Study: Yiddish Originated in Turkey, Along the Silk Road, and Not in Germany
Editor’s note: A version of this article, published on Tuesday, did not properly describe the decades-long battle over the mysterious origins of the Yiddish language—a “weakening” academic battleground marked by petty, ideological fights—which we covered in a two-part series in 2014.
Researchers from England, Israel, and the United States are arguing that the Yiddish language may have originated in Turkey, rather than anywhere near Germany, and may be more Slavic than German. Thestudy, published in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution last month, uses a so-called ancestral DNA tracking GPS (“Geographic Population Structure”) tool to pinpoint where the first Yiddish speakers may have lived, over 1,000 years ago.