Judendeutsch

I don´t think that is a language. It´s probably a idiom of the jewish languages with german words.

I don't know about judendeutsch. But there was a segment on American public radio recently about Ladino, a Spanish/Jewish language that is rapidly dying out.

No it is - or better - was a real language, although some sources say it is a Yiddish dialect.

example for Yiddish :

"Was machst du ? " = Hello

"Sei gesund" = Goodbye

Well, 'Judendeutsch' is indeed thought to be partof/dialect of Jiddidh.

See:
- Wolf, Siegmund A.: Jiddisches Wörterbuch; Wortschatz des deutschen Grundbestandes der jiddischen (jüdischdeutschen) Sprache; 1962)
- this page
- Source
[Judendeutsch

The language of the ghetto was not Yiddish (which includes many Slavic words),
as is often thought, but Judendeutsch, a mixture of Hebrew and Frankfurt
dialect that was written from right to left in Hebrew letters. German suffixes
were added to Hebrew verbs to produce the Judendeutsch infinitive. Among
non-Jews, Judendeutsch was derided as impudent "mauscheln" (whining). And yet
according to Heine, Mauscheln was "nothing but the proper language of
Frankfurt and is spoken with equal excellence by the circumcised as well as by
the non-circumcised population there"

Even today, in some villages in the south of Germany the population speaks
such dialects.

Iris Weiss
Jewish Life in Germany and Central Europe
www.hagalil.com/enter.htm]


This is a page in 'Judendeutsch': from The making of a dynasty: the Rothschilds [BBC]

Besiede the Frankfurt Judendeutsch, there obviously were different other local dialects, like the often noten 'Prague Judendeutsch'.

People in my hometown spoke 'Paderborn/Westphalian Judendeutsch', as Else Lasker-Schüler writes in various letters ['Arthur Hieronimus und seine Väter' deals about her grandfather and her family in my hometown.]

Yes you are right Walter. I think I read it wrong. Quoting from The Pity of It All. A History of Jews in Germany, 1743 - 1933 (by Amos Elon):

When Mendellsohn arrived [in Berlin] he only spoke Hebrew and Judendeutsch. The latter one was a medieval German dialect, mixed with Hebrew: German endings were put behind Hebrew verbs. In contrary with the Eastern-European Yiddish, a mixture of German, Hebrew and Slavic words, Judendeutsch had such a small and old-fashioned vocabulary that it could only be used for small conversations. The rare times it was used as a written language, it was spelled in Hebrew writing and written from the right to the left. Gentiles [non-Jews] called it a backward language, comprised out of many languages, a sort of mauscheln, or Yiddish gibberish; according to Goethe 'the language had an unpleasant ring'.

Fascinating! Most of my elders spoke Yiddish, but this is the first I've heard of Judendeutsch.

The Jewish world is fascinating!

I've found some really good explanations ans examples in the "Meyers Konversationslexikon" from 1888 <click> at about in the middle of tha page (and no, I'm not going to translate that.) [size=7](Now)[/size]

Thanks Walter! Luckily my Deutsch is good enough to understand the website

If you read "A Short History Of The Jews" by Michael Brenner the subject of Judendeutsch appears in chapter 12, page 176, It is quite interesting as to how the language AND the culture seemed different due to the dialect which affected names of rites and traditions as well as names of food.