My great grandfather, though he lived in Chicago his entire life, only spoke Yiddish (with a sprinkling of English thrown in).
My grandfather, born in the U.S., spoke only Yiddish until he was eight years old.
My father, an L.A. native, understands a fair amount of Yiddish, but can only say a few phrases.
And I know a few beautifully descriptive words in Yiddish–words that have become part of my daily vernacular (shmutz is so much more fun to say than lint!) but I can't understand it as a spoken language.
In four generations, the language has all but died but for the few remaining people, mostly elderly, who still speak it fluently.
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