how to read yiddish
(guide intended for people who can already read hebrew)
first we’ll talk about the words that are not from hebrew or aramaic origin — so this is mostly words of germanic origin, as well as words from other languages like russian, polish, hungarian, english, etc.
for these words, yiddish uses hebrew letters, but treats them the way you treat english letters: that is, some are consonants and some are vowels. nekudot (hebrew vowel marks) are only used in specific situations.
the consonants you already know are:
ב ג ד ה ז ט י כ ל מ נ ס פ פּ צ ק ר ש
some notes:
- the letter ב is always pronounced as a bet, not a vet
- double vav (וו) is how you would do a “v” sound
- the letter כ is always pronounced as chaf
- the letter ש is always pronounced as shin
- the letters ח and ת are not used for these words
just like in english, the way to construct words is to use some letters as vowels. these are the vowels:
so for example, if i want to write ketz (meaning cats), i’d write it as קעץ
the consonants are ק and צ, while ע is being used as a vowel, pronounced “eh.”
some of these vowels are pronounced differently in different dialects. the chart above is for klal shprach (aka YIVO dialect). this is different from the pronunciation you learn on duolingo.
hebrew and aramaic words, by contrast, are spelled the same way they are in their language of origin. for example, if we were to use the above orthography to write “shabbes,” it would be שאבעס. however, we don’t: we still write שבת.
words of hebrew and aramaic origin in yiddish are pronounced as they are in ashkenazi hebrew. in general, that will mean an emphasis on the first or second syllable rather than the last, and ת without a dagesh being pronounced as an “s” sound. eg “SHA-bes” instead of “sha-BAT” and “sha-VU-es” instead of “sha-vu-OT.” it also means that some vowel sounds get shortened or elided.
hopefully this is a useful guide. go forth and read!
