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Klezmer-loshn

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Klezmer-loshn ( klezmer-loshn, Yiddish for ''Musician's Tongue'') is an extinct derivative of the Yiddish language. It was a kind of argot, or cant used by travelling Jewish musicians, known as klezmorim (klezmers), in Eastern Europe prior to the 20th century.

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Klezmer-loshn ( klezmer-loshn, Yiddish for ''Musician's Tongue'') is an extinct derivative of the Yiddish language. It was a kind of argot, or cant used by travelling Jewish musicians, known as klezmorim (klezmers), in Eastern Europe prior to the 20th century.

It combined Yiddish with loanwords from many other European languages. This borrowed vocabulary was often substituted for key Yiddish words using rhyme or some other form of association. Many of the words were not derived from either Yiddish or Slavic languages, but original coinages.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Klezmer-loshn” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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