The Hebrew Component (Loshn-koydesh)

Yiddish has a few thousand words that come from Hebrew and Aramaic. Together they are called לשון־קודש (loshn-koydesh, "the holy tongue"). For learners who did not grow up with Hebrew prayer or study, these are usually the hardest words in Yiddish, and the reason is simple: you cannot sound them out. This page explains why, shows the patterns that make them easier, and lists the ones you will meet in everyday Yiddish, which have nothing to do with religion.

Why you cannot sound them out

Most Yiddish is spelled the way it sounds. The vowels are written as letters, so a new word like קומען can be read aloud on first sight: kumen.

Words from Hebrew and Aramaic keep their Hebrew spelling, which leaves most of the vowels out. שבת is not read letter by letter; it is shabes. אמת is emes. חתונה is khasene. Reading these words means recognising them, the way an English reader recognises "knight" or "colonel" without sounding them out.

They are spelled the same way in every Yiddish text, so once you know one, you know it everywhere.

The patterns that help

The pronunciation is not random. A handful of regular changes turn the Hebrew word into the Yiddish one:

• The stress moves to an earlier syllable. Hebrew shaBAT becomes Yiddish SHAbes, eMET becomes Emes, khatuNA becomes KHAsene.
• A final ת without a dot is read as s. שבת shabes, אמת emes, צרות tsores.
• The ending ־ה is read as -e. חתונה khasene, משפּחה mishpokhe, פּרנסה parnose.
• The Hebrew o-vowel (kholem) becomes oy in the standard pronunciation: תּורה toyre, סוד soyd (secret).
• The Hebrew a-vowel kamats often becomes o: חכם khokhem, שלום sholem.

These are the sounds of the old Ashkenazi pronunciation of Hebrew, the way Hebrew was read in Eastern Europe, which is why the same words sound this way in an Ashkenazi synagogue. Once you know them, a word you have heard in conversation becomes much easier to recognise on the page.

Everyday words

These are ordinary words for everyday life, with nothing religious about them.

Two that come from Aramaic rather than Hebrew:

You may already know some of them through English: chutzpah is חוצפּה (khutspe), kosher is כּשר (kosher), mazel tov is מזל־טובֿ (mazl-tov), and tachlis is the תּכלית above.

Plurals

Hebrew plurals come along with the words. The Hebrew ending ־ים stays -im, and ־ות becomes -es:

The vowel inside the word often changes in the plural too, which is one more reason to learn these words whole.

In a sentence

Hebrew words sit inside ordinary Yiddish grammar, with Yiddish endings and word order:

ער האָט נישט קיין פּרנסה, אָבער מזל האָט ער.

Er hot nisht keyn parnose, ober mazl hot er. "He has no living, but luck he has."

How to learn them

• Learn each one as a whole word, with its sound, the first time you meet it. Do not try to decode it.
• Say it aloud. The pronunciation is what you will hear in conversation, and it is what makes the spelling stick.
• Start with the everyday words above. The religious vocabulary (prayers, holidays, study) can wait until a text needs it.
• If you study Hebrew one day, these words become a head start: you will already know a few hundred Hebrew roots.