Editing Yiddish (section)

=== 20th century ===

[[File:Yiddish WWI poster2.jpg|thumb|American [[World War I]]-era poster in Yiddish. Translated caption: "Food will win the war – [[History of immigration to the United States#New immigration|You came here seeking freedom]], now you must help to preserve it – We must supply the [[Allies of World War I|Allies]] with wheat – Let nothing go to waste". Colour lithograph, 1917. Digitally restored.]]

[[File:100karbovantsevUNR R.jpg|thumb|right|1917. 100 [[karbovanets]] of the Ukrainian People's Republic. Revers. Three languages: [[Ukrainian language|Ukrainian]], [[Polish language|Polish]] and Yiddish.]]

In the early 20th century, especially after the Socialist [[October Revolution]] in Russia, Yiddish was emerging as a major Eastern European language. Its rich literature was more widely published than ever, [[Yiddish theatre]] and [[Yiddish cinema]] were booming, and for a time it achieved the status of one of the [[official language]]s of the short-lived [[Galician Soviet Socialist Republic]]. Educational autonomy for Jews in several countries (notably [[Poland]]) after [[World War I]] led to an increase in formal Yiddish-language education, more uniform orthography, and to the 1925 founding of the Yiddish Scientific Institute, [[YIVO]]. In [[Vilnius]], there was debate over which language should take primacy, Hebrew or Yiddish.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/vilna/before/hebrew_or_yiddish.asp?WT.mc_id=wiki|title=Hebrew or Yiddish? – The Interwar Period – The Jerusalem of Lithuania: The Story of the Jewish Community of Vilna|website=www.yadvashem.org|access-date=April 3, 2019|archive-date=April 3, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190403153951/https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/vilna/before/hebrew_or_yiddish.asp%3FWT.mc_id%3Dwiki|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Yiddish changed significantly during the 20th century. [[Michael Wex]] writes, "As increasing numbers of Yiddish speakers moved from the Slavic-speaking East to Western Europe and the Americas in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they were so quick to jettison Slavic vocabulary that the most prominent Yiddish writers of the time—the founders of modern Yiddish literature, who were still living in Slavic-speaking countries—revised the printed editions of their oeuvres to eliminate obsolete and 'unnecessary' Slavisms."<ref>{{cite book |title=Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All Its Moods |last=Wex |first=Michael |author-link=Michael Wex |year=2005 |publisher=St. Martin's Press |page=[https://archive.org/details/borntokvetchyidd00wexm/page/29 29] |isbn=0-312-30741-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/borntokvetchyidd00wexm/page/29 }}</ref> The vocabulary used in Israel absorbed many Modern Hebrew words, and there was a similar but smaller increase in the English component of Yiddish in the United States and, to a lesser extent, the United Kingdom.{{citation needed|date=March 2014}} This has resulted in some difficulty in communication between Yiddish speakers from Israel and those from other countries.

"[[Khurbn]] Yiddish", as discussed by Professor Hannah Pollin-Galay, refers to the [[sociolect]] shaped by Yiddish speakers' experience during the Holocaust. Prisoners developed new words and slang, particularly relating to theft, protest, and sexuality.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Pollin-Galay |first1=Hannah |title=Occupied Words: What the Holocaust Did to Yiddish |date=September 3, 2024 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=9781512825916}}</ref>