Learn Yiddish Handwriting

( Disclaimer. It can be very difficult to read old Yiddish handwriting, even for the experienced. Find out about my wife's Yiddish handwriting translation services if reading old letters is what you're trying to do. - Shmuelke)

Even though most likely the vast majority of Yiddish Alef-Beis you will read will be in print, if you plan to do handwritten course work, or send off Yiddish postcards, you’ll want to learn Yiddish handwriting. There is a big difference between many Written and printed Hebrew and Yiddish characters. Here is a chart below, courtesy of Mrs. Marcia Zlochower, an Elementary Hebrew school teacher.

Again, the focus of our course work is primarily conversation, so we aren’t walking you through this material. But what we are presenting you here is all the information a motivated student would need to learn to write in Yiddish, and read Yiddish handwriting. Of course, you might have trouble with some Yiddish handwriting, just like you might have trouble reading some people’s English handwriting. People have their own personal flair and style. Some people add a squigle to the Gimel, some their Tzadik a lot bigger than the Daled, some don’t. (Yiddish-translation.com has an excellent article on why old Yiddish handwriting can be so hard to read. Click here.) Some people’s Alefs have the two parts joined, etc… You can see on the writing chart below to see how the standard script look. (Creative Commons license, on Wikipedia. It's very nice.)

Alef א	Beys ב	Gimel ג	Daled ד	Hey ה	Vov ו	Zayin ז	Khet ח	Tet ט	Yud י	/Khaf/Kaf כ / ך
Lamed ל	Mem מ / ם	Nun נ / ן	Samekh ס	Ayin ע	Pey/Fey פ / ף	Tsadi צ / ץ	Kuf ק	Resh ר	Shin ש	Taf ת

 

The standard print style labels the handwritten Yiddish/Hebrew letters. Generally when you write these characters, you start at the top and move done, you start from the left, and move right. So for example, to write a Kuf, you start on the top left and curve down to the right, then you do one long stroke top to bottom in the middle. The final forms and the final Tsadi and Fey, and the Lamed are exceptions, as you generally start with the circle on the inside. Also note that the Kuf,  final Khaf and final Nun drop down below the line you normally write on (like a lowercase g, or a q, in English), whereas the Lamed, tsadee, final Tsadei and final Fey go above the other letters (like capital letters over lowercase in English).

Below is a chart with arrows from "www.Akhlah.com" a Jewish learning website: Hebrew writing. The site has practice worksheets as well so you can practice your Yiddish handwriting! Thanks Akhlah... you're the only nice people who would let me embed this!