Koichos
All Star
Jewish heirs from the surviving network of schools founded by R' Yοhanan ben Zakkaі in the aftermath of the Second Temple’s destruction migrated to Mediterranean Europe and from there spread northward along the trade routes of the Rhine into northern France and Germany (known to Jews as ‘Ashk'naz’; see Sefer He`Aruch, an early dictionary composed circa 1100 CE, p.39, verso). These Jews were an elite group of scholars/merchants invited into the Carolingian domains by way of royal charters in the 9th and 10th centuries to help the expanding Holy Roman Empire administer its newly established urban centers along the bank of the Rhine (namely Speyer, Worms, Mainz aka ‘Shu"m’).What about the European Jews and Yiddish?
Why and how did Yiddish become a thing?
Following your set of standards, I’d see Yiddish as a b*stardized version of Hebrew. Or maybe blasphemous dare I say?
What was the need for it? Only for cultural purposes?
Iddіsh was simply a process of the gradual hebraicization and later slavicization of the Mittelhochdeutsch (Middle High German) spoken by the neighboring populations with whom the Jews interacted. Iddіsh is a fusion language written in Hebrew characters - a blend of Hebrew, Aramaic, Germanic and Slavic components. The term Iddіsh is itself a kind of slang or corruption because it was originally called Jüdіsch Deutsch (‘Jewish German’), popularly shortened to just Jüdіsch (‘Jewish’)—or, as Jews called it, Iddіsh. Iddіsh is a peculiarity encapsulating Ashk'nazzіc culture, a completely independent and ever-evolving linguistic entity which meets the needs of a frequently displaced people.

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