Yiddish grammar is the system of principles which govern the structure of the Yiddish language. This article describes the standard form laid out by YIVO while noting differences in significant dialects such as that of many contemporary Hasidim. As a Germanic language descended from Middle High German, Yiddish grammar is fairly similar to that of German, though it also has numerous linguistic innovations as well as grammatical features influenced by or borrowed from Hebrew, Aramaic, and various Slavic languages.
Nouns Gender Yiddish nouns are classified into one of three grammatical genders: masculine (זכר ), feminine (נקבֿה ) and neuter (נײטראַל ). To a large extent, the gender of a noun is unpredictable, though there are some regular patterns: nouns denoting specifically male humans and animals are usually masculine, and nouns denoting specifically female humans and animals are usually feminine nouns ending in an unstressed schwa are usually feminine nouns built on most of the common abstract noun suffixes, such as ־ונג -ung, ־קײט -keyt, and ־הײט -heyt, are feminine diminutive nouns with the suffix ־ל -l or ־עלע -ele are neuter in the standard language Gender assignment for new words and sporadic realignments of older ones are examples of the dynamic tendency observable for nouns that do not reflect an inherent sex. It designates nouns with vowel endings as feminine and those with consonant endings as masculine.
Case There are three grammatical cases in Yiddish: nominative, accusative and dative. The nominative case generally is used for the subject, the accusative for the direct object and the dative for an indirect object or object of a preposition. Nouns are normally not inflected for case, and case is indicated by the inflection of a related definite article or adjective. However, a handful of nouns do have inflectional endings to indicate the accusative and/or dative cases, which may be optional or obligatory, depending on the specific lexical item and dialect; examples of nouns that take obligatory case endings include certain kinship terms (טאַטע tate 'father', מאַמע mame 'mother'), the words ייִד yid 'Jew' and האַרץ harts 'heart'. In those cases, masculine nouns take the ending ן- -n in the accusative and dative singular, i.e. טאַטן tatn 'father', רבין rebn 'rabbi' or 'teacher'; feminine and neuter nouns take ן- -n only in the dative singular, where, for example, מאַמע mame becomes מאַמען mamen. Names of people are also inflected, i.e. משה Moyshe becomes משהן Moyshen and יאַנקל Yankl becomes יאַנקלען Yanklen. This also applies to names incorporating biblical titles, such as אליהו הנבֿיא Eliohu HaNovi 'Elijah the Prophet', which becomes אליהו הנבֿיאן Eliohu HaNovin. Both first and last names can be inflected on their own, but in cases where both names are together, only the surname is inflected.
Yiddish does not have a genitive case per se. However, when the possessor is a human or occasionally other living beings, possession may be indicated with a suffixed ס- -s to the noun (like English possessive -'s) with any modifiers in the dative case. Otherwise, possession is normally indicated by the preposition פֿון fun 'of'.
Another genitive-like construction, the quantitative, is used to describe quantities of objects: (a full cup of hot tea); (a group of young people). The noun phrase representing the quantity is simply followed by noun representing the object described. This construction may not be used if the object has a definite article: (a full cup of the hot tea).
Plural There are two regular plural suffixes. For nouns ending in an unstressed vowel, the plural is regularly formed with the suffix -s; e.g., the plural of גרופּע grupe 'group' is גרופּעס grupes. For nouns ending in a consonant, the plural is regularly formed with -n; the plural of טיש tish 'table' is טישן tishn.
A vast number of nouns use irregular plural forms, including -es (these are usually nouns of Slavic origin) and -er with a kind of apophony called Germanic umlaut (e.g., man 'man' → mener 'men'; kind 'child' → kinder 'children'), or umlaut alone (e.g., hant 'hand' → hent 'hands'). Some words do not change in the plural (e.g., fish 'fish'). Nouns built on the diminutive suffixes -l and -ele form the plural in -ekh (e.g., meydl 'girl' → meydlekh 'girls'), mirroring some German dialects in this regard.
Most words of Hebrew origin use the Hebrew plural suffixes, either -im (e.g., seyfer 'holy book' → sforim 'holy books') or -es (e.g., sod 'secret' → soydes 'secrets'). As these examples show, many plurals of Hebrew origin also involve an apophony of Hebrew origin. Not all words of Hebrew origin form their plurals in the same way they do in Hebrew: in particular, Hebrew feminine nouns ending in tend to become masculine in Yiddish, and take the -im plural suffix, avoiding the uneuphonic ending *-ses: e.g. shabes 'Shabbat' → Yiddish shabosim, not the expected * *shaboses. This tendency also extends to cases when the Hebrew plural ends in -yes rather than -ses: e.g. takhles 'purpose' → Hebrew takhliyes, Yiddish takhleysim. Other words of Hebrew origin form a Germanic plural, e.g., kol 'voice' has the plural keler, formed with the Germanic -er suffix and umlaut. Finally, there are a few words of non-Hebrew origin that take Hebrew plural suffixes, such as dokter 'doctor' → doktoyrim, poyer 'farmer' → poyerim.
Articles The definite article agrees in gender, number and case with the noun it is used with. +Yiddish definite articleDefinite article ("The")SingularPluralMasculineNeuterFeminineNominativeדער derדאָס dosדי diדי diAccusativeדעם demDativeדעם demדער der The indefinite article is אַ a, which becomes אַן an before a word beginning with a vowel sound. Yiddish, like English, does not have a plural indefinite article.
Adjectives Attributive adjectives—that is, those that directly modify a noun—are inflected to agree with the gender, number and case of the noun they modify, while predicate adjectives remain uninflected. For example, one says דער גוטער מאַן der guter man 'the good man', but דער מאַן איז גוט Der man iz gut 'The man is good'. When an adjective is used absolutively—that is, to stand as the head of a noun phrase as if it were itself a noun—it is inflected as if it were followed by a noun: דער מאַן איז אַ גוטער Der man iz a guter 'The man is a good [one]'. Neuter singular adjectives are in some respects exceptional; in attributive position, they have no case ending unless their noun phrase is introduced by the definite article; in absolutive position, they use the distinctive suffix -s in the nominative and accusative cases. +Yiddish adjective declensionגוט Gut "good"SingularPluralMasculineNeuterFeminineIndefiniteDefiniteAbsolutiveNominativeגוטער guterער- -erגוט gut-_גוטע guteע- -eגוטס gutsס- -sגוטע guteע- -eגוטע guteע- -eAccusativeגוטן gutnן- -nDativeגוטן gutnן- -nגוטן gutnן- -nגוטן gutnן- -nגוטער guterער- -er The ending -n becomes -en after an m, or a stressed vowel or diphthong; it becomes -em after n and, as an exception, in the adjective nay (new).Katz, Dovid (1987). Grammar of the Yiddish Language. London: Duckworth. p. 84, section 5.5.4. Katz notes that the ending remains -n after ng or nk. Yiddish is slightly simpler than German in that German -m and -n are both -n in Yiddish (or, in the case of the definite article, dem), and Yiddish does not have a genitive case. The "definite" and "absolutive" versions of the neuter gender are a relic of the strong vs. weak adjective endings of German (das gute Bier vs. gutes Bier).
A class of pronominal adjectives, including אײן eyn 'one', קײן keyn 'none', and possessive pronouns such as מײַן mayn 'my, mine' and זײַן zayn 'his', display behavior opposite to that of ordinary adjectives: they are inflected for gender, number and case when used predicatively but not when used attributively. (Absolutively, they behave as normal adjectives).
Adjectives normally precede the nouns, but they may follow the nouns as an absolutive construction for stylistic purposes: אַ שײנע פֿרױ a sheyne froy or אַ פֿרױ אַ שײנע a froy a sheyne ('a beautiful woman').
Pronouns +Yiddish personal pronounsPersonal pronouns1st person2nd person3rd personSingularPluralSingular/ informalSingular formal/ PluralPlural informalSingularPluralStandardPolishMasculineNeuterFeminineNominativeאיך ikhמיר mirדו duאיר irעץ etsער erעס esזי ziזײ zeyAccusativeמיך mikhאונדז undzדיך dikhאײַך aykhענק enkאים imDativeמיר mirדיר dirאים imאיר ir Third person pronouns agree in gender with the noun they refer to. Thus, even inanimate objects should be referred to as er or zi if they are masculine or feminine. Neuter nouns receive es. A minority of speakers of the Northeastern dialect of Yiddish uses the dative forms of the single personal pronouns. A T–V distinction, or the use of the 2nd plural form ir for a single addressee for reasons of respect, is archaic in YiVO Yiddish, but appears historically and in many colloquial varieties.
Verbs
Verb inflection Yiddish verbs are conjugated for person (first, second, and third) and number (singular and plural) in the present tense. In the imperative, they conjugate only for number. Nonfinite verb forms are the infinitive and the past participle.
The infinitive of a verb is formed with the suffix ן- -n (which takes the form ען- -en in certain phonological contexts). The imperative uses the base form of the verb with no affixes in the singular, and takes the suffix ט- -t in the plural. In the present tense, the first-person singular takes the base form of the verb; the other person/number combinations are regularly inflected according to the following table:
+ Yiddish present tense person singular plural 1st – ן- -n 2nd סט- -st ט- -tטס- -ts 3rd ט- -t ן- -n
A present participle, functioning as a derived adjective or adverb, is regularly constructed by adding the suffix דיק- -dik to the infinitive.
Past participle The past participle is used extensively in Yiddish. The majority of verbs (weak verbs) form the past participle by adding the prefix -גע ge- and the suffix ט- -t to the stem, e.g. געקויפֿט 'bought'. However, strong verbs form the past participle with -גע ge- and ן- -n, usually accompanied by a vowel change, e. g. געהאָלפֿן 'helped' from the stem -העלפֿ helf- 'help'. The vowel change is unpredictable, and there is no way to tell from the infinitive whether a verb is weak or strong.
The prefix -גע ge- is omitted in past participles of verbs whose first syllable does not bear primary stress. There are two classes of verbs for which this happens: verbs with one of several unstressed stem prefixes, such as -פֿאַר far- or -באַ ba-; and verbs built on the stressed suffix יר- -ir, usually used for loanwords. Thus the past participles of פֿאַרקױפֿן farkoyfn 'to sell' and אַבאָנירן 'to subscribe' are, respectively, merely פֿאַרקױפֿט and אַבאָנירט .
Some participles vary between dialects and registers; for example, געװען is the usual past participle of זײַן 'to be', but געװעזן (normally an adjective meaning 'former') may be used as the past participle in a "Daytshmerish" דײַטשמעריש (Standard German–imitating) register.
Examples of conjugation
The table below shows the inflection of various Yiddish verbs. Most verbs are generally regular, with irregularities occurring predominantly in the past participle.