Editing Yiddish (section)

== Numbers of speakers ==

[[File:Yiddish.png|thumb|Map of the Yiddish dialects between the 15th and the 19th centuries (Western dialects in orange / Eastern dialects in green)]]
{{Quote box|width=246px|bgcolor=#c6dbf7|align=right|quote=Ghosts love Yiddish and as far as I know, they all speak it.|3= –&nbsp;[[Isaac Bashevis Singer]] upon receiving the [[Nobel Prize for Literature]], 1978<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bashevis Singer |first1=Isaac |title=Isaac Bashevis Singer's banquet speech upon receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature 1978 |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1978/singer/speech/ |publisher=[[Nobel Foundation]] |access-date=1 February 2023 |date=10 December 1978}}</ref>}}

On the eve of [[World War II]], there were 11 to 13 million Yiddish speakers.<ref name=yivoyiddish/> [[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{{snd}}85 percent of the Jews murdered in the Holocaust{{snd}}were speakers of Yiddish.<ref name="Sprache 1984 p. 3"/> 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 [[Haskalah]]<ref>{{cite book|last1=Katz |first1=Dovid |title=Words on Fire: The Unfinished Story of Yiddish |date=2007 |publisher=Basic Books |location=London | isbn=978-0-465-03730-8}}</ref> and later [[Zionist]] movements, led to a decline in the use of Eastern Yiddish.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Halperin |first1=Liora R. |title=Babel in Zion: Jews, Nationalism, and Language Diversity in Palestine, 1920-1948 |date=2015 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=London |isbn=978-0-300-19748-8 |page=9}}</ref> 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 the [[Jewish Autonomous Oblast]] of Russia, [[Moldova]], [[Bosnia and Herzegovina]], the [[Netherlands]],<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/erkende-talen/vraag-en-antwoord/erkende-talen-nederland |title=Welke erkende talen heeft Nederland? |publisher=Rijksoverheid.nl |date=July 2, 2010 |access-date=June 5, 2019}}</ref> 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&nbsp;million speakers of Eastern Yiddish,<ref name=Ethnologue>{{e18|ydd|Eastern Yiddish}}</ref> 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.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20060619224705/http://www.mla.org/cgi-shl/docstudio/docs.pl?map_data_results Most spoken languages in the United States], Modern Language Association. Retrieved October 17, 2006.</ref> Western Yiddish is reported by ''Ethnologue'' to have had an ethnic population of 50,000 in 2000, and an undated speaking population of 5,400, mostly in Germany.<ref name=Ethnologue-western>{{e18|yih|Western Yiddish}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Did you know Western Yiddish is threatened? |url=http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/lang/2990 |access-date=2024-02-04 |website=Endangered Languages |language=en}}</ref> A 1996 report by the [[Council of Europe]] estimates a worldwide Yiddish-speaking population of about two million.<ref>Emanuelis Zingeris, [http://assembly.coe.int/Documents/WorkingDocs/doc96/EDOC7489.htm Yiddish culture] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120330161904/http://assembly.coe.int/Documents/WorkingDocs/doc96/EDOC7489.htm |date=March 30, 2012}}, Council of Europe Committee on Culture and Education Doc. 7489, February 12, 1996. Retrieved October 17, 2006.</ref> Further [[demographics|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''.

In a study in the first half of 2024, the German media association Internationale Medienhilfe (IMH) found that the number of Yiddish media is increasing again, due to an increase in the Yiddish-speaking population, especially in the USA. According to IMH estimates, the number of speakers worldwide is approaching two million. In 2024, more than 40 print media were published worldwide in Yiddish - and the trend is rising.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Internationale Medienhilfe (IMH) |date=2024-09-19 |title=Trendumkehr: Immer mehr Menschen sprechen Jiddisch |url=https://www.medienhilfe.org/jiddische-medien-yiddish-media/ |access-date=2024-09-22 |website=IMH |language=de-DE}}</ref>

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 City|Gaza]], 4 in [[Hebron]], 3 in [[Nazareth]], 7 in [[Ramla|Ramleh]], 33 in [[Tiberias]], and 4 in [[Jenin]]).<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/PalestineCensus1922 |title=Palestine Census ( 1922)}}</ref>

In the Hasidic communities of Israel, boys speak more Yiddish amongst themselves, while girls use Hebrew more often. This is probably due to the tendency of girls to learn more secular subjects, thus increasing their contact with the Hebrew language, while boys are usually taught religious subjects in Yiddish.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-for-some-ultra-orthodox-there-can-be-only-one-language-1.5452371 |title=War on Hebrew For Some ultra-Orthodox, There Can Be Only One Language|last=Rabinowitz|first=Aaron|date=September 23, 2017|work=Haaretz|access-date=April 3, 2019}}</ref>