to me as a native German speaker, Yiddish sounds like one of the many German dialects. It is just as easy for me to understand than a dialect I am unfamiliar with.

For me as a german I understood nearly everything of the yiddish language. This is amazing.

yiddish= 80% german + 10% slavic + 10% hebrew something like that, but german is really the dominating part

My grandfather was a French Jew, in the same street we lived I had a friend whose grandfather was German, and they managed to talk to each other.

Grapes are also in german "Weintrauben", not "Früchte" that means fruits..

There are many German dialects that are further away from standard German than Yiddish is, would have been fun if the Bavarian guy had also spoken out the sentences in "boarisch" to compare.

For me, Yiddish sounds also a little bit like dutch.

That is very interesting! I hope Yiddish will not die out as a spoken language!

for me, as a german. yiddish definitely sounds like a geman dialect - there are a lot of german dialects differing greatly - with some loan words, which is normal.. i understand everything. ...warm regards....

Yiddish isn't my first language but I heard it a lot growing up which helped tremendously when I learned it latter. I use it pretty much every day, I don't always get to speak to someone in Yiddish but I'll at least exchange an email or two or a facebook message. My work also involves materials in Yiddish so I'm reading and translating things constantly, as well as transcribing interviews in Yiddish.

Actually, the native German-speaker mistranslated some of the individual words-probably because he couldn’t remember the sentences given to him exactly. For instance, he translated “grapes” as “Früchte“ (fruits), instead of “Trauben,” and “highway” as “Autobahn” (freeway), instead of “Landstraße.” On the other hand, the Yiddish-speaker translated the latter word as “шосее/shosee,” which is also the Russian for “highway.” In any case, I enjoyed this video immensely, and hope your project was a smashing success!

In german "team "will be translated with "Mannschaft" (like the jüdisch one) The german guy speaks a kind of denglish (deutsch-englisch). I think its because he is so young.

The German man finds funny that the Yiddish word for "hour", in the Ukrainian-Russian dialect, sounds like "shoo". It it an Ashkenazic rendering of the Hebrew word שָׁעָה. He may have recognized the word שטונדע, "shtunde", which is less used but does exist in Yiddish. The German from which Yiddish came from is a regional 15-century dialect of German, not the modern standardized German. Hence the difference in pronunciation.

This video doesn't show how close both languages realy are, because the commonly used words of both languages are different. for example the Yiddish speaking guy chose to say "klingen" while he German speaking guy chose to say "hört sich an", but he could have easily also use "klingen" As a German speaker could understand the Yiddish speaking guy better than a Dutch and much much better than a hardcore Bavarian. They seam to just use German words that are not so commonly used in Germany. Thats the feel you have if you listen to a Dutch, too. off topic: Also I was part of a fun experiment where Dutch people chatted in fake-German and Germans in fake-Dutch. It made comunication actually even more easy.

As a Linguist and German native speaker, I love this! I have no problem understanding the yiddish, although it helps to hear the German first. Also, I noticed some French loan words in the Yiddish, which are also used in parts of Germany (they are normal loan words where I live), esp. where French soldiers were present during the wars. Examples: Trottwar (Trottoir) (sidewalk), plage (not really used where I live), chaussee (highway). And yes he speaks Hochdeutsch - I can still tell he's from Bavaria haha.

Wow this was really interesting! Thanks for the great video! I am still amazed at how similar they are. As a German you can still get the gist of what he is saying in Yiddish.

meine erste Sprache ist deutsch, obwohl ich in den USA geboren bin. Da ich jedoch zuerst nach New York zog - nach der Uni - und erst dann nach Deutschland für 26 Jahre, waren mir einige jiddischen Wörter aus dem New Yorker Slang bekannt. I also (now) speak Esperanto and two years ago I read an article about how Yiddish influenced Zamenhof (Esperanto's "founder") - this clip helped me understand that pretty well. Großartiger Film!

Yiddish is far more intelligible than I expected. I’m a native German speaker and also speak Alemannisch (Badisch and Swiss German both are Alemannisch dialects), and most of the Yiddish was understandable to me except for the words that stem from Hebrew (even some of those are quite commonly known in Germany like "Mischpoche" as slang or sometimes as "Rotwelsch" i.e. thieves’ cant). As the description states some of the non standard German words I know from my dialect, such as "Chrom" - my grandmother used to call the local store the "Chromer", I don't use that word and always wondered where it comes from. Also "epes" is common in all froms of Alemannisch, my local variant would spell it "öbbis", but phonetically it's very close. And using the French trottoir instead of "Gehweg" or "Bürgersteig" is also standard in my dialect (I’d never use the high German word it sounds so stiff to me).

Excellent demonstration! Good deal, guys and girl asking the questions!

Wow, I could understand a lot of the Yiddish, it was a bit different having words from outside of German and with a more guttural phonology, but it was easy to understand some

An excellent demonstration !! Thank you for taking the time to make this video and post it. I wish I had learned more German & Yiddish from my father. I second one of the previous comments and agree. If only 70 years ago we could have joked and played as friends of different backgrounds as the guys in the video do now. Be well & thanks again.

As an American Jew who grew up hearing Yiddish, I was amused by this. Sometimes I understood the German translation more and sometimes the Yiddish. English is largely a Germanic based language with hints of other languages. Yiddish is mostly middle German and Hebrew but can bits of Polish, Hungarian, and Slavic languages in it depending on where you are from.

Thanks for designing, participating, and sharing this project!

This is pretty interesting, although I was hoping for a different kind of experiment. I'd like to see what happens if you go about your day in Germany, but talking to everyone in Yiddish instead of German.

I'm really enjoying this. Thanks. A sheinem dank. Danke schön.

This is great! Unlike the naysayers, I'd say both of the translators did fantastic. Thank you, ikhveysnit.

And we could compare the following also: English/Dutch English/Frisian Dutch/Yiddish French/Spanish/Catalan Spanish/Arabic Hebrew/Aramaic And so on! :)

The German speaking lad is struggling a bit to keep up with the translations, nevertheless a great video. Insanely fascinating how similiar these languages sound.

Being German travelling in Israel I have had fluent conversations with ohne side speaking German and the other side speaking Yiddish. Same thing with Mennonites in the US speaking Pennsylvania Dutch (which sounds a lot like Yiddish).

This is a really good video. I love the sound of Yiddish.

I knew there were kind of similar but this video was really helpful. Thanks a lot! There are also a lot loan words in german from yiddish and hebrew. Schmock and zocken (which I use when I play video games, well, most of us really)

nächten = gestern . In a Swiss valley dialect nächti = gestern :)

I just remebered a quote of the film "train de vie" where they say german is like yiddish just without humour. i, as a german, think that's pretty accurate. :)

very unusual for someone who's young and secular to speak fluent Yiddish

Simply amazing! I love the two languages :) Thanks for this funny video!

Das ist ein lustiger Vergleich! Thanks for that funny idea and posting. :)

I'm German and I understood every single Yiddish word (: Good job, guys^^

To a german who speaks more than one european language yiddish sounds not like bad german but a mixture of several european languages with the majority of words being german/allemanic origin. Probably reflects the huge area all over Europe where Jewish people used to be/and still are just a part of society. Interesting comparison tho, thanks

Thank you very much for this enriching explanation :)

Loved the video, thank you!

very interesting... I noticed that Frank did translate some words incorrectly, however the - for me - interesting thing to see was that many yiddish words seem to be derived from French (or possibly Swiss German which contains many more French expressions). So, Jordan said "plage" for beach and also "trottoir" and "ekrane" for screens (in the movie theatre example) which is derived from "écran". The fourth French word was Chaussee...

Love it! This is like my wife and I trying to talk with each other. Unfortunately neither of us is very expert. She has the advantage of having learned Litvaker Yiddish at home, while I only learned German in school. This video was a great help, and may resolve some breakfast table arguments. BTW, does anyone know if the simple past exists in Yiddish? My wife always comes up with "haben" (pronounced "hubben") plus the past participle, where I learned simple pasts like "er ging," " er war" er hatte," etc. Has the simple past really disappeared from Yiddish?

i have no idea how so many people could dislike this video. really interesting, keep up the good work

Good comparative linguistics. We hope more good version and examples.

i can understand both of them fine except for the Jiddish words of Hebrew orgin. I Know both German and Dutch, and Am an native Skandinavian.

Very interesting video! I had to smile at the use of Trottoir. It's still in wide use in the palatinate today. We have a lot of language leftovers adopted during the Napoleonic occupation here. For instance, I keep my cash in a Portemonnaie and not in a Geldbörse or Geldbeutel.

Thanks for this video. I did never know both languages are similar like that.

Thank you for doing this comparison. My mother is half Jewish and half German,from Germany. My father was Dutch, so mom rarely spoke Yiddish. I'.I'm glad these 3 people did this project, it was so interesting.

This is so.funny..I speak all 3 languages and I love this.video. Yiddish sounds and is to a great part Mittelhochdeutsch. To.explain the.shuh thing. Shuh.sounds like Shoe or.Schuh in.German. And that is.funny. Good job.

@3:40 "Ich bin zu schnell gegangen [gefahren] auf der Chaussee ..." The word CHAUSSEE (French noun) harks back, I presume, to the Napoleon wars when major parts of Germany were under French influence. (I know that the upper stratum not only of the nobility used to speak French back then). As young boys, we used CHAUSSEE instead of the high German word LANDSTRASSE. Here is a nice poem using CHAUSSEE for rhyming purposes (Chaussee - weh). It also implicitly makes it clear that Chaussee, in fact, means LANDSTRASSE. Altona is a part of the city of Hamburg: DIE AMEISEN - Joachim Ringelnatz (1883-1934) In Hamburg lebten zwei Ameisen, die wollten nach Australien reisen. Bei Altona auf der Chaussee, da taten ihnen die Beine weh. Und da verzichteten sie weise, denn auf den letzten Teil der Reise. So will man oft und kann doch nicht und leistet dann recht gern Verzicht.

Wow! Thank you for this video. I couldn't even tell he was Bayerisch. I certainly thought the two would be closer than this though. I also noticed that some of the things COULD have translated the same. For instance: 'es klingt' means 'it sounds' in German as well but the German speaker just said it a different way.

I loved this! Thanks for doing it. :D

This is fun to watch. I love it and don't speak German, nor Yiddish. I can say that the two guys doing this seem like they are getting a kick out of each other while speaking and putting words together. Best of luck....good video. Keep it up.

Wie cool xD! I'm German and this is right! Yiddish sounds for a german like bad German, but also the other way around xDD. But it's not just German words in the Yiddish language available. I also heard something out French and Polish. Partially were English words here and maybe even more. For me yiddish sounds also a lot like dutch. But maybe I have just such a feeling ^^.

That is a great video. To be absolutely honest, I had almost no idea about Yiddish being so close to German. It sounds like Swiss, I would have guessed you're from there by overhearing a conversation. I really like the fact that the Bavarian (curse his people) actually speaks Hochdeutsch and his Bavarian accent is minimal. Also, he's cool. Unlike politicians from there. Fascinating though, "ich bin zu schnell gegangen" = "I went too fast". It's the literal translation. I love those connections.

Such a nice "experiment"! I've always been interested in Yiddish. Not only does is it partially sound like German, it also reminds me of the hessian dialect.

"shosea" is also French: chausee (means paved road)

2:15 "Früchte"(fruit) is not the correct German translation for "grapes". Correct would bei "Weintrauben" or "Trauben".

Yet so different, yet I could understand some of the Yiddish, but I got lost. WOW thanks.

@Terneyah It's from an album called "in the Fiddler's House" with Itshak Perlman. You can see a film about it on KZfaq called "Itshak Perlman plays Klezmer."

I like how the Yiddish speaker laughed after the German speaker said the line about the lawyer, like he just got the joke after hearing it from the German speaker.

I should add that my my parents were German Jews and (as many of that group were) so dismissive of Yiddish I didn't even know the two languages were related until I heard Yiddish spoken in a documentary and realized "Hey! I can understand a lot of what these guys are saying!" I'm only now learning to appreciate it as a distinct language of its own.

This is fascinating. I studied German (and Spanish) in college and beyond, and live in NYC. When I hear Hasids speaking Yiddish, I find that I can understand a pretty good amount, but some words definitely throw me off. I guess that would be the Slavic influence?

Very good video!

Something similar happens with modern spanish and ladino (the spanis/hebrew language spoke by the spanish jews in the XV century). Even when I don't speak ladino I understand 90% of it just because I speak spanish.

Some people seem to have trouble realizing who is speaking German and if he is a native speaker. The guy on the right is clearly a native German speaker (and so am I) and but I'm not sure about the one on the left since I don't speak Yiddish, but he seems to have some kind of foreign accent, so maybe it's only his second language. So yeah, guy on the right speak perfect native High German whereas the guy on the left apparently speaks Yiddish, but I can't judge how well he speaks it.

As a native German speaker, and a long history of family background that are Jewish, and Yiddish speakers, i can understand everything. When i visit my cousin in NY he doesn't speak German but he speaks Yiddish and him and i are able to communicate easily.

loving this video. as many here said yiddish is practically German with minor differences. It has much more German words in it than other languages, and follows old German grammatical rules.

Surprising that the Yiddish word for sidewalk is very similar to the French word "trottoire" meaning sidewalk.

he has a Russian accent, I also had a harder time understanding him. My grandma was born in Poland, and had a much more "German" accent.

I like this....nice dudes! They keep cracking up. Love listening to the differences in vocabulary, pronunciation. Hope you will do another Projekt. How about Spanish and Basque? English and Geordie?

That struck me the first time I heard the song! This predates it by a year and a half or so.

Hey folks that's normal: Jiddisch = Althochdeutsch (middle age), mostly. Althochdeutsch was the international language of the Hanse and their merchants. The Hanse was the early European Union of the middle age. It was a federation of the biggest northern European towns in business. ;) That was the territory from Frankfurt and Bruxelles to Stockholm and Oslo, from Nowgorod to London. Very easy reason. :)

A lot of "rolling Kah's" in the Yiddish language!

So strange (and cool)! Listening to Yiddish reminds me of listening to Dutch--not because they sound anything alike, but because if I listen closely enough, I can figure out what's being said, though in doing so I draw from my understanding of multiple languages.

Great video - thanks!

You should make an video where you compare Yiddish...Palatinate German and Pennsylvania Dutch.....would be more interessting

Did they seriously put "The little Prince" into this video, claiming it to be German??

Amazing ! I didn't know that those two languages are so similar.

@kimiwersen It hard to translate from another language to another. Your mind has to switch back and forth and you got to think differently when speaking both.

Yiddish came from Middle High German with Hebrew,Slavic, and other words mixed in picked up by the people intheir travels, so the base of the language is Germanic.

It is startling to me that almost none of the comments below reflect any knowledge of history. ALL languages change over time; NONE are "pure". Most Native English speakers would view Old English (see "Beowulf") as a completely foreign language. Middle English (see Chaucer) might be partly puzzled out, but most English speakers would require a translation into Modern English. A language is a system, but it is never a CLOSED system like mathematics. This is because mathematics deals with abstractions, so it can be "perfect". Natural human languages, however, are always vulnerable to change, due to foreign trade, war, immigration, emigration, literary influences, slang, various classes within a society, and every kind of specialized trade or profession. Yiddish began as a variant of Middle High German. It was bound to diverge simply because in the Middle Ages, Jews in the Rhineland were confined to their own communities. Because of massacres of Jewish communities as a warmup for the First Crusade (beginning 1096--- SEE the Wikipedia article "Persecution of Jews in the Crusades"), many Jews migrated Eastward to then-hospitable Poland, of course taking their Yiddish language with them. Later some of these Jews moved further east to the Ukraine and Russia. So it is not surprising that over time, these various Jewish communities absorbed some local Polish or Russian vocabulary into Yiddish. The fact that the Torah and the Prayerbook dominated Jewish religious life led to the adoption into Yiddish of much Hebrew vocabulary. This Yiddishized Hebrew would of course not be understood by today's modern Israeli speakers of Hebrew, the official language of the State of Israel, revived as a spoken language beginning in the late 19th Century.

Can you do this with Yiddish and Bavarian or Austrian German? I think that those are more similar. Very interesting from a person who's first language is Austrian German.

Thank you! really cool!

thats very interesting , the Yiddish word for “ Inn House" , comes actually from bulgarian "kruchma"

omg, I understand yiddisch, only with knowledge in German...it just sounds like another extremely distant kind of German dialect xP

Wow, this took me back. Frank speaks High German, but the amalgam that is Yiddish fascinates. And was it Victor Hugo who tried to learn English but dismissed it as bad French?

@HesseJamez There are several dialects of Yiddish depending on where the speaker is from BUT Yiddish began in the Rhineland which is now in the areas we call SW Germany and Alsace France.

Because of yiddish, hebrew has adopted alot of german words, In hebrew we even pronounce the months exactly like germans do

Yep, perfect high German. Do I hear a tiny, tiny Bavarian accent ? ;)

Really interesting!!! Thank you!!!!

I was asked if Yiddish is big in word size. The first Yiddish-English/Eng-Yd dictionary was published in 1891 by the great scholar Alexander Harkevy. I use the 22nd edition (1937) but I don't believe it was ever really updated. For example, it has no entry on either side for airplane (or aeroplane). It has about 20,000 entries on the Yiddish side. Imagine adding all the 20th and 21st century new words. There was not another such dictionary until 80 years later when another great scholar, Uriel Weinreich, finally had his published (posthumously). Now there is a new one, but it's only Yiddish to English. It happens that I just ordered these 2 and will see how many entries they have.

Yiddish kind of sounds like a really drunk person speaking German

I'm an American so my body-language is completely Americanized. There's an old Yiddish joke about how when the first telephones were brought to a small town in Poland an old man was taught how to use the phone. "Hold the receiver with your right hand and hold the mouth-piece with your left." The man looked at the instructor confused and said "but which hand do I use to talk with?" :)

You should do one comparing Yiddish and Dutch

@ikhveysnit I think that one thing to remember about Yiddish is that there are some substantial differences between dialects. For instance, your example of farshprechen would be tsizugen in Oberland dialect. "Lossen mir sprechen inzer sprach..." is a high-faluting way of saying "lomir reden yiddish..", but it is still perfectly understandable in our dialect. Another example would be "punim" and "gesicht", both understandable, but "punim" is the word most commonly used.

i am german and yiddisch sounds more like dutch to me

Grapes = Weintrauben in German, not Früchte (fruits).

@Gonnakillyou Hochdeutch may literally translate to "high German" but it is not based on High German as in Alemmanic. Yiddish is similar to High German as spoken in Alsace, Bavaria, Switzerland, Austria which are Alemmanic tongues if I am not mistaken.

It doesn't matter how close languages are when it comes to determining whether they're separate languages or just dialects. The only thing which matters is what the speakers of it consider it to be. To me it's a separate language, also because there's a different culture attached to it. There's much more to it than just mutual intelligibility, otherwise Danish, Swedish and Norwegian would have to be referred to as Scandinavian and Arabic would have to be split into several languages.