Isaac Bashevis Singer - Language Quotes

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There are some who call Yiddish a dead language, but so was Hebrew called for two thousand years. It has been revived in our time in a most remarkable, almost miraculous way. Aramaic was certainly a dead language for centuries but then it brought to light the Zohar, a work of mysticism of sublime value.

Isaac Bashevis Singer
The Jewish people have been in exile for 2,000 years; they have lived in hundreds of countries, spoken hundreds of languages and still they kept their old language, Hebrew. They kept their Aramaic, later their Yiddish; they kept their books; they kept their faith.

Isaac Bashevis Singer
There is a quiet humor in Yiddish and a gratitude for every day of life, every crumb of success, each encounter of love.... In a figurative way, Yiddish is the wise and humble language of us all, the idiom of a frightened and hopeful humanity.

Isaac Bashevis Singer
Yiddish has not yet said its last word. It contains treasures that have not been revealed to the eyes of the world. It was the tongue of martyrs and saints, of dreamers and Cabalists — rich in humor and in memories that mankind may never forget. In a figurative way, Yiddish is the wise and humble language of us all, the idiom of frightened and hopeful Humanity.

Isaac Bashevis Singer
To me the Yiddish language and the conduct of those who spoke it are identical.

Isaac Bashevis Singer