Yiddish in Germany

My great-grandmothers family came from Bavaria, Germany. They were born between 1858 and 1876. In the 1910 Census their native tongue was listed as Yiddish. Does this mean they were Jewish or was Yiddish also the native tongue of christians in Bavaria, Germany in the mid 1800s. We have some old books and letters and have been trying to learn German so we could read them but maybe they are Yiddish?

Yiddish language, member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. Although it is not a national language, Yiddish is spoken by about 4 million Jews all over the world, especially in Argentina, Canada, France, Israel, Mexico, Romania, and the U.S. Before the annihilation of 6 million Jews by the Nazis, Yiddish was the tongue of more than 11 million people. Yiddish, although it is not a national language, is spoken by Jews all over the world. It arose (c.1100) out of a blend of a number of German dialects in the ghettos of Central Europe, and from there it spread to other parts of the world. Phonetically, Yiddish is closer to Middle High German than is modern German. Its vocabulary is basically German, but it has been enlarged by borrowings from Hebrew, Slavic, Romance languages, and English.

Sander summed it up nicely.

"Yiddish" is actually the word "jiddisch" - an evolution of the german word "jüdisch" which means "Jewish."*

So that should answer your question about its use amongst Christians in Bavaria: it was NOT their native tongue.

Is Yiddish a language in its own right? Or a very particular German dialect? These questions are always good for a lively discussion.

Two factors have contributed to the waning use of Yiddish:

1. The mass murder of six million European Jews by the Nazis.

2. The rise of modern Hebrew as the preferred language of the worldwide Jewish community.

* the "j" in German has the sound of "y" in 'yes."

Reference
http://www.bergen.org/AAST/Projects/Yiddish/English/yiddish.html

<<We have some old books and letters and have been trying to learn German so we could read them but maybe they are Yiddish? >>

Yiddish is written in Hebrew script, so unless they were written with Hebrew letters, those books and letters are probably in some other language or dialect.

@Nancy
First you have to know that Yiddish was primaly spoken in Eastern Europe and not in Germany! The Yiddish language died out in Germany/Austria between 1650 - 1800. In Germany the Jews usually spoke High German.

* Wikipedia:
"Use of the Western Yiddish dialect began to decline in the 18th century, as The Enlightenment and the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) led German Jews to view Yiddish as a "corrupt German". Between assimilation to German and the beginnings of the revival of Hebrew, Western Yiddish was largely squeezed out, surviving mainly as a language of "intimate family circles or of closely knit trade groups such as the cattle-dealers of the Eifel Mountains. [Liptzin, 1972, 2]"


So, are you absolutely shure that your great-grandmothers family came from Bavaria and not from Eastern Europe? Because Yiddish wasn't spoken in Bavaria at that time nad the Jewish community of Bavaria was extremely small at that time.

The problem of Yidish (until today) is its image as a "proletarian language".
It was the language of the poorer Jews in Russia and Poland. The upper class Jews in towns like Budapest, Warsaw, Moscow, Krakow, Prag or Sankt Petersburg spoke High-German and divided themselve from the "average" Jews, who still spoke Yiddish in that days, and the slavic people arround them.

For example:
As the Jews were forced by Napoleon and other Governments of that time, to pick up last Names, the richer Jews in todays Eastern Europe chose pompous German names which suggest financial and spiritual power.
Such names are: Goldberg, Rubinstein, Goldzweig, Bernstein, Kauffman, Goldman, Stern, Goldwein.
Or say Germanised there names by taking the jewish Name of the father(plus a German genitive) and added a Sohn(German for son). A prominent example for this practice is the famous family Mendelssohn(Son of Mendel).

The Yiddish community also chose German names, but by far not so
"powerful" ones. Names of the Yiddish community are: Fleischer(Butcher), Hirsch(Deer), Metzger(another form of Butcher), Feigenbaum, Strauss and many more.

Yes, they born (1828) and married in Allertshausen, Bavaria, Germany (northwest of Nurnberg and east of Frankfurt am Main). Others in our family were from Maroldsweisach, Bavaria, Germany and Schweinshaupten, Bavaria, Germany. Only the ones from Allertshausen say their native tongue is yiddish in the 1910 census and their name was Goldstein. The others, Keb from Schweinshaupten spoke german and Barthelmas from Maroldsweisach I am not sure of their language.