Google has added Yiddish to its free translation tool, allowing users to translate documents and website pages from and into Yiddish. The Google translation tool can be found on http://translate.google.com/.

Yiddish is a German-based dialect which is used by Jews around the world and is written in the Hebrew alphabet. The language originated in European Jewish communities some 1,000 years ago and was used predominantly by Orthodox Jews in Europe. Since Hebrew was considered to be a holy language, too sacred to be used for everyday speech, Yiddish became the official language of the Jews. Also commonly referred to as ‘mama lashon’ (mother tongue), Yiddish was the first language to millions of European Jews for hundreds of years. 

Yiddish was an important part of Jewish culture, with an abundance of Yiddish theater and Yiddish literature. Notable Yiddish authors included Shalom Aleichem and Nobel Prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer. Yiddish newspapers were common. The Forward daily newspaper, published in the USA for over 100 years, had over 250,000 readers in its heyday. Currently, the Yiddish edition of the Forward is only published once a week.

World War II and the holocaust, which decimated millions of Yiddish speakers, brought about a sharp decline in the use of Yiddish. Today, Yiddish is only used by ultra-Orthodox and Hassidic communities and is spoken regularly by fewer than 1 million people.

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