Hebrew is a revived language of the Semitic group unrelated to Proto Indo European. Hebrew Loanwords in English.
Yiddish, Frisian, Schwyzerdütsch etc.
The common German of 2,000 years ago had kept 4 noun cases, 10 verb conjugations (7 strong). Mn German 4 cases, 3 genders, detachable (no phrasal) verbs; adjectives agree on all, plus strength. Mn Icelandic, close to old Danish, is conservative, also has 4 cases, 3 genders. MnE has lost most morphology, except: sing, sings, singing, sang, sung; I, me, mine; -ly, -er, -est; -s + irreg. Balto-Slavic branch of PIE for comparison. Lithuanian kept 9 noun cases, Polish 6.
Yiddish is a language using German syntax and partly Aramaic lexicon spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. Some words are well-known through Jewish humourists: shnook a pitifully meek person; goy gentile; shikse gentile woman; shmendrik foolish or contemptible schnoz; shlemiel a clumsy person schmuck contemptible person; shlimazel a chronically unlucky person; schmutz dirt
The prosody is also familiar as it used for self-mocking humour. Trotsky telegram. “Stalin. You were right. I was wrong. I should recant.” Trotsky
Frisian is the closest cousin of English. There are several dialects, low in relation to official Dutch or German. Afrikaans is the old Dutch of the boers (farmers). Guess the language below (translation at bottom of page).
Ikh hob a bruder aun tsvey shvester. ven meyn muter aun fater zenen lebedik meyn froy halb zuntik lontsh far zibn mentshn.
Ik haw in broer en twa susters. Doe’t myn mem en heit libbe, kookde myn frou sneintemiddei foar sân minsken.
Ek het ‘n broer en twee susters. Toe my ma en pa gelewe het, het my vrou Sondagmiddagete vir sewe mense gekook.
Schwyzerdütsch is the old German of Switzerland, used mainly for speech purposes. German has regular morphology, e.g. abbau vs aufbau where English uses loanwords: hurricane, typhoon, cyclone. “High German” is “Highland” German. It refers to the Central Uplands and Alpine areas of central and southern Germany, Luxembourg, Austria, Liechtenstein, most of Switzerland. Standard German, Yiddish and Luxembourgish, developed out of High German. Low German is spoken in the lowlands and along the flat sea coasts of the N. German Plain.
Grimm’s Law of consonant change
PIE → OG *g > k gel → cold ; *p > f pod → foot
OG → OE kirk → church; daeg → day; see Belgie, Goteborg
OE and Scots Drychtin English lost /ch/ and vowel /ü/
Most Swiss German dialect (High German) have completed the High German consonant shift. They have changed t to [t͡s] or [s] and p to [p͡f] or [f], but also k to [k͡x] or [x].
Mir gaht’s nöd so guet! Was machsch hütte? Hesch scho öpis plant?
Um welli Zit fahrt dr Bus/Zug?
Alemannic (from Alemanni) dialects are spoken by approximately ten million people in: Switzerland, Baden-Württemberg, Swabia, and certain districts of Bavaria. The Benrath line is the maken–machen isogloss: dialects north of the line have the original /k/ in maken (to make), while those to the south have the innovative /x/ (machen).
Translation “I have a brother and two sisters. When my mom and dad were alive, my wife cooked Sunday lunch for seven people.”