Yiddish
ייִדיש yidish
Pronunciation	[ˈjɪdɪʃ]
Spoken in	United States, Israel, Argentina, Brazil, United Kingdom, Russia, Canada, Ukraine, Belarus, Hungary, Mexico, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Australia, France, Sweden, Austria and elsewhere.
Native speakers	1.8 million  (no date)[1] 11 million L2 speakers
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic High German Yiddish
Writing system	uses a Hebrew-based alphabet
Official status
Official language in	Jewish Autonomous Oblast in Russia (de jure only) Minority language:  Bosnia and Herzegovina  Netherlands  Poland  Romania  Sweden  Ukraine
Regulated by	no formal bodies; YIVO de facto
Language codes
ISO 639-1	yi
ISO 639-2	yid
ISO 639-3	yid – inclusive code Individual codes: ydd – Eastern Yiddish yih – Western Yiddish
Linguasphere	52-ACB-g = 52-ACB-ga (West) + 52-ACB-gb (East); totalling 11 varieties

Yiddish (ייִדיש yidish or אידיש idish, literally "Jewish") is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages.^[2][3] It is written in the Hebrew alphabet.

The language originated in the Ashkenazi culture that developed from about the 10th century in the Rhineland and then spread to Central and Eastern Europe and eventually to other continents. In the earliest surviving references to it, the language is called לשון־אַשכּנז (loshn-ashknez = "language of Ashkenaz") and טײַטש (taytsh, a variant of tiutsch, the contemporary name for the language otherwise spoken in the region of origin, now called Middle High German). In common usage, the language is called מאַמע־לשון (mame-loshn, literally "mother tongue"), distinguishing it from Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic, which are collectively termed לשון־קודש (loshn-koydesh, "holy tongue"). The term "Yiddish" did not become the most frequently used designation in the literature of the language until the 18th century.

For a significant portion of its history, Yiddish was the primary spoken language of the Ashkenazi Jews and once spanned a broad dialect continuum from Western Yiddish to three major groups within Eastern Yiddish, namely Litvish, Poylish and Ukrainish. Eastern and Western Yiddish are most markedly distinguished by the extensive inclusion of words of Slavic origin in the Eastern dialects. While Western Yiddish has few remaining speakers, Eastern dialects remain in wide use.

Yiddish is written and spoken in many Orthodox Jewish communities around the world, although there are also a number of Orthodox Jews who do not know Yiddish. It is a home language in most Hasidic communities, where it is the first language learned in childhood, used in schools and in many social settings. Yiddish is also the academic language of the study of the Talmud according to the tradition of the Lithuanian yeshivos.

Yiddish is also used in the adjectival sense to designate attributes of Ashkenazic Jewish culture (for example, Yiddish cooking and Yiddish music).^[4]

History[link]

The Ashkenazi culture that took root in 10th century Central Europe derived its name from Ashkenaz (Genesis 10:3), the medieval Hebrew name for the territory centred on what is now the westernmost part of Germany. Its geographic extent did not coincide with the German Christian principalities; Ashkenaz included Northern France. It also bordered on the area inhabited by the Sephardim, or Spanish Jews, which ranged into Southern France. Ashkenazi culture later spread into Eastern Europe.

The first language of European Jews may have been Aramaic,^[5] the vernacular of the Jews in Roman-era Palestine and ancient and early medieval Mesopotamia. The widespread use of Aramaic among the large non-Jewish Syrian trading population of the Roman provinces, including those in Europe, would have reinforced the use of Aramaic among Jews engaged in trade. In Roman times, many of the Jews living in Rome and Southern Italy appear to have been Greek-speakers, and this is reflected in some Ashkenazi personal names (e.g., Kalonymus). Much work needs to be done, though, to fully analyze the contributions of those languages to Yiddish.

Nothing is known about the vernacular of the earliest Jews in Germany, but several theories have been put forward. It is generally accepted that it was likely to have contained elements from other languages of the Near East and Europe, absorbed through dispersion. Since many settlers came via France and Italy, it is also likely that the Romance-based Jewish languages of those regions were represented. Traces remain in the contemporary Yiddish vocabulary: for example, בענטשן (bentshn, to bless), from the Latin benedicere; לייענען (leyenen, to read), from the Latin legere; and the personal names Anshl, cognate to Angel or Angelo; Bunim (probably from "bon homme"). Western Yiddish includes additional words of Latin derivation (but still very few): for example, orn (to pray), cf. Latin and Italian "orare".

Members of the young Ashkenazi community would have encountered the myriad dialects from which standard German was destined to emerge many centuries later. They would soon have been speaking their own versions of these German dialects, mixed with linguistic elements that they themselves brought into the region. These dialects would have adapted to the needs of the burgeoning Ashkenazi culture and may, as characterizes many such developments, have included the deliberate cultivation of linguistic differences to assert cultural autonomy. The Ashkenazi community also had its own geography, with a pattern of relationships among settlements that was somewhat independent of its non-Jewish neighbors. This led to the consolidation of Yiddish dialects, the borders of which did not coincide with the borders of German dialects.

Apart from the obvious use of Hebrew words for specifically Jewish artifacts, it is very difficult to determine the extent to which the Yiddish spoken in any earlier period differed from the contemporary German. There is a rough consensus that by the 15th century Yiddish would have sounded distinctive to the average German ear, even when restricted to the Germanic component of its vocabulary.^{[citation needed]}

Written evidence[link]

The calligraphic segment in the Worms Mahzor.

The oldest surviving literary document in Yiddish is a blessing in the Worms Mahzor,^[6] a Hebrew prayer book from 1272 (with a scalable image online at the indicated reference; described extensively in Frakes, 2004 and Baumgarten/Frakes, 2005):

This brief rhyme is decoratively embedded in a purely Hebrew text.^[7] Nonetheless, it indicates that the Yiddish of that day was a more or less regular Middle High German into which Hebrew words – makhazor (prayer book for the High Holy Days) and beis hakneses (synagogue) – had been included. The pointing appears as though it might have been added by a second scribe, in which case it may need to be dated separately and may not be indicative of the pronunciation of the rhyme at the time of its initial annotation.

Over the course of the 14th and 15th centuries, songs and poems in Yiddish, and also macaronic pieces in Hebrew and German, began to appear. These were collected in the late 15th century by Menahem ben Naphtali Oldendorf. During the same period, a tradition seems to have emerged of the Jewish community's adapting its own versions of German secular literature. The earliest Yiddish epic poem of this sort is the Dukus Horant, which survives in the famous Cambridge Codex T.-S.10.K.22. This 14th-century manuscript was discovered in the geniza of a Cairo synagogue in 1896, and also contains a collection of narrative poems on themes from the Hebrew Bible and the Haggadah.

Printing[link]

The advent of the printing press resulted in an increase in the amount of material produced and surviving from the 16th century and onwards. One particularly popular work was Elia Levita's Bovo-Bukh, composed around 1507–08 and printed in at least forty editions, beginning in 1541. Levita, the earliest named Yiddish author, may also have written Pariz un Viene (Paris and Vienna). Another Yiddish retelling of a chivalric romance, Vidvilt (often referred to as "Widuwilt" by Germanizing scholars), presumably also dates from the 15th century, although the manuscripts are from the 16th. It is also known as Kinig Artus Hof, an adaptation of the Middle High German romance Wigalois by Wirnt von Gravenberg. Another significant writer is Avroham ben Schemuel Pikartei, who published a paraphrase on the Book of Job in 1557.

Women in the Ashkenazi community were traditionally not literate in Hebrew, but did read and write Yiddish. A body of literature therefore developed for which women were a primary audience. This included secular works, such as the Bovo-Bukh, and religious writing specifically for women, such as the Tseno Ureno and the Tkhines. One of the best-known early woman authors was Glückel of Hameln, whose memoirs are still in print.

A page from the Shemot Devarim (literally Names of Things), a Yiddish-Hebrew-Latin-German dictionary and thesaurus, published by Elia Levita in 1542

The segmentation of the Yiddish readership, between women who read mame-loshn but not loshn-koydesh, and men who read both, was significant enough that distinctive typefaces were used for each. The name commonly given to the semicursive form used exclusively for Yiddish was ווײַבערטײַטש (vaybertaytsh = "women's taytsh," shown in the heading and fourth column in the adjacent illustration), with square Hebrew letters (shown in the third column) being reserved for text in that language and Aramaic. This distinction was retained in general typographic practice through to the early 19th century, with Yiddish books being set in vaybertaytsh (also termed מעשייט mesheyt or מאַשקעט mashket — the construction is uncertain).^[8]

An additional distinctive semicursive typeface was, and still is, used for rabbinical commentary on religious texts when Hebrew and Yiddish appear on the same page. This is commonly termed Rashi script, from the name of the most renowned early author, whose commentary is usually printed using this script. (Rashi is also the typeface normally used when the Sefardi counterpart to Yiddish, Ladino, is printed in Hebrew script.)

Secularization[link]

The Western Yiddish dialect—sometimes pejoratively labeled Mauscheldeutsch^[9] (from Moischele-Deutsch or "Moses German")^[10] - began to decline in the 18th century, as the Enlightenment and the Haskalah led to the view of Yiddish as a corrupt dialect. Owing to both assimilation to German and the incipient creation of Modern Hebrew, Western Yiddish survived only as a language of "intimate family circles or of closely knit trade groups" (Liptzin 1972). Farther east, the response to this force took the opposite direction, with Yiddish becoming the cohesive force in a secular culture (see Yiddish Renaissance).

The late 19th and early 20th century are widely considered^{[by whom?]} the Golden Age of secular Yiddish literature. This coincides with the development of Modern Hebrew as a spoken and literary language, from which some words were also absorbed into Yiddish. The three authors generally regarded^{[by whom?]} as the founders of the modern Yiddish literary genre were born in the 19th century, but their work and significance continued to grow into the 20th. The first was Sholem Yankev Abramovitch, writing as Mendele Mocher Sforim. The second was Sholem Rabinovitsh, widely known as Sholem Aleichem, whose stories about טבֿיה דער מילכיקער (tevye der milkhiker = Tevye the Dairyman) inspired the Broadway musical and film Fiddler on the Roof. The third was Isaac Leib Peretz.

20th century[link]

American World War I-era poster in Yiddish. Translated caption: "Food will win the war – You came here seeking freedom, now you must help to preserve it – We must supply the Allies with wheat – Let nothing go to waste". Colour lithograph, 1917. Digitally restored.

In the early 20th century, especially after Socialist October Revolution in Russia, Yiddish was emerging as a major Eastern European language. Its rich literature was more widely published than ever, Yiddish theatre and Yiddish film were booming, and it for a time achieved status as one of the official languages of the Ukrainian People's Republic, the Belarusian and the short-lived Galician SSR, and the Jewish Autonomous Oblast. Educational autonomy for Jews in several countries (notably Poland) after World War I led to an increase in formal Yiddish-language education, more uniform orthography, and to the 1925 founding of the Yiddish Scientific Institute, YIVO. Yiddish emerged as the national language of a large Jewish community in Eastern Europe that rejected Zionism and sought Jewish cultural autonomy in Europe. It also contended with Modern Hebrew as a literary language among Zionists. In Vilna there was intense debate over which language should take primacy, Hebrew or Yiddish^[11]

Yiddish changed significantly during the 20th century. Michael Wex writes, "As increasing numbers of Yiddish speakers moved from the Slavic-speaking East to Western Europe and the Americas in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they were so quick to jettison Slavic vocabulary that the most prominent Yiddish writers of the time—the founders of modern Yiddish literature, who were still living in Slavic-speaking countries—revised the printed editions of their oeuvres to eliminate obsolete and 'unnecessary' Slavisms."^[12] The vocabulary used in Israel absorbed many Modern Hebrew words, and there was a similar increase in the English component of Yiddish in the United States and, to a lesser extent, the United Kingdom. This has resulted in some difficulty in communication between Yiddish speakers from Israel and those from other countries.

Numbers of speakers[link]

On the eve of World War II, there were 11 to 13 million Yiddish speakers (Jacobs 2005). The Holocaust, however, led to a dramatic, sudden decline in the use of Yiddish, as the extensive Jewish communities, both secular and religious, that used Yiddish in their day-to-day life were largely destroyed. Around five million people—85 percent of the Jews who died in the Holocaust—were speakers of Yiddish.^[13] Although millions of Yiddish speakers survived the war (including nearly all Yiddish speakers in the Americas), further assimilation in countries such as the United States and the Soviet Union, along with the strictly monolingual stance of the Zionist movement, led to a decline in the use of Eastern Yiddish. However, the number of speakers within the widely dispersed Orthodox (mainly Hasidic) communities is now increasing. Although used in various countries, Yiddish has attained official recognition as a minority language only in Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Netherlands^{[citation needed]} and Sweden.

Reports of the number of current Yiddish speakers vary significantly. Ethnologue estimated in 2009 there were 1,762,320 speakers of Eastern Yiddish,^[1] of which over one-third lived in the United States. In contrast, the Modern Language Association reports fewer than 200,000 in the United States.^[14] Western Yiddish, which had "several tens of thousands of speakers" on the eve of the Holocaust, is reported by Ethnologue to have had an "ethnic population" of slightly below 50,000 in 2000.^[15] Other estimates are also given, for example, of a worldwide Yiddish-speaking population of about two million in 1996 in a report by the Council of Europe.^[16] Further demographic information about the recent status of what is treated as an Eastern-Western dialect continuum is provided in the YIVO Language and Cultural Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (Language and Cultural Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry).

Status as a language[link]

There has been frequent debate about the extent of the linguistic independence of Yiddish from the languages that it absorbed. There has been periodic assertion that Yiddish is a dialect of German, or even "just broken German, more of a linguistic mishmash than a true language".^[17] Even when recognized as an autonomous language, it has sometimes been referred to as Judeo-German, along the lines of other Jewish languages like Judeo-Persian or Judeo-French. A widely cited summary of attitudes in the 1930s was published by Max Weinreich, quoting a remark by an auditor of one of his lectures: אַ שפּראַך איז אַ דיאַלעקט מיט אַן אַרמיי און פֿלאָט ( a shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot—"A language is a dialect with an army and navy", facsimile excerpt at^[18] discussed in detail in a separate article). More recently, Prof. Paul Wexler, of Tel Aviv University in Israel, has proposed that Eastern Yiddish should be classified as a Slavic language, formed by the relexification of Judeo-Slavic dialects by Judeo-German.^[19]

Israel[link]

The national languages of Israel are Hebrew and Arabic. The rejection of Yiddish as an alternative reflected the conflict between religious and secular forces. Many in the larger, secular group wanted a new national language to foster a cohesive identity, while traditionally religious Jews desired that Hebrew be respected as a holy language reserved for prayer and religious study. In the early twentieth century, Zionist immigrants in Palestine tried to eradicate the use of Yiddish among their own population, and make its use socially unacceptable.

This conflict also reflected the opposing views among secular Jews worldwide, one side seeing Hebrew (and Zionism) and the other Yiddish (and Internationalism) as the means of defining emerging Jewish nationalism. In the 1920s and 1930s, gdud meginéy hasafá, "the language defendants regiment", whose motto was ivrí, dabér ivrít "Hebrew [i.e. Jew], speak Hebrew!", used to tear down signs written in "foreign" languages and disturb Yiddish theatre gatherings.^[20] However, according to linguist Ghil'ad Zuckermann, the members of this group in particular, and the Hebrew revival in general, did not succeed in uprooting Yiddish patterns (as well as the patterns of other European languages Jewish immigrants spoke) within what he calls "Israeli", i.e. Modern Hebrew. Zuckermann believes that "Israeli does include numerous Hebrew elements resulting from a conscious revival but also numerous pervasive linguistic features deriving from a subconscious survival of the revivalists’ mother tongues, e.g. Yiddish."^[21]

In religious circles, it is the Ashkenazi Haredi Jews, particularly the Hasidic Jews and the Lithuanian yeshiva world (see Lithuanian Jews), who continue to teach, speak and use Yiddish, making it a language used regularly by hundreds of thousands of Haredi Jews today. The largest of these centers are in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem. However, virtually all of these Yiddish speakers also speak Modern Hebrew. Additionally, while Yiddish may still be widely spoken today in these communities, the Yiddish press has ceased to exist, and it is rarely, if ever, written or printed.

There is a growing revival of interest in Yiddish culture among secular Israelis, with the flourishing of new proactive cultural organizations like YUNG YiDiSH, as well as Yiddish theater (usually with simultaneous translation to Hebrew and Russian) and young people are taking university courses in Yiddish, some achieving considerable fluency.^[22]

Former Soviet Union[link]

In the Soviet Union during the 1920s, Yiddish was promoted as the language of the Jewish proletariat. It was one of the official languages of the Byelorussian SSR, as well as several agricultural districts of the Galician SSR. A public educational system entirely based on the Yiddish language was established and comprised kindergartens, schools, and higher educational institutions (technical schools, rabfaks and other university departments). At the same time, Hebrew was considered a bourgeois language and its use was generally discouraged. The vast majority of the Yiddish-language cultural institutions were closed in the late 1930s along with cultural institutions of other ethnic minorities lacking administrative entities of their own. After the Second World War, growing anti-Semitic tendencies in Soviet politics drove Yiddish from most spheres. The last Yiddish-language schools, theaters and publications were closed by the end of the 1940s. It continued to be spoken widely for decades, nonetheless, in areas with compact Jewish populations (primarily in Moldova, Ukraine, and to a lesser extent Belarus).

In the former Soviet states, presently active Yiddish authors include Yoysef Burg (Chernivtsi 1912-2009) and Aleksander Beyderman (b. 1949, Odessa). Publication of an earlier Yiddish periodical (דער פֿרײַנד - der fraynd; lit. "The Friend"), was resumed in 2004 with דער נײַער פֿרײַנד (der nayer fraynd; lit. "The New Friend", St. Petersburg).

Jewish Autonomous Oblast of Russia[link]

The Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the Russian Federation

The Jewish Autonomous Oblast was formed in 1934 in the Russian Far East, with its capital city in Birobidzhan and Yiddish as its official language. The intention was for the Soviet Jewish population to settle there. Jewish cultural life was revived in Birobidzhan much earlier than elsewhere in the Soviet Union. Yiddish theaters began opening in the 1970s. The newspaper דער ביראָבידזשאנער שטערן (Der Birobidzhaner Shtern; lit: "The Birobidzhan Star") includes a Yiddish section.^[23] Although the official status of the language was not retained by the Russian Federation, its cultural significance is still recognized and bolstered. The First Birobidzhan International Summer Program for Yiddish Language and Culture was launched in 2007.^[24]

Council of Europe[link]

Several countries which ratified the 1992 European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages have included Yiddish in the list of their recognized minority languages: the Netherlands (1996), Sweden (2000), Poland (2009), Romania (2008), Bosnia and Herzegovina (2010). In 2005, Ukraine did not mention Yiddish as such, but "the language(s) of the Jewish ethnic minority".^[25]

Sweden[link]

Banner from the first issue of the Jidische Folkschtime (Yiddish People's Voice), published in Stockholm, 12 January 1917.

In June 1999, the Swedish Parliament enacted legislation giving Yiddish legal status^[26] as one of the country's official minority languages (entering into effect in April 2000). The rights thereby conferred are not detailed, but additional legislation was enacted in June 2006 establishing a new governmental agency, The Swedish National Language Council,^[27] the mandate of which instructs it to, "collect, preserve, scientifically research, and spread material about the national minority languages", naming them all explicitly, including Yiddish. When announcing this action, the government made an additional statement about "simultaneously commencing completely new initiatives for ... Yiddish [and the other minority languages]".

The Swedish government publishes documents in Yiddish, of which the most recent details the national action plan for human rights.^[28] An earlier one provides general information about national minority language policies.^[29]

On 6 September 2007, it became possible to register Internet domains with Yiddish names in the national top-level domain .SE.^[30]

United States[link]

Yiddish distribution in the United States.

  More than 100,000 speakers

  More than 10,000 speakers

  More than 5,000 speakers

  More than 1,000 speakers

  Fewer than 1,000 speakers

Women surrounded by posters in English and Yiddish supporting Franklin D. Roosevelt, Herbert H. Lehman, and the American Labor Party teach other women how to vote, 1936.

At first, in the United States most Jews were of Sephardic origin, and hence did not speak Yiddish. It was not until the mid to late 19th century, as first German, then Eastern European, Jews arrived in the nation, that Yiddish became dominant within the immigrant community. This helped to bond Jews from many countries. פֿאָרווערטס (forverts – Yiddish Forward) was one of seven Yiddish daily newspapers in New York City, and other Yiddish newspapers served as a forum for Jews of all European backgrounds. The Yiddish Forward still appears weekly and is available in an online edition.^[31] It remains in wide distribution, together with דער אַלגעמיינער זשורנאַל (der algemeyner zhurnal – Algemeiner Journal; algemeyner = general) a Lubavitcher newspaper which is also published weekly and appears online.^[32] The widest-circulation Yiddish newspapers are probably the two prominent Satmar weekly issues דער בּלאַט (Der Blatt; blat = newspaper) and דער איד (Der Yid = The Jew). Several additional newspapers and magazines are in regular production, such as the monthly publications דער שטערן (Der Shtern; shtern = star) and דער בליק (Der Blick; blik = view). (The romanized titles cited in this paragraph are in the form given on the masthead of each publication and may be at some variance both with the literal Yiddish title and the transliteration rules otherwise applied in this article.)

Interest in klezmer music provided another bonding mechanism. Thriving Yiddish theater, especially in New York City, kept the language vital. Many "Yiddishisms," like "Italianisms" and "Spanishisms," continued to enter the spoken New York dialect, often used by Jews and non-Jews alike, unaware of the linguistic origin of the phrases (described extensively by Leo Rosten in The Joys of Yiddish). However, native Yiddish speakers tended not to pass the language on to their children, who assimilated and spoke English.

Most of the Jewish immigrants to the New York metropolitan area during the years of Ellis Island considered Yiddish their native language. For example, Isaac Asimov states in his autobiography, In Memory Yet Green, that Yiddish was his first and sole spoken language and remained so for about two years after he emigrated to the United States as a small child. By contrast, Asimov's younger siblings, born in the United States, never developed any degree of fluency in Yiddish.

In 1976, the Canadian-born American author Saul Bellow received the Nobel Prize in literature. He was fluent in Yiddish, and translated several Yiddish poems and stories into English, including Isaac Bashevis Singer's "Gimpel the Fool".

In 1978, the Polish-born Yiddish author Isaac Bashevis Singer, a resident of the United States, received the Nobel Prize in literature.

Legal scholars Eugene Volokh and Alex Kozinski argue that Yiddish is “supplanting Latin as the spice in American legal argot.”^[33] Note: an updated version of the article appears on Professor Volokh's UCLA web page.^[34]

Present U.S. speaker population[link]

In the 2000 census, 178,945 people in the United States reported speaking Yiddish at home. Of these speakers, 113,515 lived in New York (63.43% of American Yiddish speakers); 18,220 in Florida (10.18%); 9,145 in New Jersey (5.11%); and 8,950 in California (5.00%). The remaining states with speaker populations larger than 1,000 are Pennsylvania (5,445), Ohio (1,925), Michigan (1,945), Massachusetts (2,380), Maryland (2,125), Illinois (3,510), Connecticut (1,710), and Arizona (1,055). The population is largely elderly: 72,885 of the speakers were older than 65, 66,815 were between 18 and 64, and only 39,245 were age 17 or lower.^[35] In the six years since the 2000 census, the 2006 American Community Survey reflected an estimated 15 percent decline of people speaking Yiddish at home in the U.S. to 152,515.^[36]

There are a few predominantly Hasidic communities in the United States in which Yiddish remains the majority language. Kiryas Joel, New York is one such; in the 2000 census, nearly 90% of residents of Kiryas Joel reported speaking Yiddish at home.^[37]

United Kingdom[link]

There are well over 30,000 Yiddish speakers in the United Kingdom, and several thousand children now have Yiddish as a first language. The largest group of Yiddish speakers in Britain reside in the Stamford Hill district of North London, but there are sizeable communities in Golders Green, Stoke Newington, Greater Manchester (in parts of Salford; mainly in the Broughton and Kersal areas, North Manchester and in the north Manchester suburb of Prestwich) and Gateshead.^[38] The Yiddish readership in the UK is mainly reliant upon imported material from the United States and Israel for newspapers, magazines and other periodicals. However, the London-based weekly Jewish Tribune, has a small section in Yiddish called אידישע טריבונע Idishe Tribune.

Religious communities[link]

A typical poster-hung wall in Jewish Brooklyn, New York

The major exception to the decline of spoken Yiddish can be found in Haredi communities all over the world. In some of the more closely knit such communities Yiddish is spoken as a home and schooling language, especially in Hasidic, Litvish or Yeshivish communities such as Brooklyn's Borough Park, Williamsburg and Crown Heights, and in the communities of Monsey, Kiryas Joel and New Square in New York State (over 88% of the population of Kiryas Joel is reported to speak Yiddish at home.^[39]) Also in New Jersey Yiddish is widely spoken mostly in Lakewood but also in smaller towns with yeshivos such as Passaic, Teaneck and elsewhere. Yiddish is also widely spoken in the Antwerp Jewish community and in Haredi communities such as the ones in London, Manchester and Montreal. Yiddish is also spoken in many communities throughout Israel. Among most Ashkenazi Haredim, Hebrew is generally reserved for prayer, while Yiddish is used for religious studies as well as a home and business language. In Israel, however, Haredim commonly speak Hebrew, with the notable exception of many Hasidic communities. However, some Haredim who use Modern Hebrew also understand Yiddish. There are some who send their children to schools in which the primary language of instruction is Yiddish. Members of movements such as Satmar Hasidism, who view the commonplace use of Hebrew as a form of Zionism, use Yiddish almost exclusively.

Hundreds of thousands of young children around the globe have been, and are still, taught to translate the texts of the Torah into Yiddish. This process is called טײַטשן (taytshn)—"translating" . Most Ashkenazi yeshivas' highest level lectures in Talmud and Halakha are delivered in Yiddish by the rosh yeshivas as well as ethical talks of mussar. Hasidic rebbes generally use only Yiddish to converse with their followers and to deliver their various Torah talks, classes, and lectures. The linguistic style and vocabulary of Yiddish have influenced the manner in which many Orthodox Jews who attend yeshivas speak English. This usage is distinctive enough that it has been dubbed "Yeshivish".

While Hebrew remains the language of Jewish prayer, the Hasidim have mixed some Yiddish into their Hebrew, and are also responsible for a significant secondary religious literature written in Yiddish. For example, the tales about the Baal Shem Tov were written largely in Yiddish. As well as the Torah Talks of the late Lubavitch leaders are published in their original form, Yiddish. In addition, some prayers, such as the Got fun Avrohom, were composed and are recited in Yiddish.

Moreover, some Hasidic girls in the Diaspora are not taught Hebrew at all, and therefore do not understand either ancient or modern Hebrew. Even those who are taught parts of the Bible will still use prayer books with Yiddish translation and commentaries, as their comprehension of Hebrew is deficient.

Modern Yiddish education[link]

A road sign in Yiddish (except for the word "sidewalk") at an official construction site in the Monsey hamlet, a community with thousands of Yiddish speakers, in the Town of Ramapo, New York.

There has been a resurgence in Yiddish learning in recent times among many from around the world with Jewish ancestry. The language which had lost many of its native speakers during WWII has been making somewhat of a comeback.^[40] In Poland, which traditionally had Yiddish speaking communities, a particular museum has begun to revive Yiddish education and culture.^[41] Located in Kraków, the Galicia Jewish Museum offers classes in Yiddish Language Instruction and workshops on Yiddish Songs. The museum has taken steps to revive the culture through concerts and events held on site.^[42] There are various Universities worldwide which now offer Yiddish programs based on the YIVO Yiddish standard. Many of these programs are held during the summer and are attended by Yiddish enthusiasts from around the world. One such school located within Vilnius University (Vilnius Yiddish Institute) was the first Yiddish center of higher learning to be established in post-Holocaust Eastern Europe. Vilnius Yiddish Institute is an integral part of the four-century-old Vilnius University. Published Yiddish scholar and researcher Dovid Katz is among the Faculty.^[43] Other schools which offer Yiddish programs include Tel Aviv University,^[44] Brandeis University,^[45] Monash University, Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation,^[46] University College London,^[47] University of Oxford,^[48] University of Maryland,^[49] YIVO, New York University,^[50] Hampshire College campus at Amherst^[51] (home of the National Yiddish Book Center), Binghamton University,^[52] Harvard University,^[53] Stanford University,^[54] University of Pennsylvania,^[55] Indiana University, Bloomington,^[56] The Ohio State University,^[57] University of Düsseldorf,^[58] University of Chicago,^[59] Columbia University,^[60] Vassar College,^[61] UMass Amherst,^[62] McGill University,^[63] UCLA,^[64] Emory University in Atlanta, University of Virginia,^[65] the University of Manitoba,^[66] and the University of Sao Paulo, in Brazil.^[67] Despite this growing popularity among many American Jews,^[68] finding opportunities for practical use of Yiddish is becoming increasingly difficult, and thus many students have trouble learning to speak the language.^[69]

Internet community[link]

This section requires expansion.

Google translate also includes Yiddish as one of its languages,^[70][71] as does Wikipedia.

See also[link]

A 2008 Election poster in front of a store in Village of New Square, Town of Ramapo, New York, entirely in Yiddish. The candidate names are transliterated into Yiddish.

• List of English words of Yiddish origin
• List of Yiddish language poets
• The Yiddish King Lear
• Yiddish dialects—as spoken in different regions of Europe.
• Yiddish literature
• Yiddish morphology—the structural detail of the language.
• Yiddish orthography—the written representation of the language.
• Yiddish phonology—the elements of the spoken language.
• Yiddish Renaissance
• Yiddish words used in English—definitions of Yiddish words used in a primarily English context.
• Yinglish

References[link]

Footnotes[link]

Bibliography[link]

Further reading[link]

Periodicals[link]

• YIVO Bleter, pub. YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, NYC, initial series from 1931, new series since 1991.
• Afn Shvel, pub. League for Yiddish, NYC, since 1940; אויפן שוועל, sample article אונדזער פרץ – Our Peretz
• Lebns-fragn, by-monthly for social issues, current affairs, and culture, Tel Aviv, since 1951; לעבנס-פראגן, current issue
• Yerusholaymer Almanakh, periodical collection of Yiddish literature and culture, Jerusalem, since 1973; ירושלימער אלמאנאך, new volume, contents and downloads
• Der Yiddisher Tam-Tam, pub. Maison de la Culture Yiddish, Paris, since 1994, also available in electronic format.
• Yidishe Heftn, pub. Le Cercle Bernard Lazare, Paris, since 1996, יידישע העפטן sample cover, subscription info.
• Gilgulim, naye shafungen, new literary magazine, Paris, since 2008; גילגולים, נייע שאפונגען

External links[link]

Yiddish language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of Yiddish

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of Yiddish for Yeshivah Bachurim

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Yiddish language

• www.medienhilfe.org First overview about Yiddish media worldwide of Internationale Medienhilfe organization
• yidish lebt project – open-source dictionary, spellchecker, keyboard for windows, and other stuff for yidish language
• http://lib.cet.ac.il/pages/item.asp?item=12887 Israeli Government Portal: Yiddish
• Free Yiddish Dictionary
• On-line Yiddish dictionary
• A Dictionary of the Yiddish Language by Alexander Harkavy, 1898 (from Google Books); 1910 edition (online), 6th edition
• Verterbukh – Yiddish Resources Online
• Yiddish Book Center
• Jewish Language Research Website: Yiddish
• SBS Weekly Yiddish News (Australia)
• Yiddish Typewriter – interconverts Yiddish text in Hebrew script with YIVO transliteration
• WWW Virtual Library History Central Catalogue – Yiddish Sources Academic portal for Yiddish Studies, includes an online bibliography.
• 'Hover & Hear' New York Yiddish pronunciations, and compare with equivalents in English and other Germanic languages.
• YIVO Institute for Jewish Research

The Flintstones is an animated, prime-time American television sitcom that was broadcast from September 30, 1960 to April 1, 1966, on ABC. The original pilot episode clip however was called the "Flagstones" (which first appeared in 1959 as a 90 second promotion to draw advertisers to the show) and was later reincorporated into the show's 1st episode (3rd episode in original airdate order). The show's name was changed to "The Flintstones" shortly thereafter. The show was produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, The Flintstones was about a working class Stone Age man's life with his family and his next-door neighbor and best friend.

The show's continuing popularity rested heavily on its juxtaposition of modern everyday concerns in the Stone Age setting.^[4][5]

Overview[link]

The show is set in the Stone Age town of Bedrock. (In some of the earlier episodes, it was also referred to as "Rockville"). In this fantasy version of the past, dinosaurs, saber-toothed tigers, woolly mammoths, and other long-extinct animals co-exist with cavemen. Like their mid-20th century peers, these cavemen listen to records, live in split-level homes, and eat out at restaurants, yet their technology is made entirely from pre-industrial materials and largely powered through the use of various animals. For example, the cars are made out of stone, wood, and animal skins, and powered by the passengers' feet (as in the theme song, "Through the courtesy of Fred's two feet").

Technology[link]

Often the "prehistoric" analogue to a modern machine uses an animal.^[6] For example, when a character takes photographs with an instant camera, inside of the camera box, a bird carves the picture on a stone tablet with its beak. In a running gag, the animal powering such technology would frequently break the fourth wall, look directly into the camera at the audience and offer a mild complaint about their job. Other commonly seen gadgets in the series include a baby woolly mammoth used as a vacuum cleaner; an adult woolly mammoth acting as a shower by spraying water with its trunk; elevators raised and lowered by ropes around brontosauruses' necks; "automatic" windows powered by monkeys on the outside; birds acting as "car horns," sounded by the driver pulling on their tails or squeezing their bodies; an "electric" razor made from a clam shell, vibrating from a honey-bee inside; a pelican as a washing machine, shown with a beakful of soapy water; and a woodpecker whose beak is used to play a gramophone record. In most cases, "The Man of a Thousand Voices," Mel Blanc, contributed the animals' gag lines, often lowering his voice one to two full octaves, far below the range he used to voice the character of Barney Rubble. In the case of the Flintstones' cuckoo clocks, which varied from mechanical toys to live birds announcing the time, when the hour approached 12:00, the bird inside the clock "cuckooing" usually just ran out of steam and gave up vocally, physically, or both.

"Stone-age" names[link]

The Stone Age setting allowed for gags and word plays involving rocks and minerals. For example, San Antonio becomes "Sand-and-Stony-o"; the country to the south of Bedrock's land is called "Mexirock." Travel to "Hollyrock," a parody of Hollywood, usually involves an "airplane" flight — the "plane," in this case, is often shown as a giant pterosaur, with the fuselage strapped to its back. The last names "Flintstone" and "Rubble", as well as other common Bedrock surnames such as "Shale" and "Quartz", are in line with these puns. So are the names of Bedrock's celebrities: "Cary Granite" (Cary Grant), "Stony Curtis" (Tony Curtis), "Ed Sulleyrock/Sulleystone" (Ed Sullivan), "Rock Pile/Quarry/ Hudstone" (Rock Hudson), "Ann-Margrock" (Ann-Margret), "Jimmy Darrock" (James Darren), "Alvin Brickrock" (Alfred Hitchcock), "Perry Masonary/Masonite" (Perry Mason as played by Raymond Burr), "Mick Jadestone and The Rolling Boulders" (Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones), "Eppy Brianstone" (Brian Epstein) and "The Beau Brummelstones" (The Beau Brummels). Once, while visiting one of Bedrock's houses of "Haute Couture" with Wilma, Betty even commented on the new "Jackie Kennerock (Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis) look". In some cases, the celebrity featured also provided the voice: "Samantha" and "Darrin" from "Bewitched" were voiced by Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick York. Examples from the above list include Ann-Margret, Curtis, Darren, and the Beau Brummels. Other celebrities, such as "Ed Sulleystone" and "Alvin Brickrock," were rendered by impersonators. Some of Bedrock's sports heroes include: football player "Red Granite" (Red Grange), wrestler "Bronto Crushrock" (Bronko Nagurski), golfer "Arnold Palmrock" (Arnold Palmer), boxers "Floyd Patterstone" (Floyd Patterson) and "Sonny Listone" (Sonny Liston), and baseball players "Sandy Stoneaxe" (Sandy Koufax), "Lindy McShale" (Lindy McDaniel), "Roger Marble" (Roger Maris) and "Mickey Marble" or "Mickey Mantlepiece" (Mickey Mantle). Ace reporter "Daisy Kilgranite" (Dorothy Kilgallen) was a friend of Wilma. Monster names include "Count Rockula" (Count Dracula) and "The Frankenstone Monster" (Frankenstein's monster).

Characters[link]

The Flintstones[link]

The Rubbles[link]

Other characters[link]

Voice actors[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2009)

It has been noted Fred Flintstone physically resembled voice actor Alan Reed, and also Jackie Gleason, whose series The Honeymooners was said to be very similar to The Flintstones. The voice of Barney Rubble was provided by voice actor Mel Blanc, though five episodes during the second season (the 1st, 2nd, 5th, 6th, and 9th) employed Hanna-Barbera regular Daws Butler while Blanc was incapacitated by a near-fatal car accident. Blanc was able to return to the series much sooner than expected, by virtue of a temporary recording studio for the entire cast set up at Blanc's bedside. It should be noted, however, Blanc's portrayal of Barney had changed considerably after the accident. In the earliest episodes, Blanc had used a much higher pitch. After his recovery from the accident, Blanc used a deeper voice, quite similar to the voice of the Abominable Snowman he performed in other cartoons.

Additional similarities with The Honeymooners included the fact that Reed based Fred's voice upon Jackie Gleason's interpretation of Ralph Kramden, while Blanc, after a season of using a nasal, high-pitched voice for Barney, eventually adopted a style of voice similar to that used by Art Carney in his portrayal of Ed Norton. The first time the Art Carney-like voice was used was for a few seconds in "The Prowler" (the third episode produced).

In a 1986 Playboy interview, Jackie Gleason said Alan Reed had done voice-overs for Gleason in his early movies, and he (Gleason) considered suing Hanna-Barbera for copying The Honeymooners but decided to let it pass.^[8] According to Henry Corden, who took over as the voice of Fred Flintstone after Alan Reed died, and was a friend of Gleason, “Jackie’s lawyers told him he could probably have The Flintstones pulled right off the air. But they also told him, “Do you want to be known as the guy who yanked Fred Flintstone off the air? The guy who took away a show so many kids love, and so many parents love, too?”^[9]

Henry Corden took over the voice responsibilities of Fred after Reed's death in 1977 with A Flintstone Christmas.^[10] Corden had previously provided Fred's singing voice in The Man Called Flintstone^[11] and later on Flintstones children's records. Since 2000, Jeff Bergman, James Arnold Taylor, and Scott Innes (performing Fred and Barney for Toshiba Commercials) have performed the voice of Fred. Since Mel Blanc's death in 1989, Barney has been voiced by both Frank Welker and Kevin Michael Richardson. Various additional character voices were created by Hal Smith, Allan Melvin, Janet Waldo, Daws Butler, and Howard Morris, among others.

Voice cast[link]

• Fred Flintstone – Alan Reed; Henry Corden (singing voice in The Man Called Flintstone only)
• Wilma Flintstone/Pebbles Flintstone – Jean Vander Pyl
• Barney Rubble – Mel Blanc; Daws Butler (season 2; episodes 1, 2, 5, 6, and 9 only)
• Betty Rubble – Bea Benaderet (seasons 1–4); Gerry Johnson (seasons 5–6)
• Bamm-Bamm Rubble/Hoppy/Arnold – Don Messick
• Dino – Mel Blanc
• Mr. Slate – John Stephenson
• Mrs. Slaghoople – Verna Felton and Janet Waldo
• The Great Gazoo – Harvey Korman

Episodes[link]

Music[link]

The opening and closing credits theme during the first two seasons was called "Rise and Shine", a lively instrumental underscore accompanying Fred on his drive home from work. The tune resembled "The Bugs Bunny Overture (This Is It!)," the theme song of The Bugs Bunny Show, also airing on ABC at the time, and may have been the reason the theme was changed in the third season.^[12]

Starting in Season 3, Episode 3 ("Barney the Invisible"), the opening and closing credits theme was the familiar vocal, "Meet the Flintstones". The melody is derived from part of the 'B' section of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 17 Movement 2, composed in 1801/02.^[13] The "Meet the Flintstones" opening was later added to the first two seasons for syndication.

The musical underscores were credited to Hoyt Curtin for the show's first five seasons; Ted Nichols took over in 1965 for the final season.^[12]

During the show's final season, "Open Up Your Heart (And Let the Sunshine In)", performed by Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm, in a clip from that season's first episode, was used as alternate close music.

In 2010 a PRS for Music survey of 2,000 adults in the UK found that the "Meet the Flintstones" theme tune was the most recognised children's' TV theme, ahead of those for "Top Cat" and "Postman Pat".^{[14] [15]}

Production history[link]

The idea of The Flintstones started after Hanna-Barbera produced The Huckleberry Hound Show and The Quick Draw McGraw Show. Although these programs were successful they did not have the same wide audience appeal as their previous theatrical cartoon series Tom and Jerry. Tom and Jerry entertained both children and the adults that accompanied them. However since children didn't need their parents supervision to watch television Hanna-Barbera's output became labeled "kids only". Barbera and Hanna wanted to recapture the adult audience by creating the most popular form television genre that appealed to both adults and children, the situation comedy.^[16] Another influence is rooted in Hanna-Barbera's tenure at MGM; where they were in a friendly competition with fellow cartoon director Tex Avery. In 1955, Avery directed a cartoon entitled "The First Bad Man" (narrated by cowboy legend Tex Ritter). The cartoon concerned the rowdy antics of a bank robber in stone-age Dallas. Many of the visual jokes pre-dated similar ones used by Hanna-Barbera in the Flintstones series, many years later. Many students of American animation point to this cartoon as a progenitive seed (along with "The Honeymooners") of the Flintstones.

The show imitated and spoofed The Honeymooners.^[17] William Hanna admitted that "At that time, The Honeymooners was the most popular show on the air, and for my bill, it was the funniest show on the air. The characters, I thought, were terrific. Now, that influenced greatly what we did with The Flintstones ... The Honeymooners was there, and we used that as a kind of basis for the concept."^{[citation needed]} However, Joseph Barbera disavowed these claims in a separate interview, stating that, "I don't remember mentioning The Honeymooners when I sold the show. But if people want to compare The Flintstones to The Honeymooners, then great. It's a total compliment. The Honeymooners was one of the greatest shows ever written."^[18]

Before settling on the stone-age Barbera and Hanna experimented with hillbillies, Ancient Rome, Pilgrims, and American Indians as the settings for the two families.^[19] Originally, the series was to have been titled The Flagstones, and a brief demonstration film was created to sell the idea of a "modern stone age family" to sponsors and the network.^[20]:3 When the series itself was commissioned, the title was changed, possibly to avoid confusion with the Flagstons, characters in the comic strip Hi and Lois. After spending a brief period in development as The Gladstones (Gladstone being a Los Angeles telephone exchange at the time),^[21] Hanna-Barbera settled upon The Flintstones. Aside from the animation and fantasy setting, the show's scripts and format are typical of 1950s and 1960s American situation comedies, with the usual family issues resolved with a laugh at the end of each episode, as well as the inclusion of a laugh track.

During the developmental stages, Hanna-Barbera created the Flintstone family consisting of Fred, Wilma, and their son, Fred Jr. However, when the series went into production, the idea of the Flintstones having a child from the start was discarded, with Fred and Wilma starting out as a childless couple; some early Flintstones merchandise, such as a 1961 Little Golden Book, included Fred Jr., before it was decided on his removal.^[22]

Although most Flintstones episodes are stand-alone storylines, the series did have a few story arcs. The most notable example was a series of episodes surrounding the birth of Pebbles. Beginning with the episode "The Surprise", aired midway through the third season (1/25/63), in which Wilma reveals her pregnancy to Fred, the arc continued through the trials and tribulations leading up to Pebbles' birth in the episode "Dress Rehearsal" (2/22/63), and then continued with several episodes showing Fred and Wilma adjusting to the world of parenthood. In Australia, the Nine Network ran a "Name the Flintstones' baby" competition during the 'pregnancy' episodes – few Australian viewers were expected to have a USA connection giving them information about past 'Flintstone' shows.

A postscript to the arc occurred in the third episode of the fourth season, in which the Rubbles, depressed over being unable to have children of their own (making The Flintstones the first animated series in history to address the issue of infertility, though subtly), adopt Bamm-Bamm. The 100th episode made (but the 90th to air), Little Bamm-Bamm (10/3/63), established how Bamm-Bamm was adopted. About nine episodes were made before it, but shown after, which explains why Bamm-Bamm would not be seen again until episode 101, Daddies Anonymous (Bamm-Bamm was in a teaser on episode 98, Kleptomaniac Pebbles). Another story arc, occurring in the final season, centered on Fred and Barney's dealings with The Great Gazoo (voiced by Harvey Korman).

The series was initially aimed at adult audiences, which was reflected in the comedy writing, which, as noted, resembled the average primetime sitcoms of the era. Hanna and Barbera hired many writers from the world of live-action (including two of Jackie Gleason's writers, Herbert Finn and Sydney Zelinka, as well as relative newcomer Joanna Lee) while still using traditional animation story men (like Warren Foster and Tony Benedict). The first two seasons were co-sponsored by Winston cigarettes and the characters appeared in several black and white television commercials for Winston (dictated by the custom, at that time, that the star{s} of a TV series often "pitched" their sponsor's product in an "integrated commercial" at the end of the episode).^[23] During the third season (the season in which Pebbles was born), Welch's (grape juice and grape jellies) became the primary sponsor, and the overall tone and writing of the series became more family friendly. Integrated commercials for Welch's products feature Pebbles asking for grape juice in her toddler dialect, and Fred explaining to Pebbles Welch's unique process for making the jelly, compared to the competition. Best Foods, makers of Skippy peanut butter, was the alternate sponsor.

The Flintstones was the first American animated show to depict two people of the opposite sex (Fred and Wilma; Barney and Betty) sleeping together in one bed, although Fred and Wilma are sometimes depicted as sleeping in separate beds. For comparison, the first live-action depiction of this in American TV history was in television's first-ever sitcom: 1947's Mary Kay and Johnny.^[24]

The show contained a laugh track, common to most other sitcoms of the period. In the mid-1990s, when Turner Networks remastered the episodes, the original laugh track was removed. Currently, the shows airing on Boomerang and the DVD releases have the original laugh track restored to most episodes (a number of episodes from Seasons 1 and 2 still lack them). Some episodes, however, have a newer laugh track dubbed in, apparently replacing the old one. Because of this practice, the only episode to originally air without a laugh track ("Sheriff For a Day" in 1965) now has one.

The Flintstones also became the first primetime animated series to last more than two seasons;^[25] this record wasn't surpassed by another primetime animated TV series until the seventh season of The Simpsons in 1995/1996.^[25]

Reception[link]

The night after The Flintstones premiered, Variety called it "A Pen and Ink Disaster".^[26] However, the negative reviews were short-lived and The Flintstones soon became one of the most popular and well-loved shows of all time. In 1961, The Flintstones became the first animated series to be nominated for an Outstanding Comedy Series Primetime Emmy Award, but lost out to The Jack Benny Show. In January 2009, IGN named The Flintstones as the ninth best in its "Top 100 Animated TV Shows".^[27]

Nielsen ratings[link]

• 1960–1961: #18
• 1961–1962: #21
• 1962–1963: #30
• 1963–1964: Not in the Top 30
• 1964–1965: Not in the Top 30
• 1965–1966: Not in the Top 30

Broadcast history[link]

Original[link]

Note: The most frequent time slot for the series is in bold text.

• Friday at 8:30-9:00 PM on ABC: September 30, 1960—April 5, 1963
• Thursday at 7:30-8:00 PM on ABC: September 19, 1963—December 17, 1964
• Friday at 7:30-8:00 PM on ABC: December 25, 1964—April 1, 1966

Films and subsequent television series[link]

Following the show's cancellation in 1966, a film based upon the series was created. The Man Called Flintstone was a musical spy caper that parodied James Bond and other secret agents. The movie was released to theaters on August 3, 1966 by Columbia Pictures.^[28] It was released on DVD in Canada in March 2005 and in United States in December 2008.

The show was revived in the early 1970s with Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm having grown into teenagers, and several different series and made-for-TV movies (broadcast mainly on Saturday mornings, with a few shown in prime time); including a series depicting Fred and Barney as police officers, another depicting the characters as children, and yet others featuring Fred and Barney encountering Marvel Comics superhero The Thing and Al Capp's comic strip character The Shmoo — have appeared over the years. The original show also was adapted into a live-action film in 1994, and a prequel, The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, which followed in 2000.

It has been announced that Family Guy creator (and Hanna-Barbera alumnus) Seth MacFarlane will be reviving The Flintstones for the Fox network, with the first episode airing in 2013.^[29] The program was indefinitely delayed from the 2013 date however, due to MacFarlane's schedule. ^[30]

Television series[link]

• The Flintstones (1960–66) (166 episodes) (6 seasons)
• The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show (1971–72) (20 episodes) (1 season)
• The Flintstone Comedy Hour (1972–73) (16 episodes) (1 season)
• Fred Flintstone and Friends (1977–78) (95 episodes) (1 season)
• The New Fred and Barney Show (1979) (17 episodes) (1 season)
• Fred and Barney Meet the Thing (1979) (13 episodes) (1 season)
• Fred and Barney Meet the Shmoo (1979–80) (13 episodes) (1 season)
• The Flintstone Comedy Show (1980–82) (18 episodes) (2 seasons)
• The Flintstone Funnies (1982–84) (13 episodes) (1 season)
• The Flintstone Kids (1986–88) (76 episodes) (2 seasons)
• Dino: World Premiere Toons – featuring "Stay Out!" (1995) and "The Great Egg-Scape" (1997)
• Cave Kids: Pebbles & Bamm-Bamm (1996) (8 episodes) (1 season)
• The Flintstones (2013)

Theatrical animated feature[link]

• The Man Called Flintstone (1966, released by Columbia Pictures)
• The Flintstones (CGI Computer Animated film, TBA, released by Warner Bros. Pictures)

Television specials[link]

• A Flintstone Christmas (1977)
• The Flintstones: Little Big League (1978)
• The Flintstones Meet Rockula and Frankenstone (1979)
• The Flintstones' New Neighbors (1980)
• The Flintstones: Fred's Final Fling (1980)
• The Flintstones: Wind-Up Wilma (1981)
• The Flintstones: Jogging Fever (1981)
• The Flintstones' 25th Anniversary Celebration (1986)
• The Flintstone Kids' "Just Say No" Special (1988)
• Hanna-Barbera's 50th: A Yabba Dabba Doo Celebration (1989)
• A Flintstone Family Christmas (1993)

Television movies[link]

• The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones (1987)
• I Yabba-Dabba Do! (1993)
• Hollyrock-a-Bye Baby (1993)
• A Flintstones Christmas Carol (1994)
• The Flintstones: On the Rocks (2001)

Live-action films[link]

• The Flintstones (1994)
• The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (2000)

Other media[link]

For a list of DVDs, video games, comic books, and VHS releases, see List of The Flintstones media.

Theme parks[link]

At least two Flintstones-themed amusement parks exist in the United States: Bedrock City in Custer, South Dakota and another in Valle, Arizona. Both have been in operation for decades.

Another existed until the 1990s at Carowinds in Charlotte, NC. In Canada, Flintstone Park in Kelowna, British Columbia opened in 1968 and closed in 1998; notable for the "Forty Foot Fred" statue of Fred Flintstone which was a well known Kelowna landmark. Another Flintstones park was located in Bridal Falls, British Columbia which closed in 1990.^[31] Calaway Park outside Calgary, Canada, also opened with a Flintstones theme and many of the buildings today have a caveman-like design, though the park does not currently license the characters. The Australia's Wonderland & Canada's Wonderland theme parks both featured Flintstones characters in their Hanna-Barbera-themed children's sections from 1985 up until the mid '90s.

Live theater[link]

A stage production opened at Universal Studios Hollywood in 1994 (the year the live action film was released), developed by Universal and Hanna-Barbera Productions.^{[citation needed]} It opened at the Panasonic Theater replacing the Star Trek Show. The story consists of Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty heading for "Hollyrock".^{[citation needed]} The show ran until January 2, 1997.^{[citation needed]}

Popular culture[link]

Theme cafeteria The Flintstones in Agia Napa, Cyprus

As noted above, for the first two seasons, the series had strong ties to a sponsor, Winston cigarettes, with the characters shown smoking the product during commercial breaks. This approach was not unusual for television at that time, either with tobacco or any other product. In one memorable advertisement, Fred and Barney relaxed while their wives did housework, smoking Winstons and reciting Winston's jingle, "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should!"^[32] In 1962, Winston pulled their sponsorship from the show when Wilma became pregnant;^{[citation needed]} beginning in the fall of 1963, the main sponsor was Welch's Grape Juice. By no small coincidence, Pebbles' favorite drink was Grape Juice.

Welch's advertised their product with animated commercials featuring the cartoon cast and they were often pictured in print ads and on grape juice containers. In the actual scenes of a few episodes, Pebbles is given grape juice as a treat, although, in those scenes, Welch's is not mentioned by name.

Miles Laboratories (now part of Bayer Corporation) and their One-A-Day vitamin brand was the alternate sponsor of the original Flintstones series during its first two seasons, and in the late 1960s, Miles introduced Flintstones Chewable Vitamins, fruit flavored multivitamin tablets for children in the shape of the Flintstones characters, which are sold to this day.^[33]

The characters from the series were used in a 1966 industrial film designed to promote the 1967 beer advertising campaign for Anheuser-Busch's Busch Beer. This film was released to the Anheuser-Busch distributors, and it was not seen by the general public until years later when bootleg copies began to circulate.^[34]

In 1982 satirist Tom Chalkley, using the alias "Bruce Springstone", did a parody of the intro theme titled 'Bedrock Rap/Meet the Flintstones'. The cover of the album listed "Live at Bedrock". Sounding like Bruce Springsteen, Tom did a talking intro describing himself as a kid 'flipping dino burgers' and watching a worker (Fred) 'coming home to his stone hut' at night shouting 'Wilma, I'm home honey. Wilma!', then launching into a Springsteen-esque version of the intro theme from the show, complete with saxophone solo at the end.^[35]

The series spawned the Post Foods brands of Pebbles cereals: Fruity Pebbles and Cocoa Pebbles, and the discontinued Dino Pebbles (later revived as "Marshmallow Mania Pebbles", and then to "Marshmallow Pebbles").

In the 1985 documentary feature Bring on the Night, Sting and his band sing "Meet the Flintstones" during a recording session.^[36]

"Weird Al" Yankovic paid homage to the Flintstones in his song "Bedrock Anthem", a combined parody of "Under the Bridge" and "Give it Away", both by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, that even featured Flintstones voices and sound effects. It also was rereleased on the soundtrack album of the 1994 live action film.

The Screaming Blue Messiahs had a song called "I Wanna Be a Flintstone" on their album Bikini Red. It was later rereleased on the soundtrack album of the 1994 live action film The Flintstones.

The Simpsons have referenced The Flintstones in several episodes. In the episode Homer's Night Out, Homer's local convenience store clerk, Apu remarks "You look familiar, sir. Are you on the television or something?" to which Homer replies "Sorry buddy, you've got me confused with Fred Flintstone."^[37] During the opening credits of the episode Kamp Krusty, the Simpson family arrive home to find the Flintstone family already sitting on their couch.^[38] The beginning of the episode Marge vs. the Monorail is an homage to the The Flintstones opening sequence. Homer leaves work much in the same way Fred Flinstone does, singing to the tune of The Flintstones theme: "Simpson, Homer Simpson / he's the greatest guy in history / from the town of Springfield / he's about to hit a chestnut tree" at which point he screams and crashes his car into a tree.^[39] In Lady Bouvier's Lover, Homer's boss, Mr. Burns appears at the family's house and says "Why, it's Fred Flintstone (referring to Homer) and his lovely wife, Wilma! (Marge) Oh, and this must be little Pebbles! (Maggie) Mind if I come in? I brought chocolates." Homer responds by saying "Yabba-dabba-doo!"^[40] In Rome-old and Juli-eh, to save on gas, Homer "Flintstones" the car, imitating Fred Flintstone by putting his feet through the car floor and running on the road, yet with much less efficiency. Again, he says "Yabba-dabba-doo!"^[41] In Little Orphan Millie, Homer sings a song about his wife which contains the line "She's the Wilma to my Fred".^[42]

An episode of BBC sci-fi comedy series Red Dwarf sees Lister and the Cat discussing, and agreeing that they find both Wilma and Betty attractive, before realizing that the discussion is pointless... 'She'll never leave Fred and we know it!'

In 2008, Warner Bros/ Theater Ventures announced that Jeff Marx, Jake Anthony and Marco Pennette would collaborate on a stage musical version of The Flintstones, with the plot putting a contemporary spin on the characters.^[43] The proposed production stalled during negotiations.

Fred Flintstone's exclamation 'Yabba-Dabba-Doo!', shouted in the opening credits as well as any time Fred became happy or excited, is widely known and repeated.

In the Young Money song BedRock, although the song is mainly about sex, the name is referenced with the line: "Call me Mr Flintstone, I can make your bedrock".

More recently, the Flintstones have been seen in commercials for GEICO automotive insurance and Midas auto repair shops.

On September 30, 2010, Google temporarily replaced the logo on their search page with a custom graphic celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first TV broadcast.^[44]

In the animated feature, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs when Ellie jumps on a brontosaurus she exclaims, "Yabba-Dabba-Do". Manny later says, "Don't Yabba-Dabba-Do that again".

The Beastie Boys song "Shake Your Rump" from their 1989 album Paul's Boutique contains the lyrics "Like Fred Flintstone driving around with bald feet".^[45]

See also[link]

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• Hanna-Barbera's All-Star Comedy Ice Revue – Hanna-Barbera characters honor Fred in an all-star celebrity roast for his birthday (1977)
• "(Meet) The Flintstones", a version of the show's theme song that became a hit single for The B-52s.

References[link]

External links[link]

Look up Appendix:Hanna-Barbera in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: The Flintstones

• Museum of Broadcast Communications: The Flintstones
• The Flintstones - Cartoon Network Department of Cartoons (Archive)
• Webrock: The Flintstones and Hanna-Barbera Site
• The Flintstones page at Toonopedia
• The Flintstones at the Internet Movie Database
• The Flintstones at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• The Flintstones at TV.com
• 50 Years of Journey of The 'Flintstones'
• A film clip of television commercials for Winston cigarettes featuring The Flintstones is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]