Free online English to Yiddish translators provide language students and Yiddish scholars and enthusiasts a very fast and easy way to translate the English language into a rough Yiddish translation.
What Is Yiddish?
The language known as "Yiddish" is the language that reflects the heritage and the history of the Jewish people. Yiddish is not an ancient language in its present state, but considering that it is written in the ancient Hebrew alphabet, in its basic form it is an old language.
The Evolution of Yiddish
Most scholars today believe that Yiddish was formed as a melting pot of many different languages used by the Jewish people as they migrated from different countries into Germany in the 10th century. The language has various elements of French, Italian and even German which many believe is due to the fact that Jews from France and Italy settled with Jews in Germany at that time. Yiddish itself is a distinct and unique language. Today, most believe that it represents the cultural identity of the Jewish people, due in large part to the efforts of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research since 1925. Today, YIVO seeks to preserve the language through continued educational efforts and even summer programs for students.
Where to Find Free Online English to Yiddish Translators
Yiddish is written in Hebrew, so translation from English to Yiddish includes the conversion not only from one word to another, but it also requires a completely different font that can produce the Hebrew characters. Regardless of this difficulty, there are a number of valuable free online English to Yiddish translators that you can use to either learn how to use Yiddish words when you're talking with your Jewish friends, or as a valuable tool to learn the language itself.
- Convey This offers a very easy to use translator that lets you type in an English phrase, and then you can click on "Free Translation," which displays a Google ad and then displays the Yiddish translation in the box below. Keep in mind that if your computer isn't installed with the correct font, the Yiddish translation may look a little strange. Human translations are also available at this website for a price.
- Kids Net is a very creative children's website that lets kids search the Yiddish dictionary of words using English. This is a great way for curious children to search the Yiddish language for the words that interest them the most, and then they can practice learning those words in Yiddish.
- Ectaco is a commercial site that seeks to sell electronic translators. However, on this commercial site you'll find a neat little free online tool that lets you type in English or Yiddish words and then click a button to quickly convert them into the other language.
- The Yiddish Dictionary Online is probably one of the most impressively thorough online Yiddish dictionary lookup tools where you can type a word and get the Yiddish matching word in seconds. There is also an excellent display of the Hebrew letters that you can click on in order to see all of the Yiddish words that start with that particular Hebrew letter. You can also do the same for Roman letters as well.
- iBiblio.org probably has one of the most innovative approaches of all of the translator sites. This Yiddish-Hebrew-English-German-Russian-French "picture" dictionary lets you view the Yiddish dictionary as a graphical slideshow. What makes this site so useful is that if you want to know exactly how the Yiddish word is pronounced, you can just click on the sound icon and hear the proper way to say the word.
Final Words
Even if you are not a language student, or you've never heard of Yiddish before, playing with these online translator tools and dictionaries is a great deal of fun. Learning a new language is always difficult, but learning a fascinating language with such a long history, like Yiddish, can be a very exciting and rewarding experience.
