Duolingo just added a Yiddish course. Could you plotz?

Standard language-learning platform Duolingo rolled out a Yiddish course for English audio system this week, and I am kvelling. 

The course, which debuted April 6, guides college students by talking, studying and writing the richly expressive language that originated with Jews in Central and Japanese Europe and served as their lingua franca for hundreds of years.  

Do not know bupkes about Yiddish? It blends previous German, Hebrew, Aramaic and Slavic languages, and drips with humor, irony, pathos and historical past. Whereas it is nonetheless spoken in largely Jewish neighborhoods in locations like New York, there’s been renewed broader curiosity within the language, as effectively its sturdy custom of literature, poetry, music, movie and theater. 

One motive is that many Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrants to the US and different nations sought to acculturate to their new lands, and now their kids and grandchildren yearn to reconnect with their ancestral roots, says Meena Lifshe Viswanath, one of many volunteer contributors to the course. 

“Yiddish provides these descendants of assimilated Jews that connection to those that got here earlier than them and places them, their lives and their experiences in a visceral historic context,” she says. 

As of late, Yiddish lovers can be a part of clubs; attend conferences, meetups and summer festivals; and take heed to radio shows and podcasts just like the Yiddish Voice and Vaybertaytsh. There are spiritual Yiddish newspapers and magazines and streaming lessons in Yiddish for finding out sacred historical Jewish texts. 

Some nonetheless understand Yiddish as a language reserved for older generations, nevertheless it’s changing into equally fashionable. Many Yiddish phrases have made their means into the on a regular basis English vernacular and onto exhibits like Women, Seinfeld and Jeopardy. Because of my mother, the Texas-bred daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants, I grew up considering “oy” was one other English phrase for “ugh” and everybody else within the neighborhood “schlepped,” “schvitzed,” “potchked” and “schmoozed” as a lot as my household did. 

The Duolingo course will cowl the whole lot from vocabulary and grammar to key cultural phrases, connecting members with the tachlis (brass tacks) of Yiddish tradition. Workers Circle and different websites provide on-line lessons as effectively, nevertheless it’s a ganze tzimmes (a giant deal) {that a} platform with greater than 300 million customers is together with Yiddish in its catalog. 

“Many Individuals are accustomed to Yiddish, however most are conscious of stereotypes, akin to ‘Yiddish is humorous’ or ‘Yiddish would not have grammar,'” says Lifshe Viswanath, a civil engineer whose aunt is editor of the Yiddish Ahead newspaper. “We hope that such folks will do the Duolingo course out of curiosity, and can come out with an appreciation for Yiddish as a language with a wealthy vocabulary [and] a posh grammar and the flexibility to speak about any subject.”

The Duolingo Yiddish course is 5 years within the making. 

Lifshe Viswanath grew up talking Yiddish, as did fellow course creator Libby Pollak, 32, who began a Yiddish weblog and works as a Yiddish translator. So did staff leads Isac and Israel Polasak, 22-year-old twin brothers born in Brooklyn and raised in a Hungarian department of Hasidic Judaism. 

Duolingo is out there without spending a dime on iOS, Android and the Web, with an improve to Duolingo Plus for $7 a month providing classes freed from adverts, plus offline entry to classes and content material, and the flexibility to trace your progress. Classes take about 5 minutes and train language by a easy interface and short, video game-like exercises.  

The contributors had vigorous debates about which of the principle Yiddish dialects needs to be taught on Duolingo, even soliciting public input on how the language needs to be pronounced within the new course. In the end, they determined to go along with the Galitzianer dialect prevalent amongst Hungarian Jews and particularly amongst Hasidic communities in Brooklyn. 

“The deal with this explicit Yiddish exhibits a want to show a residing respiration language, because it’s discovered not within the halls of the academy, however on the streets of Brooklyn, London, Antwerp and past,” says Rabbi Mordechai Lightstone, the New York-based founding father of Tech Tribe, a group for Jews in tech and digital media. He is not affiliated with the course. 

Lightstone says he is “very excited” about Duolingo providing the course, as Jews and non-Jews alike are drawn to Yiddish each as a colourful, distinctive-sounding language and a hyperlink to historical past and heritage. “Yiddish opens up a world of profoundly inspiring and influential teachings of their unique language,” he says. 

Duolingo provides 100 complete programs throughout practically 40 distinct languages, from essentially the most spoken to lesser-spoken languages akin to Hawaiian, Navajo, Scottish Gaelic and now, Yiddish.

A couple of weeks earlier than the Yiddish course began, greater than 9,500 folks had already signed up. Little doubt that makes Duolingo a bit verklempt. 

Replace, April 7: Provides feedback from course co-creator Meena Lifshe Viswanath.