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Yeshivish (Yiddish: ישיביש), also known as Yeshiva English, Yeshivisheh Shprach, or Yeshivisheh Reid, is a sociolectofEnglish spoken by Yeshiva students and other Jews with a strong connection to the Orthodox Yeshiva world.[1]
"Yeshivish" may also refer to non-Hasidic Haredi Jews.[2] Sometimes it has an extra connotation of non-Hasidic Haredi Jews educated in yeshiva and whose education made a noticeable specific cultural impact onto them. In the latter case the term has ambivalent (both positive and negative) connotations comparable to these of the term "academic".[3]
The term appears to be a portmanteau wordofyeshiva and English, but it may simply be formed from yeshiva + the adjectival suffix -ish.[4]
Only a few serious studies have been written about Yeshivish. The first is a master's thesis by Steven Ray Goldfarb (University of Texas at El Paso, 1979) called "A Sampling of Lexical Items in Yeshiva English." The work lists, defines, and provides examples for nearly 250 Yeshivish words and phrases. The second, more comprehensive work is Frumspeak: The First Dictionary of Yeshivish by Chaim Weiser. Weiser (1995) maintains that Yeshivish is not a pidgin, creole, or an independent language, nor is it precisely a jargon.[5] Baumel (2006) following Weiser notes that Yeshivish differs from English primarily in phonemic structure, lexical meaning, and syntax.[6]
Benor (2012) offers a detailed list of distinctive features used in Yeshivish.[7] Katz describes it in Words on Fire: the Unfinished Story of Yiddish (2004) as a "new dialect of English", which is "taking over as the vernacular in everyday life in some ... circles in America and elsewhere".[8] Heilman (2006)[9] and others consider code-switching a part of Yeshivish.[10] Though Kaye (1991) would exclude English speakers in the context of a Yeshiva, studying the Talmud, from code-switching where he considers the terms "Yiddish English" or "Yiddishized English" ("= Yinglish") may be more appropriate.[11]
Yeshivish is primarily a male-spoken dialect.[12] Fathers and sons, particularly of teenage years and above, might speak Yeshivish, while mothers and daughters generally speak a milder variety of it, which generally features Yeshivish phonology but excludes many Talmudic words. This can be explained as much of the Yeshivish lexicon is learned in Yeshiva where the studying takes place using a specialist nomenclature. Familiarity with these terms develops and they are then re-applied to other situations. There is a higher incidence of Yeshivish being spoken amongst Orthodox Jews that are regularly involved in Torah study, or belong to a community that promotes its study.
Commonly used platitudes amongst Orthodox Jews are frequently expressed with their Yeshivish equivalent. Examples include using shkoyakh for "thank you",[13] a contraction from the Hebrew יִישַׁר כּוֹחַ "Yishar Koach", which literally translates as "May your strength be firm" and is used to indicate to someone that they have done a good job, and Barukh HaShem (sometimes written as B"H, using the quotation mark used for abbreviations in Hebrew), meaning "Blessed is HaShem [The Name (of God)]". Yeshivish dialogue may include many expressions that refer to HaShem.
Some observers predict that the English variant of Yeshivish may develop further to the point that it could become one of the historical Judeo-hybrid languages like Yiddish, Judeo-Spanish or the Judeo-Arabic languages. Judeo-hybrid languages were spoken dialects which mixed elements of the local vernacular, Hebrew, Aramaic and Jewish religious idioms. As Yiddish was to Middle High German, Yeshivish may be to Standard American English. However, the integration of modern-day Jews with non-Jews may keep their speech from diverging as far from the standard language as it did in the past.
As Weiser (1995) states in Frumspeak: The First Dictionary of Yeshivish, this is neither a pidgin nor a technical ... Although some may initially categorize Yeshivish as a mere dialect, it differs from English in three ways: sound or ...
The code switching here, so characteristic of Yeshivish culture, and the use of acronyms and phrases that only Orthodox ... but wish to display that they have been 'transformed' following an extended stay in a Haredi yeshiva.
One similarly wonders what an analysis of British, Israeli, or Latin-American counterparts to Yeshivish might yield. The processes and contexts of code-switching between English and Yeshivish among Yeshiva students likewise warrant investigation.
I am willing to exclude, however, English-speaking New York Orthodox Jews in the context of a Yeshiva
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