Editing Yiddish (section)

=== Written evidence ===

[[File:Machzor.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|The calligraphic segment in the [[Worms, Germany|Worms]] ''Machzor'' (a Hebrew prayer book). The Yiddish text is in red.]]
[[File:Süd-West-Jiddische Lebensbeschreibung.jpg|thumb|The South-West Yiddish account of the life of Seligmann Brunschwig von [[Durmenach|Dürmenach]] describes, among other things, the anti-Semitic events of the [[Revolutions of 1848|revolutionary year 1848]]. In the collection of the [[Jewish Museum of Switzerland]]. ]]
[[Yiddish orthography]] developed towards the end of the high medieval period. It is first recorded in 1272, with the oldest surviving literary document in Yiddish, a blessing found in the Worms ''[[machzor]]'' (a Hebrew prayer book).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/popups/viewmedia.aspx?id=1116 |title=Image |publisher=Yivoencyclopedia.org |access-date=August 7, 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Frakes |first=Jerold C |title=Early Yiddish Texts 1100–1750 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |year=2004 |isbn=0-19-926614-X}}</ref><ref name=baumgarten/>

{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
|+ A Yiddish phrase transliterated and translated
|-
! scope="row" | Yiddish
| {{lang|yi|גוּט טַק אִים בְּטַגְֿא שְ וַיר דִּיש מַחֲזוֹר אִין בֵּיתֿ הַכְּנֶסֶתֿ טְרַגְֿא}}
|-
! scope="row" | Transliterated
| {{lang|yi-Latn|gut tak im betage se vaer dis makhazor in beis hakneses trage}}
|-
! scope="row" | Translated
| May a good day come to him who carries this prayer book into the synagogue.
|}

This brief rhyme is decoratively embedded in an otherwise purely Hebrew text.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.milon.co.il/general/general.php?term=%D7%91%D7%93%D7%A2%D7%AA%D7%95 |title=בדעתו |publisher=Milon.co.il |date=May 14, 2007 |access-date=August 7, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120715192212/http://www.milon.co.il/general/general.php?term=%D7%91%D7%93%D7%A2%D7%AA%D7%95 |archive-date=July 15, 2012 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Nonetheless, it indicates that the Yiddish of that day was a more or less regular Middle High German written in the Hebrew alphabet into which Hebrew words&nbsp;– {{lang|he|מַחֲזוֹר}}, {{lang|he-Latn|[[machzor|makhzor]]}} (prayerbook for the [[High Holy Days]]) and {{lang|he|בֵּיתֿ הַכְּנֶסֶתֿ|rtl=yes}}, 'synagogue' (read in Yiddish as {{lang|yi-Latn|beis hakneses}})&nbsp;– had been included. The [[niqqud]] appears as though it might have been added by a second scribe, in which case it may need to be dated separately and may not be indicative of the pronunciation of the rhyme at the time of its initial annotation.

Over the course of the 14th and 15th centuries, songs and poems in Yiddish, and [[macaronic language|macaronic]] pieces in Hebrew and German, began to appear. These were collected in the late 15th century by Menahem ben Naphtali Oldendorf.<ref>''Old Yiddish Literature from Its Origins to the Haskalah Period'' by Zinberg, Israel. KTAV, 1975. {{ISBN|0-87068-465-5}}.</ref> During the same period, a tradition seems to have emerged of the Jewish community's adapting its own versions of German secular literature. The earliest Yiddish epic poem of this sort is the ''[[Dukus Horant]]'', which survives in the famous Cambridge Codex T.-S.10.K.22. This 14th-century manuscript was discovered in the [[Cairo Geniza]] in 1896, and also contains a collection of narrative poems on themes from the [[Hebrew Bible]] and the [[Haggadah]].