H EADLINES
Nu? Want to Learn Yiddish? There’s an App
NATIONAL JUSTIN VELLUCCI | CONTRIBUTING WRITER
KVETCH. MENSCH. Mazel
tov. Schmooze.

Colorful Yiddish words and
phrases have been in America’s
collective cultural bloodstream
throughout generations — and
many more might soon follow.

Duolingo, the Pittsburgh-based
technology company that bills
itself as “the most popular way
to learn languages online,”
will release its long anticipated
Yiddish course on April 6.

The course, which has
been under development at
Duolingo for the better part of
fi ve years, is ideal for those just
learning about the language,
Jews fl uent in Yiddish who
want to brush up on grammar
and spelling, as well as people
whose ancestors spoke Yiddish
and who want to explore a
family tradition, said Myra
Awodey, a native Pittsburgher
working as a senior commu-
nity manager at Duolingo.

“We, of course, started with
the largest languages — English
to Spanish, Spanish to English
— for the fi rst couple of years,”
Awodey said. “Over time, we
realized not only were people
asking about other languages,
there were other people
reaching out, saying, ‘I’m an
expert and I want to help.’”
To illustrate that trend,
Awodey pointed to Irish-Gaelic,
which Duolingo estimated about
1 million people spoke fl uently
when it launched its Irish-Gaelic
course fi ve years ago. In just the
fi rst year Duolingo off ered Irish-
Gaelic, 1 million people signed
up for the course.

Awodey stressed, though,
that the Yiddish course
Duolingo is releasing is merely
a beta version; the company
constantly invites participants
to report errors and provide it
with feedback.

“Th e courses are never
completely fi nished,” Awodey
said. “Th ere’s always room for
improvement.” Th e Yiddish course was
created by contributors repre-
senting the three major Yiddish
dialects and from a variety of
backgrounds — from a civil
engineer who grew up speaking
Yiddish at home to three Gen
Z’ers (those born aft er 1997)
inspired by their heritage to
carry on the tradition, according
to a Duolingo spokesperson.

Meena Viswanath, the afore-
mentioned civil engineer, grew
up in New Jersey in a modern
Orthodox family and today
lives in Maryland. Her family
includes experts versed in
various aspects of Yiddish. Her
grandfather teaches the subject
at Columbia University, her
aunt is an editor at the Yiddish
version of Th e Forward, and her
mother published a Yiddish-to-
English dictionary. Viswanath’s
brother even translated some of
the “Harry Potter” series into
the language, she said.

“We come from the secular,
from the academic world,”
The app in action
Viswanath said. “We don’t live
in communities where Yiddish
is the vernacular. It’s a conscious
decision we make.”
There are three main
dialects of Yiddish, according to
Viswanath: Litvaks, or northern
Yiddish, which was spoken in
Lithuania, Belarus and Latvia;
Galitsyaner, or central Yiddish,
spoken in Poland and parts of
Hungary; and southeastern
Yiddish, spoken in Romania
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and Ukraine, which oft en is a
“compromise” dialect between
Litvaks and Galitsyaners. Th e
southeastern Yiddish is the
form of the language most
oft en depicted in the Yiddish
theater and in Yiddish fi lms,
Viswanath said.

Duolingo chose to teach
Galitsyaner, or central Yiddish,
as it is the most commonly
spoken dialect of the language,
especially among Chasidic
Jews, Viswanath said.

Parts of the Jewish world
already are responding positively
to news of the Yiddish course.

“[Duolingo’s] Yiddish
program has been trending on
the Jewish/Chasidic Twitter,”
Viswanath said.

Th e Yiddish program, like
Duolingo’s popular Hebrew
course, will help bilingual
or trilingual speakers who
code-switch between languages
when they stumble on a word
predominantly known by an
English name. To that end,
Viswanath points to Israeli
pronunciation of “sandvich” for
sandwich or Russian fi ll-in words
like “mobilka” for mobile phone.

“People are very loyal to their
family’s dialect,” Viswanath
said. “Th ere is defi nitely pride
in the Yiddish community. I’m
looking forward to see how this
happens.’ Duolingo launched its
Hebrew course in 2016. To
date, about 900,000 have regis-
tered to learn that language,
which Awodey said is a good
estimate for what the company
expects of its Yiddish program.

Duolingo, which launched
in Pittsburgh in November
2011, off ers 100 courses across
nearly 40 distinct languages.

“We want to ensure that
anyone who wants to learn these
languages, can,” Awodey said. ●
Justin Vellucci is a freelance writer
living in Pittsburgh.

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