Biblical Hebrew Forum

["K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

I am not an expert on either German nor Yiddish, but I lived in Germany.

Of the dialects I was exposed to in Germany, Yiddish is closest to
those spoken in south western traditional German lands around where
Rashi lived. Just my observation.

But this is getting off of B-Hebrew. What it proves it up to you.

Just my 2¢.

Karl W. Randolph.

On 11/1/07, jason silber <uzisilber AT gmail.com> wrote:
> Doris:
> Yiddish proves that Jews migrated east from German lands? Not exactly.
>
> 1) first of all Ashkenazim represent a variety of flavors of genetic
> backgrounds.  Some arrived came from south of the alps, others from western
> and (currently) German Europe, while others came from the Russian steppes
> and points further east.  Furthermore, a plurality of all Ashkenazim can
> trace lineages back to ancient Israelites.
>
> 2) there is a slice of Ashkenazi population that could potentially be traced
> back to Khazar -- these belong to a certain haplogroup Q, with ancient
> origins in central Asia, in the area of Khazaria.  many jews with such a 'Q'
> marker in their Y chromosome signature are found in Hungary, but Poland too.
>
> 3) Ashkenazi Levites also bear a special genetic marker with origins in
> central Asia.
>
> 4) as for Yiddish, Germanic dialects were spoken by assorted Gothic tribes
> who roamed Slavic lands during the middle ages.  Germans also lived in what
> are now areas where Slavic languages are spoken
>
> 5) also German was a favored tongue among many Slavic aristocracies. it was
> a language of business.
>
> I wrote an article on the matter in the Forward a few weeks back; it can be
> found at
> http://www.forward.com/articles/11786/
>
> uzi silber