Yiddish is a Germanic language, but it has influences from Hebrew and (to a lesser extent) some Slavic languages, and it is written using the Hebrew alphabet.
100 years ago Yiddish was spoken by approximately 18 million people. It began to decline as Jewish people dropped their language in an effort to be seen to integrate more with their neighbours. After the Holocaust, the language almost disappeared completely and there are now only around three million speakers. It is listed on the UNESCO endangered languages list as “definitely endangered”. The language is, however, experiencing a revival.
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