Editing Yiddish (section)

=== United States ===

[[File:Free Classes in English.jpg|thumb|Poster by the [[Government of New York City|City of New York]] advertising free English classes for Yiddish speakers, 1930s:<br/>"Learn to speak, read and write the language of your children."]]

[[File:Women voter outreach 1935 English Yiddish.jpg|thumb|Women surrounded by posters in English and Yiddish supporting [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]], [[Herbert H. Lehman]], and the [[American Labor Party]] teach other women how to vote, 1936.]]

[[File:Yiddish language distribution in the United States.svg|thumb|Yiddish distribution in the United States {{legend|blue|More than 100,000 speakers}} {{legend|cyan|More than 10,000 speakers}}

{{legend|red|More than 5,000 speakers}}

{{legend|yellow|More than 1,000 speakers}}

{{legend|#cccccc|Fewer than 1,000 speakers}}]]
In the United States, at first most Jews were of [[Sephardi Jews|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. {{lang|yi|פֿאָרווערטס|rtl=yes}} ({{lang|yi-Latn|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.<ref>{{cite book|author=Robert Moses Shapiro|title=Why Didn't the Press Shout?: American & International Journalism During the Holocaust|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I3lItIwOzCkC&pg=PA18|year=2003|publisher=KTAV|page=18|isbn=978-0-88125-775-5}}</ref>

The typical circulation in the 21st century is a few thousand. The ''Forward'' still appears weekly and is also available in an online edition.<ref>{{in lang|yi}} [http://yiddish.forward.com/ פֿאָרווערטס]: ''[[The Forward]]'' online.</ref> It remains in wide distribution, together with {{lang|yi|דער אַלגעמיינער זשורנאַל|rtl=yes}} ({{lang|yi-Latn|der algemeyner zhurnal}} – {{lang|yi-Latn|[[Algemeiner Journal|Algemeyner Journal]]}}; {{lang|yi-Latn|algemeyner}} = general), a [[Chabad]] newspaper which is also published weekly and appears online.<ref>{{in lang|yi}} [http://www.algemeiner.com/generic.asp?cat=4 דער אַלגעמיינער זשורנאַל] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110106211758/http://www.algemeiner.com/generic.asp?cat=4 |date=January 6, 2011 }}: ''Algemeiner Journal'' online</ref> The widest-circulation Yiddish newspapers are probably the weekly issues {{lang|yi-Latn|[[Der Yid]]}} ({{lang|yi|דער איד|rtl=yes}} "The Jew"), {{lang|yi-Latn|[[Der Blatt]]}} ({{lang|yi|דער בלאַט|rtl=yes}}; {{lang|yi-Latn|blat}} 'paper') and {{lang|yi-Latn|[[Di Tzeitung]]}} ({{lang|yi|די צייטונג|rtl=yes}} 'the newspaper'). Several additional newspapers and magazines are in regular production, such as the weekly {{lang|yi|אידישער טריביון}} ''Yiddish Tribune'' and the monthly publications {{lang|yi|דער שטערן|rtl=yes}} ({{lang|yi-Latn|Der Shtern}} ''The Star'') and {{lang|yi|דער בליק|rtl=yes}} ({{lang|yi-Latn|Der Blik}} ''The 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 [[Yiddish orthography#Transliteration|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.

Many "Yiddishisms", like "Italianisms" and "Spanishisms", entered [[New York City English]], often used by Jews and non-Jews alike, unaware of the linguistic origin of the phrases. [[Yiddish words used in English]] were documented extensively by [[Leo Rosten]] in ''[[The Joys of Yiddish]]'';<ref>{{cite book |author-link=Leo Rosten |last=Rosten |first=Leo |title=Joys of Yiddish |publisher=Pocket |date=2000 |isbn=0-7434-0651-6}}{{page needed|date=November 2023}}</ref> see also the [[list of English words of Yiddish origin]].

In 1975, the film ''[[Hester Street (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.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.loc.gov/item/prn-11-240/2011-national-film-registry-more-than-a-box-of-chocolates/2011-12-28/|title=2011 National Film Registry More Than a Box of Chocolates|website=Library of Congress|access-date=April 3, 2019}}</ref>

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".<ref>{{cite journal |last=Volokh |first=Eugene |author2=Kozinski, Alex |year=1993 |title=Lawsuit, Shmawsuit |journal=Yale Law Journal |volume=103 |issue=2 |pages=463–467 |doi=10.2307/797101 |publisher=The Yale Law Journal Company, Inc. |jstor=797101 }}</ref><ref>Note: an updated version of the article appears on Professor Volokh's UCLA web page, {{cite web|url=http://www.law.ucla.edu/volokh/yiddish.htm |title=Judge Alex Kozinski & Eugene Volokh, "Lawsuit, Shmawsuit" <*> |publisher=Law.ucla.edu |access-date=October 18, 2009}}</ref>

==== 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 (state)|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.<ref>[http://www.mla.org/map_data_states&lang_id=609&mode=lang_tops&a=&ea=&order=r Language by State: Yiddish] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150919151951/http://www.mla.org/map_data_states%26lang_id%3D609%26mode%3Dlang_tops%26a%3D%26ea%3D%26order%3Dr |date=September 19, 2015}}, [[Modern Language Association|MLA]] Language Map Data Center, based on U.S. Census data. Retrieved December 25, 2006.</ref>

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.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.census.gov |title=U.S. Census website |publisher=[[United States Census Bureau]] |access-date=October 18, 2009 }}</ref> In 2011, the number of persons in the United States above the age of five speaking Yiddish at home was 160,968.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acs-22.pdf#page=12&zoom=auto,-265,62 |title=Camille Ryan: ''Language Use in the United States: 2011'', Issued August 2013 |access-date=January 21, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160205101044/http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acs-22.pdf#page=12&zoom=auto,-265,62 |archive-date=February 5, 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref> 88% of them were living in four [[metropolitan area]]s – New York City and another metropolitan area [[Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown metropolitan area|just north of it]], Miami, and Los Angeles.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Basu |first1=Tanya |title=Oy Vey: Yiddish Has a Problem |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/yiddish-has-a-problem/379658/ |work=The Atlantic |date=September 9, 2014}}</ref>

There are a few predominantly [[Hasidic Judaism|Hasidic]] communities in the United States in which Yiddish remains the majority language including concentrations in the [[Crown Heights, Brooklyn|Crown Heights]], [[Borough Park, Brooklyn|Borough Park]], and [[Williamsburg, Brooklyn|Williamsburg]] neighborhoods of Brooklyn. In [[Kiryas Joel, New York|Kiryas Joel]] in [[Orange County, New York]], in the 2000 census, nearly 90% of residents of Kiryas Joel reported speaking Yiddish at home.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mla.org/census_data_results&state_id=36&place_id=39853|title=Data center results] Modern Language Association]|access-date=April 3, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060923112824/http://www.mla.org/census_data_results%26state_id%3D36%26place_id%3D39853|archive-date=September 23, 2006|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/28/opinion/yiddish-hebrew-language-thriving.html |website=[[The New York Times]] |title=Opinion &#124; Yiddish is a Supposedly Dying Language That's Thrillingly Alive |date=November 28, 2024 |last1=McWhorter |first1=John }}</ref>