Yiddish

Yiddish or alternatively Yiddish Taich (Jewish German) - is a Jewish language once spoken by all the Lithuanian Jews aka litvaks. It was formed as a naturally developed mix between multiple languages, with many natural & unique words. The basis of Yiddish was German language & its dialects, which formed most of its grammar & words, with many borrowings from Hebrew, Lithuanian, Polish, & Aromanian.

Yiddish uses Hebrew alphabet and has many borrowed words from various languages of the world, although many words can be clearly identified as being of German, Hebrew, Aromanian, or Slavic origin. As per Slavic, all of that has same relationship with languages like Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Czech, and Slovak, even though it's mostly incorrectly considered as Russian (due to most of the Jews being lived in Tsarist Russia). There're also many borrowed words from Lithuanian, Latin, Spanish, and Arabic, although it's harder to trace their original roots back.

When Hitler's Schutzstaffel (SS) killed most of the Jews of Lithuania, Latvia, Germany, and other European countries, Yiddish basically disappeared together with them, which means that not many speakers of Yiddish remain, although there's still many of them in Israel - around 200-300 thousand of those speakers. But in the past it was one of the biggest languages spoken by Jews.

And that's how this language vanished... Only many borrowings of Yiddish to numerous languages (including Lithuanian) is what remains of this language. Which's why it holds important value and is a big part of our culture.

Lithuanian-Jewish vocabulary 101 (work in progress & not finished)

• Bapkės - money, originally from Slavic "bapki" which, aside the "old woman" meaning, also meant the banknotes from Russian empress Catherine the Great era, which showed that old woman.
• Bachūras - Any kind of young man or male teen, from Hebrew בָּחוּר/bakhur with the identical meaning.
• Blatas - bribery/corruption stuff, from Yiddish word that means work promise or something related to that, from German "die blatte" (promise).

This guide is still incomplete, will be completed later.