Do Germans understand Yiddish and Swiss German?

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Alex S

Yiddish has hardly anything in common with modern German.
You can basically understand a few words but that's it. You
have to guess a lot. Modern German and Yiddish have the
same roots. But Yiddish is based on Middle High German
while current spoken German is nearly exclusively based
on High German with various dialects.

Swiss German is more like a very strong dialect. It's hard to
pick up in the flow but if you have a slow and clear speaker
it's absolutely understandable. Personally I'd say Austrian
German is a lot easier to follow in a normal conversation
than Swiss German. But that's my personal opinion.

6,5 â€°

I can understand Swiss and Austrian German Yiddish is another language which is not intelligible.

Positive.Vibrations.Yea.

I'm originally from Germany. I can easily understand Swiss and Austrian Germans. I'm from Bavaria and they have the same sort of dialect as we do. I can understand Yiddish although it is different from german. I understand words, although they are different and I can piece together what's being said. I live in MT now and here we have Amish. I can even understand what they say, to a degree. They have swarted too many of the words though, that after some length, things become confused. But they do write and read in the regular High German. In fact, I have to say, I can understand a lot of many different languages because of my knowledge of german. But then, I've always been good with languages.

TeutonkÃ¶nig14

All of the German languages are very similar to each other and are merely dialects and regional differences. It can kind of be compared to the accents and dialects in the United States that can be different from each other. Most German speaking people speak a standardized Germany anyways and speak their regional differences and standard German which was introduced by German Television.

I would say that German and German-Austrian are closer then German and Swiss-German, but that is only because Austria has been closer to Germany then the Swiss Confederation, that is influenced by Italians and French people. However they all would understand each other because they all speak German, just with a difference in dialect.

I speak standard German and I understand all German speakers, so that is good enough proof.

Anja H

I can understand some Yiddish as well as Swiss German. For Swiss German it depends a lot of where the people come from - since there are different dialects within Swiss German.
Some are easier, some are more difficult and some are not understood at all....

If a German, an Austrian, someone who speaks Swiss German and someone who speak Yiddish get together and they want to have a conversation - they will be able to.

unknown

Hi, I am from Bavaria and I can understand Yiddish German, but I've problems with Swiss German.
It's true that the Bavarian dialect is similar to the Austrian one, but it's not similar to Swiss German at all.
I also would say that Swiss German is more than an own language than only a dialect of German, because the syntax and so on is also different.
I hope I could help you bit.

frackledJJ

Yiddish, or what I have heard of it as yet, I could understand. I can understand most austrian, as long as it is not purposefully spoken that fast that I can't follow everything, and with Swiss it's something different altogether. Their version of high German I can understand, there normal swiss German dialect I can't understand.
The Amish (what I guessed was Amish, could have been any other of those still German speaking groups, though) I have heard as yet I could understand, too.

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