astronomical unit in metres) can be expressed in terms of other astronomical constants:
where G is the Newtonian constant of gravitation, M☉ is the solar mass, k is the numerical value of Gaussian gravitational constant and D is the time period of one day.
The Sun is constantly losing mass by radiating away energy,
so the orbits of the planets are steadily expanding outward from the
Sun. This has led to calls to abandon the astronomical unit as a unit of
measurement.
As the speed of light has an exact defined value in SI units and the Gaussian gravitational constant k is fixed in the astronomical system of units, measuring the light time per unit distance is exactly equivalent to measuring the product G×M☉ in SI units. Hence, it is possible to construct ephemerides entirely in SI units, which is increasingly becoming the norm.
A 2004 analysis of radiometric measurements in the inner Solar System suggested that the secular increase in the unit distance was much larger than can be accounted for by solar radiation, +15±4 metres per century.
The measurements of the secular variations of the astronomical
unit are not confirmed by other authors and are quite controversial.
Furthermore, since 2010, the astronomical unit has not been estimated by
the planetary ephemerides.
Illegal logging and the associated trade in stolen timber in violation of national laws.
Environmental crime makes up almost a third of crimes committed by organizations such as; corporations, partnerships, unions, trusts, pension funds,
and non-profits. It is the fourth largest criminal activity in the
world and it is increasing by five to seven percent every year. These crimes are liable for prosecution. Interpol facilitates international police cooperation and assists its member countries in the effective enforcement of national and international environmental laws and treaties. Interpol began fighting environmental crime in 1992.
Costs
International criminal gangs and militant groups profit from the plunder of natural resources and these illegal profits are soaring. Terrorism and even civil wars are consequences of environmental crime. According to UNEP and Interpol,
in June 2016 the value of environmental crime is 26 per cent larger
than previous estimates, at US$91–258 billion, compared to US$70–213
billion in 2014, outstripping illegal trade in small arms. More than half of this amount can be attributed to illegal logging and deforestation.
Prosecution by ICC
In September 2016 it was announced that the International Criminal Court (ICC) located in The Hague will prosecute government and individuals for environmental crimes.
According to the Case Selection Criteria announced in Policy Paper on
Case Selection and Prioritisation by ICC on 15 September 2016, the
Office will give particular consideration to prosecuting Rome Statute
crimes that are committed by means of, or that result in, "inter alia,
the destruction of the environment, the illegal exploitation of natural resources or the illegal dispossession of land".
Environmental crime in the European Union
Within the European Union, the road to an effective enforcement of Environmental Crime legislation has been anything but straightforward.
A major role is played by the Environmental Crime Directive, a 2008 instrument aimed at protecting the environment through the use of criminal law. Even though some studies show that there has been a decline in non-compliance with environmental policy by Member States, after over a decade from the publication of the first Directive, as part of the European Green Deal,the European Commission submitted a proposal for a new Directive with the aim of strengthening the enforcement and prosecution of environmental crimes through the use of clearer definitions and sanctions other than the typical fines and imprisonment.
Environmental crime by country
United States
Abandoned or little used areas are common dumping places in America
-especially railroads. Over $10 million a year are used to remove
illegal dumping from polluting towns and the environment. A small organization, CSXT Police Environment Crimes Unit, has been started to stop railroad dumping specifically.
Ever since the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Criminal Enforcement was founded in 1982, there has been a steady increase in prosecuted environmental crimes. This includes the prosecution of companies that have illegally dumped or caused oil spills. On a federal level, while the EPA oversees the investigations, the prosecutions are typically brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, through its Environmental Crimes Section, and/or through one of the 94 U.S. Attorney's Office across the country.
In a 2004 case study, a 30-pound cylinder of CFC-12 could be purchased in China for US$40 and illegally sold in the US for US$600.
In 2000, California real estate developer Eric Diesel was
sentenced to 6 months in jail and ordered to pay a $300,000 fine for
grading an illegal road in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
In
Nigeria, the establishment of environmental agencies began in 1988 after
an incident of dumping of toxic materials in the country by
international waste traders (the infamous Koko incident). Presently, agencies such as the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (Nigeria)
are empowered by Nigerian law to regulate the environment sector. This
agency works with other organs of the government such as customs,
police, military intelligence, etc., and has successfully seized illegally trafficked wildlife products and prosecuted a number persons, including non-nationals.
Singapore
As a trading hub, Singapore is susceptible to unnoticed contraband. Charles W. Schmidt explains how China sells illegal CFC-12 to the United States through Singapore due to the lack of inspections and confidentiality of private businesses in Singapore.
Russia
Violations
of Russia's environmental protection laws cost the country more than
$187 million in 2018. Out of nearly 23.9 thousand environmental crimes
registered in Russia in 2018, the overwhelming majority were related to;
the illegal cutting of forest plantations, amounting approximately to 13.8 thousand cases, and Illegal hunting, with over 1.9 thousand cases observed.
Enforcement
The effective enforcement of environmental laws
is vital to any protection regimes that are designed to protect the
environment. In the early days of environmental legislation, violations
carried largely insignificant civil fines
and penalties. Initial environmental laws and regulations had little or
no deterrent effect on corporations, individuals, or governments to
comply with environmental laws. Indeed, a major source of failure of US
environmental protection legislation was the civil character of federal
enforcement actions. Their chief sanction was fines, which many
corporations took in stride as a cost of doing business. Environmental
criminal law covers a narrower ground. Its core consists of the criminal
provisions of eight federal statutes passed mainly in the 1970s and
amended in the last two decades.
In many cases, particularly corporations found it more
cost-effective to continue to pollute more than the law allowed and
simply pay any associate fines if indeed the corporation was actually
found and convicted of violating environmental laws or regulations.
Kevin Tomkins believes corporations had a disincentive to comply with
environmental laws or regulations as compliance generally raised their
operational costs. This was interpreted as many corporations obeying the
environmental laws, whether out of a sense of legal duty or public
obligation, were disadvantaged and lost a competitive edge
and consequently suffered in the marketplace to competitors who
disregarded environmental laws and regulations. As a result of weak
environmental legislation and continued adverse public opinion regarding
the management of the environment, many governments established various
environmental enforcement regimes that dramatically increased the legal
powers of environmental investigators. The inclusion of criminal
sanctions, significant increases in fines coupled with possible
imprisonment of corporate officers changed the face of environmental law
enforcement. For example, between 1983 and 1990 the US Department of Justice
secured $57,358,404.00 in criminal penalties and obtained sentences of
imprisonment for 55% of defendants charged with environmental offences.
Many environmental agencies like the Alabama Department of Conservation and National Resources # Peace Officers, Alabama Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division, State Park Peace Officers and Alaska Game and Fish, Alaska State Troopers, Arizona Game and Fish
play important roles in reducing environmental damage and protecting
the environment through environmental laws and regulations. These
agencies operate at varying levels from international, regional,
national, state to local level keeping one agency working at one level.
Various enforcement methods are employed by these agencies to warrant
compliance with environmental laws and regulations. In some case's
enforcement agencies use what is called "Command and Control" which are
traditional regulatory approaches. In other cases, they may use economic
incentive and hybrid-based approaches, which there are two. Moreover,
it has increased the need for cooperation between different policing
institutions. Environmental law enforcement agencies and police services
do not operate in a vacuum; the legislative instruments that political systems
implement govern their activities and responsibilities within society.
However, ostensibly it is the legislative instruments implemented by
governments that determine many of the strategies utilised by police
services in protecting the environment. Generally these International,
Regional, National and State legislative instruments are designed to ensure industries, individuals,
and governments comply with the various environmental obligations
embedded in national statutes and laws. There are also international
legal instruments and treaties that also affect the way that sovereign
states deal with environmental issues .
Environmental criminology
examines the notions of crimes, offences and injurious behaviours
against the environment and starts to examine the role that societies
including corporations, governments and communities play in generating environmental harms. Criminology is now starting to recognise the impact of humans on the environment and how law enforcement agencies and the judiciary measure harm to the environment and attribute sanctions to the offenders.
Environmental crime does not only affect the land, water, air, it
affects the health of children as well. According to an article
published in Environmental Health Perspectives in 2016, "The evolution and expansion of children's environmental health
protection over the past two decades has been remarkable. At the U.S.
EPA, significant efforts have been made to address the special
susceptibility of children, and our work continues to address emerging
environmental concerns to ensure that children's environments are free
of hazards and support healthy development.
Yiddish (ייִדיש, יידיש or אידיש, yidish or idish, pronounced[ˈ(j)ɪdɪʃ], lit.'Jewish'; ייִדיש-טײַטש, Yidish-Taytsh, lit.'Judeo-German') is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originates from 9th century Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with many elements taken from Hebrew (notably Mishnaic) and to some extent Aramaic. Most varieties of Yiddish include elements of Slavic languages and the vocabulary contains traces of Romance languages.Yiddish is primarily written in the Hebrew alphabet.
Prior to World War II, its worldwide peak was 11 million, with the number of speakers in the United States and Canada then totaling 150,000. Eighty-five percent of the approximately six million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust were Yiddish speakers, leading to a massive decline in the use of the language. Assimilation following World War II and aliyah (immigration to Israel) further decreased the use of Yiddish among survivors after adapting to Hebrew
in Israel. However, the number of Yiddish-speakers is increasing in
Hasidic communities. In the 1990s, there were around 1.5–2 million
speakers of Yiddish, mostly Hasidic and Haredi Jews. A 2021 estimate from Rutgers University
was that there were 250,000 American speakers, 250,000 Israeli
speakers, and 100,000 in the rest of the world (for a total of 600,000).
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, but "Yiddish" is again the most common
designation today.
Modern Yiddish has two major forms.
Eastern Yiddish is far more common today. It includes Southeastern
(Ukrainian–Romanian), Mideastern (Polish–Galician–Eastern Hungarian) and
Northeastern (Lithuanian–Belarusian) dialects. Eastern Yiddish differs
from Western both by its far greater size and by the extensive inclusion
of words of Slavic origin. Western Yiddish is divided into Southwestern
(Swiss–Alsatian–Southern German), Midwestern (Central German), and
Northwestern (Netherlandic–Northern German) dialects. Yiddish is used in
a number of Haredi Jewish communities worldwide; it is the first
language of the home, school, and in many social settings among many
Haredi Jews, and is used in most Hasidicyeshivas.
The term "Yiddish" is also used in the adjectival sense, synonymously with "Ashkenazi Jewish", to designate attributes of Yiddishkeit ("Ashkenazi culture"; for example, Yiddish cooking and "Yiddish music" – klezmer).
History
Origins
By the 10th century, a distinctive Jewish culture had formed in Central Europe. By the high medieval period, their area of settlement, centered on the Rhineland (Mainz) and the Palatinate (notably Worms and Speyer), came to be known as Ashkenaz, originally a term used of Scythia, and later of various areas of Eastern Europe and Anatolia. In the medieval Hebrew of Rashi (d. 1105), Ashkenaz becomes a term for Germany, and אשכּנזיAshkenazi for the Jews settling in this area.
Ashkenaz bordered on the area inhabited by another distinctive Jewish cultural group, the Sephardi Jews, who ranged into southern France. Ashkenazi culture later spread into Eastern Europe with large-scale population migrations.
Nothing is known with certainty about the vernacular of the
earliest Jews in Germany, but several theories have been put forward. As
noted above, the first language of the Ashkenazim may have been Aramaic, the vernacular of the Jews in Roman-era Judea and ancient and early medieval Mesopotamia. The widespread use of Aramaic among the large non-Jewish Syrian
trading population of the Roman provinces, including those in Europe,
would have reinforced the use of Aramaic among Jews engaged in trade. In
Roman times, many of the Jews living in Rome and Southern Italy appear to have been Greek-speakers, and this is reflected in some Ashkenazi personal names (e.g., Kalonymos and Yiddish Todres). Hebrew, on the other hand, was regarded as a holy language reserved for ritual and spiritual purposes and not for common use.
The established view is that, as with other Jewish languages,
Jews speaking distinct languages learned new co-territorial
vernaculars, which they then Judaized. In the case of Yiddish, this
scenario sees it as emerging when speakers of Zarphatic (Judeo-French) and other Judeo-Romance languages began to acquire varieties of Middle High German, and from these groups the Ashkenazi community took shape.
Exactly what German substrate underlies the earliest form of Yiddish is
disputed. The Jewish community in the Rhineland would have encountered
the Middle High German dialects from which the Rhenish German
dialects of the modern period would emerge. Jewish communities of the
high medieval period would have been speaking their own versions of
these German dialects, mixed with linguistic elements that they
themselves brought into the region, including many Hebrew and Aramaic
words, but there is also Romance.
In Max Weinreich's model, Jewish speakers of Old French or Old Italian who were literate in either liturgical Hebrew or Aramaic, or both, migrated through Southern Europe to settle in the Rhine Valley in an area known as Lotharingia (later known in Yiddish as Loter) extending over parts of Germany and France. There, they encountered and were influenced by Jewish speakers of High German languages and several other German dialects. Both Weinreich and Solomon Birnbaum developed this model further in the mid-1950s.
In Weinreich's view, this Old Yiddish substrate later bifurcated into
two distinct versions of the language, Western and Eastern Yiddish.
They retained the Semitic vocabulary and constructions needed for
religious purposes and created a Judeo-German form of speech, sometimes
not accepted as a fully autonomous language.
Yiddish was a rich, living language, the chattering tongue of an
urban population. It had the limitations of its origins. There were few
Yiddish words for animals and birds. It had virtually no military
vocabulary. Such voids were filled by borrowing from German, Polish and Russian. Yiddish was particularly good at borrowing: from Arabic, from Hebrew, from Aramaic and from anything with which it intersected. On the other hand, it contributed to English – American. [sic]
Its chief virtue lay in its internal subtlety, particularly in its
characterization of human types and emotions. It was the language of
street wisdom, of the clever underdog, of pathos, resignation and
suffering, all of which it palliated by humor, intense irony and
superstition. Isaac Bashevis Singer, its greatest practitioner, pointed out that it is the only language never spoken by men in power.
Later linguistic research has refined the Weinreich model or provided
alternative approaches to the language's origins, with points of
contention being the characterization of its Germanic base, the source
of its Hebrew/Aramaic adstrata, and the means and location of this fusion. Some theorists argue that the fusion occurred with a Bavarian dialect base.
The two main candidates for the germinal matrix of Yiddish, the
Rhineland and Bavaria, are not necessarily incompatible. There may have
been parallel developments in the two regions, seeding the Western and
Eastern dialects of Modern Yiddish. Dovid Katz proposes that Yiddish emerged from contact between speakers of High German and Aramaic-speaking Jews from the Middle East.
The lines of development proposed by the different theories do not
necessarily rule out the others (at least not entirely); an article in The Forward
argues that "in the end, a new 'standard theory' of Yiddish's origins
will probably be based on the work of Weinreich and his challengers
alike."
Paul Wexler proposed a model in 1991 that took Yiddish, by which he means primarily eastern Yiddish, not to be genetically grounded in a Germanic language at all, but rather as "Judeo-Sorbian" (a proposed West Slavic language) that had been relexified by High German.
In more recent work, Wexler has argued that Eastern Yiddish is
unrelated genetically to Western Yiddish. Wexler's model has been met
with little academic support, and strong critical challenges, especially
among historical linguists.
Written evidence
The calligraphic segment in the Worms Machzor. The Yiddish text is in red.The South-West Yiddish account of the life of Seligmann Brunschwig von Dürmenach describes, among other things, the anti-Semitic events of the revolutionary year 1848. In the collection of the Jewish Museum of Switzerland.
Yiddish orthography
developed towards the end of the high medieval period. It is first
recorded in 1272, with the oldest surviving literary document in
Yiddish, a blessing found in the Worms machzor (a Hebrew prayer book).
gut tak im betage se vaer dis makhazor in beis hakneses trage
Translated
May a good day come to him who carries this prayer book into the synagogue.
This brief rhyme is decoratively embedded in an otherwise purely Hebrew text.
Nonetheless, it indicates that the Yiddish of that day was a more or
less regular Middle High German written in the Hebrew alphabet into
which Hebrew words – מַחֲזוֹר, makhazor (prayerbook for the High Holy Days) and בֵּיתֿ הַכְּנֶסֶתֿ, 'synagogue' (read in Yiddish as beis hakneses) – had been included. The niqqud
appears as though it might have been added by a second scribe, in which
case it may need to be dated separately and may not be indicative of
the pronunciation of the rhyme at the time of its initial annotation.
Over the course of the 14th and 15th centuries, songs and poems in Yiddish, and macaronic pieces in Hebrew and German, began to appear. These were collected in the late 15th century by Menahem ben Naphtali Oldendorf.
During the same period, a tradition seems to have emerged of the Jewish
community's adapting its own versions of German secular literature. The
earliest Yiddish epic poem of this sort is the Dukus Horant, which survives in the famous Cambridge Codex T.-S.10.K.22. This 14th-century manuscript was discovered in the Cairo Geniza in 1896, and also contains a collection of narrative poems on themes from the Hebrew Bible and the Haggadah.
Printing
The advent of the printing press
in the 16th century enabled the large-scale production of works, at a
cheaper cost, some of which have survived. One particularly popular work
was Elia Levita's Bovo-Bukh (בָּבָֿא-בּוך), composed around 1507–08 and printed several times, beginning in 1541 (under the title Bovo d'Antona). Levita, the earliest named Yiddish author, may also have written פּאַריז און װיענעPariz un Viene (Paris and Vienna). Another Yiddish retelling of a chivalric romance, װידװילט Vidvilt
(often referred to as "Widuwilt" by Germanizing scholars), presumably
also dates from the 15th century, although the manuscripts are from the
16th. It is also known as Kinig Artus Hof, an adaptation of the Middle High German romance Wigalois by Wirnt von Grafenberg. Another significant writer is Avroham ben Schemuel Pikartei, who published a paraphrase on the Book of Job in 1557.
Women in the Ashkenazi community were traditionally not literate
in Hebrew but did read and write Yiddish. A body of literature therefore
developed for which women were a primary audience. This included
secular works, such as the Bovo-Bukh, and religious writing specifically for women, such as the צאנה וראינהTseno Ureno and the תחנותTkhines. One of the best-known early woman authors was Glückel of Hameln, whose memoirs are still in print.
A page from the Shemot Devarim (lit.'Names of Things'), a Yiddish–Hebrew–Latin–German dictionary and thesaurus, published by Elia Levita in 1542
The segmentation of the Yiddish readership, between women who read מאַמע־לשוןmame-loshn but not לשון־קדשloshn-koydesh, and men who read both, was significant enough that distinctive typefaces were used for each. The name commonly given to the semicursive form used exclusively for Yiddish was ווײַבערטײַטש (vaybertaytsh, 'women's taytsh', shown in the heading and fourth column in the Shemot Devarim),
with square Hebrew letters (shown in the third column) being reserved
for text in that language and Aramaic. This distinction was retained in
general typographic practice through to the early 19th century, with
Yiddish books being set in vaybertaytsh (also termed מעשייטmesheyt or מאַשקעטmashket—the construction is uncertain).
An additional distinctive semicursive typeface was, and still is,
used for rabbinical commentary on religious texts when Hebrew and
Yiddish appear on the same page. This is commonly termed Rashi script,
from the name of the most renowned early author, whose commentary is
usually printed using this script. (Rashi is also the typeface normally
used when the Sephardic counterpart to Yiddish, Judaeo-Spanish or Ladino, is printed in Hebrew script.)
Secularization
The Western Yiddish dialect—sometimes pejoratively labeled Mauscheldeutsch, i. e. "Moses German"—declined in the 18th century, as the Age of Enlightenment and the Haskalah led to a view of Yiddish as a corrupt dialect. A Maskil (one who takes part in the Haskalah) would write about and promote acclimatization to the outside world. Jewish children began attending secular schools where the primary language spoken and taught was German, not Yiddish.
Yiddish grates on our ears and distorts. This jargon is incapable in
fact of expressing sublime thoughts. It is our obligation to cast off
these old rags, a heritage of the dark Middle Ages.
– Osip Aronovich Rabinovich [ru], in an article titled "Russia – Our Native Land: Just as We Breathe Its Air, We Must Speak Its Language" in the Odessan journal Рассвет (dawn), 1861.
Owing to both assimilation to German and the revival of Hebrew, Western Yiddish survived only as a language of "intimate family circles or of closely knit trade groups". (Liptzin 1972).
In eastern Europe, the response to these forces took the opposite direction, with Yiddish becoming the cohesive force in a secular culture (see the Yiddishist movement). Notable Yiddish writers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries are Sholem Yankev Abramovitch, writing as Mendele Mocher Sforim; Sholem Rabinovitsh, widely known as Sholem Aleichem, whose stories about טבֿיה דער מילכיקער (Tevye der milkhiker, "Tevye the Dairyman") inspired the Broadway musical and film Fiddler on the Roof; and Isaac Leib Peretz.
20th century
American World War I-era
poster in Yiddish. Translated caption: "Food will win the war – You
came here seeking freedom, now you must help to preserve it – We must
supply the Allies with wheat – Let nothing go to waste". Colour lithograph, 1917. Digitally restored.1917. 100 karbovanets of the Ukrainian People's Republic. Revers. Three languages: Ukrainian, Polish and Yiddish.
In the early 20th century, especially after the Socialist October Revolution in Russia, Yiddish was emerging as a major Eastern European language. Its rich literature was more widely published than ever, Yiddish theatre and Yiddish cinema were booming, and for a time it achieved the status of one of the official languages of the short-lived Galician Soviet Socialist Republic. Educational autonomy for Jews in several countries (notably Poland) after World War I
led to an increase in formal Yiddish-language education, more uniform
orthography, and to the 1925 founding of the Yiddish Scientific
Institute, YIVO. In Vilnius, there was debate over which language should take primacy, Hebrew or Yiddish.
Yiddish changed significantly during the 20th century. Michael Wex
writes, "As increasing numbers of Yiddish speakers moved from the
Slavic-speaking East to Western Europe and the Americas in the late 19th
and early 20th centuries, they were so quick to jettison Slavic
vocabulary that the most prominent Yiddish writers of the time—the
founders of modern Yiddish literature, who were still living in
Slavic-speaking countries—revised the printed editions of their oeuvres
to eliminate obsolete and 'unnecessary' Slavisms."
The vocabulary used in Israel absorbed many Modern Hebrew words, and
there was a similar but smaller increase in the English component of
Yiddish in the United States and, to a lesser extent, the United
Kingdom. This has resulted in some difficulty in communication between Yiddish speakers from Israel and those from other countries.
There is significant phonological variation among the various Yiddish dialects.
The description that follows is of a modern Standard Yiddish that was
devised during the early 20th century and is frequently encountered in
pedagogical contexts.
The /l–ʎ/ contrast has collapsed in some speakers.
The palatalized coronals /nʲ,tsʲ,dzʲ,tʃʲ,dʒʲ,sʲ,zʲ/ appear only in Slavic loanwords. The phonemic status of these palatalised consonants, as well as any other affricates, is unclear.
[ŋ] is an allophone of /n/ after /k,ɡ/, and it can only be syllabic [ŋ̍].
[ɣ] is an allophone of /χ/ before /b,d,ɡ,v,z,ʒ/.
The phonetic realization of /χ/ and /nʲ/ is unclear:
In the case of /χ/, Kleine (2003) puts it in the "velar" column, but consistently uses a symbol denoting a voiceless uvular fricative ⟨χ⟩ to transcribe it. It is thus safe to assume that /χ/ is phonetically uvular [χ].
In the case of /nʲ/, Kleine (2003) puts it in the "palatalized" column. This can mean that it is either palatalized alveolar [nʲ] or alveolo-palatal [ɲ̟]. /ʎ/ may actually also be alveolo-palatal [ʎ̟], rather than just palatal.
The rhotic /r/ can be either alveolar or uvular, either a trill [r~ʀ] or, more commonly, a flap/tap [ɾ~ʀ̆].
The glottal stop [ʔ] appears only as an intervocalic separator.
As in the Slavic languages with which Yiddish was long in contact (Russian, Belarusian, Polish, and Ukrainian), but unlike German, voiceless stops have little to no aspiration; unlike many such languages, voiced stops are not devoiced in final position. Moreover, Yiddish has regressive voicingassimilation, so that, for example, זאָגט/zɔɡt/ ('says') is pronounced [zɔkt] and הקדמה/hakˈdɔmɜ/ ('foreword') is pronounced [haɡˈdɔmɜ].
[m] and [ŋ] appear as syllable nuclei as well, but only as allophones of /n/, after bilabial consonants and dorsal consonants, respectively.
The syllabic sonorants are always unstressed.
Dialectal variation
Stressed vowels in the Yiddish dialects
may be understood by considering their common origins in the
Proto-Yiddish sound system. Yiddish linguistic scholarship uses a system
developed by Max Weinreich in 1960 to indicate the descendent diaphonemes of the Proto-Yiddish stressed vowels.
Each Proto-Yiddish vowel is given a unique two-digit identifier,
and its reflexes use it as a subscript, for example Southeastern o11 is the vowel /o/, descended from Proto-Yiddish */a/. The first digit indicates Proto-Yiddish quality (1-=*[a], 2-=*[e], 3-=*[i], 4-=*[o], 5-=*[u]), and the second refers to quantity or diphthongization
(−1=short, −2=long, −3=short but lengthened early in the history of
Yiddish, −4=diphthong, −5=special length occurring only in Proto-Yiddish
vowel 25).
Vowels 23, 33, 43 and 53 have the same reflexes as 22, 32, 42 and
52 in all Yiddish dialects, but they developed distinct values in Middle High German; Katz (1987) argues that they should be collapsed with the −2 series, leaving only 13 in the −3 series.
In vocabulary of Germanic origin, the differences between Standard German and Yiddish pronunciation are mainly in the vowels and diphthongs. All varieties of Yiddish lack the German front rounded vowels/œ,øː/ and /ʏ,yː/, having merged them with /ɛ,e:/ and /ɪ,i:/, respectively.
Diphthongs have also undergone divergent developments in German and Yiddish. Where Standard German has merged the Middle High German diphthong ei and long vowel î to /aɪ/, Yiddish has maintained the distinction between them; and likewise, the Standard German /ɔʏ/ corresponds to both the MHG diphthong öu and the long vowel iu, which in Yiddish have merged with their unrounded counterparts ei and î, respectively. Lastly, the Standard German /aʊ/ corresponds to both the MHG diphthong ou and the long vowel û,
but in Yiddish, they have not merged. Although Standard Yiddish does
not distinguish between those two diphthongs and renders both as /ɔɪ/, the distinction becomes apparent when the two diphthongs undergo Germanic umlaut, such as in forming plurals:
Singular
Plural
English
MHG
Standard German
Standard Yiddish
Standard German
Standard Yiddish
tree
boum
Baum /baʊ̯m/
בױם /bɔɪm/
Bäume /ˈbɔʏ̯mə/
בײמער /bɛɪmɜr/
abdomen
bûch
Bauch /baʊ̯x/
בױך /bɔɪχ/
Bäuche /ˈbɔʏ̯çə/
בײַכער /baɪχɜr/
The vowel length
distinctions of German do not exist in the Northeastern (Lithuanian)
varieties of Yiddish, which form the phonetic basis for Standard
Yiddish. In those varieties, the vowel qualities in most long/short
vowel pairs diverged and so the phonemic distinction has remained.
There are consonantal differences between German and Yiddish. Yiddish deaffricates the Middle High German voiceless labiodental affricate/pf/ to /f/ initially (as in פֿונטfunt, but this pronunciation is also quasi-standard throughout northern and central Germany); /pf/ surfaces as an unshifted/p/ medially or finally (as in עפּל/ɛpl/ and קאָפּ/kɔp/). Additionally, final voiced stops appear in Standard Yiddish but not Northern Standard German.
The pronunciation of vowels in Yiddish words of Hebrew origin is similar to Ashkenazi Hebrew but not identical. The most prominent difference is kamatz gadol in closed syllables being pronounced same as patah in Yiddish but the same as any other kamatz in Ashkenazi Hebrew. Also, Hebrew features no reduction of unstressed vowels and so the given name Jochebedיוֹכֶבֶֿד would be /jɔɪˈχɛvɛd/ in Ashkenazi Hebrew but /ˈjɔχvɜd/ in Standard Yiddish.
Patah in open syllable, as well as hataf patah, are unpredictably split between A1 and A2: קַדַּחַת, נַחַת/kaˈdɔχɜs,ˈnaχɜs/; חֲלוֹם, חֲתֻנָּה/ˈχɔlɜm,ˈχasɜnɜ/.
Yiddish grammar
can vary slightly depending on the dialect. The main article focuses on
standard form of Yiddish grammar while also acknowledging some
dialectal differences. Yiddish grammar has similarities to the German
grammar system, as well as grammatical elements from Hebrew and Slavic
languages.
Yiddish is written in the Hebrew alphabet, but its orthography differs significantly from that of Hebrew. Whereas, in Hebrew, many vowels are represented only optionally by diacritical marks called niqqud,
Yiddish uses letters to represent all vowels. Several Yiddish letters
consist of another letter combined with a niqqud mark resembling a
Hebrew letter-niqqud pair, but each of those combinations is an
inseparable unit representing a vowel alone, not a consonant-vowel
sequence. The niqqud marks have no phonetic value on their own.
In most varieties of Yiddish, however, words borrowed from Hebrew
are written in their native forms without application of Yiddish
orthographical conventions.
Numbers of speakers
Map of the Yiddish dialects between the 15th and the 19th centuries (Western dialects in orange / Eastern dialects in green)
Ghosts love Yiddish and as far as I know, they all speak it.
On the eve of World War II, there were 11 to 13 million Yiddish speakers. The Holocaust,
however, led to a dramatic, sudden decline in the use of Yiddish, as
the extensive Jewish communities, both secular and religious, that used
Yiddish in their day-to-day life were largely destroyed. Around five
million of those killed – 85 percent of the Jews murdered in the
Holocaust – were speakers of Yiddish.
Although millions of Yiddish speakers survived the war (including
nearly all Yiddish speakers in the Americas), further assimilation in
countries such as the United States and the Soviet Union, in addition to the strictly monolingual stance of the Zionist
movement, led to a decline in the use of Eastern Yiddish. However, the
number of speakers within the widely dispersed Haredi (mainly Hasidic)
communities is now increasing. Although used in various countries,
Yiddish has attained official recognition as a minority language only in Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Netherlands, and Sweden.
Reports of the number of current Yiddish speakers vary significantly. Ethnologue estimates, based on publications through 1991, that there were at that time 1.5 million speakers of Eastern Yiddish, of which 40% lived in Ukraine, 15% in Israel, and 10% in the United States. The Modern Language Association agrees with fewer than 200,000 in the United States. Western Yiddish is reported by Ethnologue to have had an ethnic population of 50,000 in 2000, and an undated speaking population of 5,000, mostly in Germany. A 1996 report by the Council of Europe estimates a worldwide Yiddish-speaking population of about two million. Further demographic information about the recent status of what is treated as an Eastern–Western dialect continuum is provided in the YIVO Language and Cultural Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry.
The 1922 census of Palestine
lists 1,946 Yiddish speakers in Mandatory Palestine (9 in the Southern
District, 1,401 in Jerusalem-Jaffa, 4 in Samaria, and 532 in the
Northern District), including 1,759 in municipal areas (999 in Jerusalem, 356 in Jaffa, 332 in Haifa, 5 in Gaza, 4 in Hebron, 3 in Nazareth, 7 in Ramleh, 33 in Tiberias, and 4 in Jenin).
In the Hasidic communities of Israel, boys speak more Yiddish
amongst themselves, while girls use Hebrew more often. This is probably
due to the fact that girls tend to learn more secular subjects, thus
increasing contact with the Hebrew language, and boys are usually taught
religious subjects in Yiddish.
Status as a language
There
has been frequent debate about the extent of the linguistic
independence of Yiddish from the languages that it absorbed. There has
been periodic assertion that Yiddish is a dialect of German, or even
"just broken German, more of a linguistic mishmash than a true
language".
Even when recognized as an autonomous language, it has sometimes been
referred to as Judeo-German, along the lines of other Jewish languages
like Judeo-Persian, Judeo-Spanish or Judeo-French. A widely cited summary of attitudes in the 1930s was published by Max Weinreich, quoting a remark by an auditor of one of his lectures: אַ שפּראַך איז אַ דיאַלעקט מיט אַן אַרמיי און פֿלאָט (a shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot — "A language is a dialect with an army and navy").
Israel and Zionism
We
shall get rid of the stunted and squashed jargons which we use now,
these ghetto languages. They were the furtive tongues of prisoners.
An example of graffiti in Yiddish, Tel Aviv, Washington Avenue (און איר זאלט ליב האבן דעם פרעמדען, ווארום פרעמדע זייט איר געווען אין לאנד מצרים—Un ir zolt lib hobn dem fremden, varum fremde zayt ir geven in land mitsraym). "You shall have love for the stranger, because you were strangers in the land of Egypt." (Deuteronomy 10:19)
The national language of Israel is modern Hebrew. The debate in
Zionist circles over the use of Yiddish in Israel and in the diaspora in
preference to Hebrew also reflected the tensions between religious and
secular Jewish lifestyles. Many secular Zionists wanted Hebrew as the
sole language of Jews, to contribute to a national cohesive identity.
Traditionally religious Jews, on the other hand, preferred use of
Yiddish, viewing Hebrew as a respected holy language reserved for prayer
and religious study. In the early 20th century, Zionist activists in
the Mandate of Palestine tried to eradicate the use of Yiddish among Jews in preference to Hebrew, and make its use socially unacceptable.
This conflict also reflected the opposing views among secular
Jews worldwide, one side seeing Hebrew (and Zionism) and the other
Yiddish (and Internationalism) as the means of defining Jewish nationalism. In the 1920s and 1930s, גדוד מגיני השפהgdud maginéi hasafá, "Battalion for the Defence of the Language", whose motto was "עברי, דבר עבריתivri, dabér ivrít",
that is, "Hebrew [i.e. Jew], speak Hebrew!", used to tear down signs
written in "foreign" languages and disturb Yiddish theatre gatherings. However, according to linguist Ghil'ad Zuckermann,
the members of this group in particular, and the Hebrew revival in
general, did not succeed in uprooting Yiddish patterns (as well as the
patterns of other European languages Jewish immigrants spoke) within
what he calls "Israeli", i.e. Modern Hebrew.
Zuckermann believes that "Israeli does include numerous Hebrew elements
resulting from a conscious revival but also numerous pervasive
linguistic features deriving from a subconscious survival of the
revivalists’ mother tongues, e.g. Yiddish."
After the founding of the State of Israel, a massive wave of Jewish immigrants from Arab countries arrived. In short order, these Mizrahi Jews
and their descendants would account for nearly half the Jewish
population. While all were at least familiar with Hebrew as a liturgical
language, essentially none had any contact with or affinity for Yiddish
(some, of Sephardic origin, spoke Judeo-Spanish, others various Judeo-Arabic varieties). Thus, Hebrew emerged as the dominant linguistic common denominator between the different population groups.
Despite a past of marginalization and anti-Yiddish government policy, in 1996 the Knesset
passed a law founding the "National Authority for Yiddish Culture",
with the aim of supporting and promoting contemporary Yiddish art and literature, as well as preservation of Yiddish culture and publication of Yiddish classics, both in Yiddish and in Hebrew translation.
In religious circles, it is the Ashkenazi Haredi Jews, particularly the Hasidic Jews and the Lithuanian yeshiva world (see Lithuanian Jews),
who continue to teach, speak and use Yiddish, making it a language used
regularly by hundreds of thousands of Haredi Jews today. The largest of
these centers are in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem.
There is a growing revival of interest in Yiddish culture among
secular Israelis, with the flourishing of new proactive cultural
organizations like YUNG YiDiSH, as well as Yiddish theatre
(usually with simultaneous translation to Hebrew and Russian) and young
people are taking university courses in Yiddish, some achieving
considerable fluency.
South Africa
In
the early years of the 20th century Yiddish was classified as a
'Semitic Language'. After much campaigning, in 1906 the South African
legislator Morris Alexander won a parliamentary fight to have Yiddish
reclassified as a European language, thereby permitting the immigration
of Yiddish-speakers to South Africa.
Former Soviet Union
NEP-era Soviet Yiddish poster "Come to us at the Kolkhoz!" (קום צו אונדז אין קאָלווירט!)
The use of Yiddish as the primary spoken language by Jews was
heavily encouraged by multiple Jewish political groups at the time. The Evsketsii, the Jewish Communist Group, and The Bund,
the Jewish Socialist Group, both heavily encouraged the use of Yiddish.
During the Bolshevik Era these political groups worked alongside the
government to encourage the widespread Jewish use of Yiddish. Both the
Evsketsii and the Bund supported the Jewish movement towards
assimilation and saw Yiddish as a way to encourage it. They saw the use
of Yiddish as a step away from the religious aspects of Judaism, instead
favoring the cultural aspects of Judaism.
State emblem of the Byelorussian SSR (1927–1937) with the motto Workers of the world, unite! in Yiddish (lower left part of the ribbon): ״פראָלעטאריער פון אלע לענדער, פאראייניקט זיך!״—Proletarier fun ale lender, fareynikt zikh! The same slogan is written in Belarusian, Russian and Polish.
A public educational system entirely based on the Yiddish language
was established and comprised kindergartens, schools, and higher
educational institutions (technical schools, rabfaks and other university departments). These were initially created in the Russian Empire
to stop Jewish children from taking too many spots in regular Russian
schools. Imperial government feared that the Jewish children were both
taking spots from non-Jews as well as spreading revolutionary ideas to
their non-Jewish peers. As a result, in 1914 laws were passed that
guaranteed Jews the right to a Jewish education and as a result the
Yiddish education system was established.
After the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 even more Yiddish schools were
established. These schools thrived with government, specifically
Bolshevik, and Jewish support. They were established as part of the
effort to revitalize the Soviet Jewish Community. Specifically, the
Bolsheviks wanted to encourage Jewish assimilation. While these schools
were taught in Yiddish, the content was Soviet. They were created to
attract Jews in to getting a Soviet education under the guise of a
Jewish institution.
While schools with curriculums taught in Yiddish existed in some
areas until the 1950s, there was a general decline in enrollment due to
preference for Russian-speaking institutions and the declining
reputation of Yiddish schools among Yiddish speaking Soviets. As the
Yiddish schools declined, so did overall Yiddish culture. The two were
inherently linked and with the downfall of one, so did the other.
General Soviet denationalization programs and secularization policies
also led to a further lack of enrollment and funding; the last schools
to be closed existed until 1951.
It continued to be spoken widely for decades, nonetheless, in areas
with compact Jewish populations (primarily in Moldova, Ukraine, and to a
lesser extent Belarus).
In the former Soviet states, recently active Yiddish authors include Yoysef Burg (Chernivtsi 1912–2009) and Olexander Beyderman (b. 1949, Odessa). Publication of an earlier Yiddish periodical (דער פֿרײַנד – der fraynd; lit. The Friend), was resumed in 2004 with דער נײַער פֿרײַנד (der nayer fraynd; lit. The New Friend, Saint Petersburg).
Russia
According to the 2010 census, 1,683 people spoke Yiddish in Russia, approximately 1% of all the Jews of the Russian Federation. According to Mikhail Shvydkoy,
former Minister of Culture of Russia and himself of Jewish origin,
Yiddish culture in Russia is gone, and its revival is unlikely.
From my point of view, Yiddish
culture today isn't just fading away, but disappearing. It is stored as
memories, as fragments of phrases, as books that have long gone unread.
... Yiddish culture is dying and this should be treated with utmost
calm. There is no need to pity that which cannot be resurrected – it has
receded into the world of the enchanting past, where it should remain.
Any artificial culture, a culture without replenishment, is meaningless.
... Everything that happens with Yiddish culture is transformed into a
kind of cabaret—epistolary genre, nice, cute to the ear and the eye, but
having nothing to do with high art, because there is no natural,
national soil. In Russia, it is the memory of the departed, sometimes
sweet memories. But it's the memories of what will never be again.
Perhaps that's why these memories are always so sharp.
The Jewish Autonomous Oblast was formed in 1934 in the Russian Far East, with its capital city in Birobidzhan and Yiddish as its official language.
The intention was for the Soviet Jewish population to settle there.
Jewish cultural life was revived in Birobidzhan much earlier than
elsewhere in the Soviet Union. Yiddish theaters began opening in the
1970s. The newspaper דער ביראָבידזשאַנער שטערן (Der Birobidzhaner Shtern; lit: The Birobidzhan Star) includes a Yiddish section.
In modern Russia, the cultural significance of the language is still
recognized and bolstered. The First Birobidzhan International Summer
Program for Yiddish Language and Culture was launched in 2007.
As of 2010, according to data provided by the Russian Census Bureau, there were 97 speakers of Yiddish in the JAO. A November 2017 article in The Guardian,
titled, "Revival of a Soviet Zion: Birobidzhan celebrates its Jewish
heritage", examined the current status of the city and suggested that,
even though the Jewish Autonomous Region in Russia's far east is now
barely 1% Jewish, officials hope to woo back people who left after
Soviet collapse and to revive the Yiddish language in this region.
Several countries that ratified the 1992 European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
have included Yiddish in the list of their recognized minority
languages: the Netherlands (1996), Sweden (2000), Romania (2008), Poland
(2009), Bosnia and Herzegovina (2010). In 2005, Ukraine did not mention Yiddish as such, but "the language(s) of the Jewish ethnic minority".
Sweden
Banner from the first issue of the יודישע פאלקסשטימע—Yidishe Folkshtime (Yiddish People's Voice), published in Stockholm, January 12, 1917
In June 1999, the Swedish Parliament enacted legislation giving Yiddish legal status as one of the country's official minority languages
(entering into effect in April 2000). The rights thereby conferred are
not detailed, but additional legislation was enacted in June 2006
establishing a new governmental agency, The Swedish National Language
Council,
the mandate of which instructs it to "collect, preserve, scientifically
research, and spread material about the national minority languages",
naming them all explicitly, including Yiddish. When announcing this
action, the government made an additional statement about
"simultaneously commencing completely new initiatives for... Yiddish
[and the other minority languages]".
The Swedish government has published documents in Yiddish detailing the national action plan for human rights. An earlier one provides general information about national minority language policies.
On September 6, 2007, it became possible to register Internet domains with Yiddish names in the national top-level domain .se.
The first Jews were permitted to reside in Sweden during the late
18th century. The Jewish population in Sweden is estimated at 20,000.
Of these, according to various reports and surveys, between 2,000 and
6,000 claim to have at least some knowledge of Yiddish. In 2009, the
number of native speakers among these was estimated by linguist Mikael
Parkvall to be 750–1,500. It is believed that virtually all native
speakers of Yiddish in Sweden today are adults, and most of them
elderly.
In the United States, at first most Jews were of Sephardic
origin, and hence did not speak Yiddish. It was not until the
mid-to-late 19th century, as first German Jews, then Central and Eastern
European Jews, arrived in the nation, that Yiddish became dominant
within the immigrant community. This helped to bond Jews from many
countries. פֿאָרווערטס (Forverts – The Forward)
was one of seven Yiddish daily newspapers in New York City, and other
Yiddish newspapers served as a forum for Jews of all European
backgrounds. In 1915, the circulation of the daily Yiddish newspapers
was half a million in New York City alone, and 600,000 nationally. In
addition, thousands more subscribed to the numerous weekly papers and
the many magazines.
The typical circulation in the 21st century is a few thousand. The Forward still appears weekly and is also available in an online edition. It remains in wide distribution, together with דער אַלגעמיינער זשורנאַל (der algemeyner zhurnal – Algemeyner Journal; algemeyner = general), a Chabad newspaper which is also published weekly and appears online. The widest-circulation Yiddish newspapers are probably the weekly issues Der Yid (דער איד "The Jew"), Der Blatt (דער בלאַט; blat 'paper') and Di Tzeitung (די צייטונג 'the newspaper'). Several additional newspapers and magazines are in regular production, such as the weekly אידישער טריביוןYiddish Tribune and the monthly publications דער שטערן (Der ShternThe Star) and דער בליק (Der BlikThe View).
(The romanized titles cited in this paragraph are in the form given on
the masthead of each publication and may be at some variance both with
the literal Yiddish title and the transliteration rules otherwise applied in this article.) Thriving Yiddish theater, especially in the New York City Yiddish Theatre District, kept the language vital. Interest in klezmer music provided another bonding mechanism.
Most of the Jewish immigrants to the New York metropolitan area during the years of Ellis Island
considered Yiddish their native language; however, native Yiddish
speakers tended not to pass the language on to their children, who
assimilated and spoke English. For example, Isaac Asimov states in his autobiography In Memory Yet Green
that Yiddish was his first and sole spoken language, and remained so
for about two years after he emigrated to the United States as a small
child. By contrast, Asimov's younger siblings, born in the United
States, never developed any degree of fluency in Yiddish.
In 1975, the film Hester Street, much of which is in Yiddish, was released. It was later chosen to be on the Library of Congress National Film Registry for being considered a "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" film.
In 1976, the Canadian-born American author Saul Bellow received the Nobel Prize in Literature. He was fluent in Yiddish, and translated several Yiddish poems and stories into English, including Isaac Bashevis Singer's "Gimpel the Fool". In 1978, Singer, a writer in the Yiddish language, who was born in Poland and lived in the United States, received the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Legal scholars Eugene Volokh and Alex Kozinski argue that Yiddish is "supplanting Latin as the spice in American legal argot".
Present U.S. speaker population
In the 2000 United States Census, 178,945 people in the United States reported speaking Yiddish at home. Of these speakers, 113,515 lived in New York (63.43% of American Yiddish speakers); 18,220 in Florida (10.18%); 9,145 in New Jersey (5.11%); and 8,950 in California (5.00%). The remaining states with speaker populations larger than 1,000 are Pennsylvania (5,445), Ohio (1,925), Michigan (1,945), Massachusetts (2,380), Maryland (2,125), Illinois (3,510), Connecticut (1,710), and Arizona
(1,055). The population is largely elderly: 72,885 of the speakers were
older than 65, 66,815 were between 18 and 64, and only 39,245 were age
17 or lower.
In the six years since the 2000 census, the 2006 American Community Survey reflected an estimated 15 percent decline of people speaking Yiddish at home in the U.S. to 152,515. In 2011, the number of persons in the United States above the age of five speaking Yiddish at home was 160,968. 88% of them were living in four metropolitan areas – New York City and another metropolitan area just north of it, Miami, and Los Angeles.
There are a few predominantly Hasidic communities in the United States in which Yiddish remains the majority language including concentrations in the Crown Heights, Borough Park, and Williamsburg neighborhoods of Brooklyn. In Kiryas Joel in Orange County, New York, in the 2000 census, nearly 90% of residents of Kiryas Joel reported speaking Yiddish at home.
United Kingdom
There
are well over 30,000 Yiddish speakers in the United Kingdom, and
several thousand children now have Yiddish as a first language. The
largest group of Yiddish speakers in Britain reside in the Stamford Hill district of North London, but there are sizable communities in northwest London, Leeds, Manchester and Gateshead.
The Yiddish readership in the UK is mainly reliant upon imported
material from the United States and Israel for newspapers, magazines and
other periodicals. However, the London-based weekly Jewish Tribune has a small section in Yiddish called אידישע טריבונעYidishe Tribune. From the 1910s to the 1950s, London had a daily Yiddish newspaper called די צײַט (Di Tsayt, Yiddish pronunciation:[dɪtsaɪt]; in English, The Time), founded, and edited from offices in Whitechapel Road,
by Romanian-born Morris Myer, who was succeeded on his death in 1943 by
his son Harry. There were also from time to time Yiddish newspapers in
Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Leeds. The bilingual Yiddish and English café Pink Peacock opened in Glasgow in 2021 but closed down in 2023.
Canada
Montreal
had, and to some extent still has, one of the most thriving Yiddish
communities in North America. Yiddish was Montreal's third language
(after French and English) for the entire first half of the twentieth
century. Der Keneder Adler (The Canadian Eagle, founded by Hirsch Wolofsky), Montreal's daily Yiddish newspaper, appeared from 1907 to 1988. The Monument-National was the center of Yiddish theater from 1896 until the construction of the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts (now the Segal Centre for Performing Arts), inaugurated on September 24, 1967, where the established resident theater, the Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre, remains the only permanent Yiddish theatre in North America. The theatre group also tours Canada, US, Israel, and Europe.
Even though Yiddish has receded, it is the immediate ancestral language of Montrealers like Mordecai Richler and Leonard Cohen, as well as former interim city mayor Michael Applebaum. Besides Yiddish-speaking activists, it remains today the native everyday language of 15,000 Montreal Hasidim.
Religious communities
A typical poster-hung wall in a Jewish section of Brooklyn, New York
Major exceptions to the decline of spoken Yiddish are found in Haredi
communities all over the world. In some of the more closely knit such
communities, Yiddish is spoken as a home and schooling language,
especially in Hasidic, Litvish, or Yeshivish communities, such as Brooklyn's Borough Park, Williamsburg, and Crown Heights, and in the communities of Monsey, Kiryas Joel, and New Square in New York (over 88% of the population of Kiryas Joel is reported to speak Yiddish at home.) Also in New Jersey, Yiddish is widely spoken mostly in Lakewood Township, but also in smaller towns with yeshivas, such as Passaic, Teaneck, and elsewhere. Yiddish is also widely spoken in the Jewish community in Antwerp, and in Haredi communities such as the ones in London, Manchester, and Montreal.
Yiddish is also spoken in many Haredi communities throughout Israel.
Among most Ashkenazi Haredim, Hebrew is generally reserved for prayer,
while Yiddish is used for religious studies, as well as a home and
business language. In Israel, however, Haredim commonly speak modern Hebrew,
with the notable exception of many Hasidic communities. However, many
Haredim who use Modern Hebrew also understand Yiddish. There are some
who send their children to schools in which the primary language of
instruction is Yiddish. Members of anti-Zionist Haredi groups such as
the Satmar Hasidim, who view the commonplace use of Hebrew as a form of Zionism, use Yiddish almost exclusively.
Hundreds of thousands of young children around the globe have been, and are still, taught to translate the texts of the Torah into Yiddish. This process is called טײַטשן (taytshn) – 'translating'. Many Ashkenazi yeshivas' highest level lectures in Talmud and Halakha are delivered in Yiddish by the rosh yeshivas as well as ethical talks of the Musar movement. Hasidic rebbes
generally use only Yiddish to converse with their followers and to
deliver their various Torah talks, classes, and lectures. The linguistic
style and vocabulary of Yiddish have influenced the manner in which
many Orthodox Jews who attend yeshivas speak English. This usage is distinctive enough that it has been dubbed "Yeshivish".
While Hebrew remains the exclusive language of Jewish prayer,
the Hasidim have mixed some Yiddish into their Hebrew, and are also
responsible for a significant secondary religious literature written in
Yiddish. For example, the tales about the Baal Shem Tov
were written largely in Yiddish. The Torah Talks of the late Chabad
leaders are published in their original form, Yiddish. In addition, some
prayers, such as "God of Abraham", were composed and are recited in Yiddish.
Modern Yiddish education
A road sign in Yiddish (except for the word "sidewalk") at an official construction site in the Monsey hamlet, a community with thousands of Yiddish speakers, in Ramapo, New York.
There has been a resurgence in Yiddish learning in recent times among
many from around the world with Jewish ancestry. The language which had
lost many of its native speakers during the Holocaust has been making
something of a comeback. In Poland, which traditionally had Yiddish speaking communities, a museum has begun to revive Yiddish education and culture. Located in Kraków, the Galicia Jewish Museum
offers classes in Yiddish Language Instruction and workshops on Yiddish
Songs. The museum has taken steps to revive the culture through
concerts and events held on site.
There are various universities worldwide which now offer Yiddish programs based on the YIVO
Yiddish standard. Many of these programs are held during the summer and
are attended by Yiddish enthusiasts from around the world. One such
school located within Vilnius University
(Vilnius Yiddish Institute) was the first Yiddish center of higher
learning to be established in post-Holocaust Eastern Europe. Vilnius
Yiddish Institute is an integral part of the four-century-old Vilnius
University. Published Yiddish scholar and researcher Dovid Katz is among
the Faculty.
Despite this growing popularity among many American Jews,
finding opportunities for practical use of Yiddish is becoming
increasingly difficult, and thus many students have trouble learning to
speak the language. One solution has been the establishment of a farm in Goshen, New York, for Yiddishists.
Yiddish is the medium of instruction in many Hasidic חדריםkhadoorim, Jewish boys' schools, and some Hasidic girls' schools.
Sholem Aleichem College, a secular Jewish primary school in Melbourne teaches Yiddish as a second language to all its students. The school was founded in 1975 by the Bund movement in Australia, and still maintains daily Yiddish instruction today, and includes student theater and music in Yiddish.
Internet
Google Translate includes Yiddish as one of its languages, as does Wikipedia. Hebrew-alphabet keyboards are available, and right-to-left writing is recognized. Google Search accepts queries in Yiddish.
Over ten thousand Yiddish texts, estimated as over half of all
the published works in Yiddish, are now online, based on the work of the
Yiddish Book Center, volunteers, and the Internet Archive.
There are many websites on the Internet in Yiddish. In January 2013, The Forward
announced the launch of the new daily version of its newspaper's
website, which has been active since 1999 as an online weekly, supplied
with radio and video programs, a literary section for fiction writers
and a special blog written in local contemporary Hasidic dialects.
In late 2016, Motorola Inc. released its smartphones with keyboard access for the Yiddish language in its foreign language option.
On 5 April 2021, Duolingo added Yiddish to its courses.
Influence on other languages
In addition to Modern Hebrew and New York English, especially as spoken by yeshivah students (sometimes known as Yeshivish), Yiddish has influenced Cockney in England and to some degree the city dialects of Vienna and Berlin. Frenchargot has some words coming from Yiddish.
Paul Wexler proposed that Esperanto was not an arbitrary pastiche of major European languages but a Latinate relexification of Yiddish, a native language of its founder. This model is generally unsupported by mainstream linguists.
A 2008 election poster in front of a store in Village of New Square, Town of Ramapo, New York, entirely in Yiddish. The candidates' names are transliterated into Hebrew letters.
Rosh Hashanah greeting card, Montevideo, 1932. The inscription includes text in Hebrew (לשנה טובה תכתבו—LeShoyno Toyvo Tikoseyvu) and Yiddish (מאנטעווידעא—Montevideo).
Examples of Yiddish usage in Birobidzhan public space
Language examples
The following is a short example of the Yiddish language written in both the Hebrew and Latin scripts with English and standard German for comparison.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They
are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one
another in a spirit of brotherhood.
yeder mentsh
vert geboyrn fray un glaykh in koved un rekht. yeder vert bashonkn mit
farshtand un gevisn; yeder zol zikh firn mit a tsveytn in a gemit fun
brudershaft.
German
Alle Menschen sind
frei und gleich an Würde und Rechten geboren. Sie sind mit Vernunft und
Gewissen begabt und sollen einander im Geist der Brüderlichkeit
begegnen.
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