Indo-European · ISO 639-3 yid · yi
Yiddish Language יידיש
Yiddish is an Indo-European language spoken by about 1.0 million people in 4 countries. It is written in the Hebrew script.
Where Yiddish is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak Yiddish
Language family
- Indo-European
- Classical Indo-European
- Germanic
- Yiddish
Writing system
Hebrew script
Related languages
About the Yiddish language
Yiddish (יידיש) is spoken by about 1.0 million people. It belongs to the Indo-European language family and, more precisely, to the Germanic group within the Germanic branch.
Where is Yiddish spoken?
Yiddish is used in 4 countries. The largest communities live in Ukraine (463,603), Israel (282,078), United States (167,561) and Sweden (2,965).
Share of the population that speaks Yiddish: Ukraine 1.3% (463,603), Israel 3% (282,078), United States <0.1% (167,561) and Sweden <0.1% (2,965).
Yiddish is not a national official language anywhere.
Writing system and status
Yiddish is written in the Hebrew script.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are English, German, Nigerian Pidgin, Dutch, Bavarian, Swedish and 2 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-1 yi, ISO 639-3 yid.
Frequently asked questions about Yiddish
How many people speak Yiddish?
Where is Yiddish spoken?
What language family does Yiddish belong to?
What is Yiddish called in Yiddish?
Is Yiddish an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.