Israel – Computer Programming in Yiddish for Charedi Kids To Break Cultural Barriers

    9

    FileIsrael – Society is comprised of a variety of factions, which can be distinguished – among other things – in their approach towards advance technology. The state educational system encourages its students to make use of technological tools, and many schools offer computerization and programming classes.

    Join our WhatsApp group

    Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email


    There is one wide public, however, whose children are relatively disconnected from advance computer studies in general and programming in particular, and that is the ultra-Orthodox public.

    Beyond the traditional reason and the uneven combination of Bible and secular studies in educational institutions, there is another significant cultural barrier – the language.

    The Eytam Computer Science company has developed an improved programming language which enables the change, in an easy and brilliant way: Yiddishe Mama, an education programming language for children – in Yiddish.

    A groise metzia

    The language, which operates on textual and graphic interfaces, allows the creation of basic three-dimensional animation films. The films are written using existing objects, pre-defined scripts and additional components.

    This programming language is simple and highly accessible, and even the conditions dictating the relation between each element in the program are written in a language meant for children. Yiddishe Mama is an Yiddish version of Mama, an educational programming language operating in the Alice environment.

    Mama was developed by Eytam about five years ago, and was recently upgraded and adjusted to a graphic interface with three-dimensional capabilities. The original software is already being used by the educational system. In order to provide the children with a pleasant studying experience, the software focuses on animation, clips and games.

    Each teen educated their way

    “We initially developed the Yiddish version as a tool for elderly people interested in studying programming, in a bid to make the studying process easier for them,” Eytam CEO Meir Sela told Ynet. “Later on, we decided to appeal to the haredi audience, which is also becoming increasingly interested in technological studies for preschoolers.”

    Sela believes that educational programming languages should be adjusted to the mother tongues of their target audiences. “As programming languages include many concepts and terms which may be confusing, the child may make a mistake without knowing if it is the result of an operation failure or a simple translation error,” he explained.

    Consequently, the Mama language was built in a form in which all of its components – the interface, the rules and more – can be translated in a built-in and relatively simple way.

    Yiddishe Mama includes expressions, buttons and even error messages in the traditional Ashkenazi language. “Yiddish is relatively easy to translate,” said Sela. “There are many words which do not exist in Yiddish, and originate in English, and due to the language’s structure they are simply entered as they are with the correct accentuation.”

    It’s no secret that, despite the relative social seclusion, the haredi sector does not stagnate and adopts – in its own way – certain modern technological tools. The ability to teach haredi schoolchildren the secrets of programming, without hurting their tradition and language, is a blessed innovation.

    The company is currently working on a version in Arabic as well, in order to make it easier to reach programming in Arab schools in Israel. Eytam was surprised to learn that, at this stage, the Arab sector prefers to use the Hebrew version of the software.

    But the company eyes additional potential markets for the Arab version is it working on. “We are not ruling out distributing this version to countries like Jordan and Egypt,” said Sela. “These countries also have a trend of technological education, and the Mama language may be suitable for their children.”

    The development of the software’s Yiddish version was completed only several days ago, and the company has just begun offering it to potential customers. The haredi representatives approached by Meir Sela and Eytam have yet to express their interest.


    Listen to the VINnews podcast on:

    iTunes | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Podbean | Amazon

    Follow VINnews for Breaking News Updates


    Connect with VINnews

    Join our WhatsApp group


    9 Comments
    Most Voted
    Newest Oldest
    Inline Feedbacks
    View all comments
    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    Why yiddish rather than ivrit…I can understand the chareidi in eretz yisroyel may not speak english but why not train them in the language of the country??

    Interesting...
    Interesting...
    13 years ago

    I’m a software developer who happens to be fluent in Yiddish as well. I went to their website and saw the sample code.

    http://eytam.com/mama/yiddishe_mama

    My first reaction was to burst out laughing because it’s really funny… More importantly though, I work with enough Indians, Asians etc.. who have a MUCH stronger accent than many of the non-speaking frum people in our community. If COPE was still around, or something similar, we’d have lots more frum computer programmers.

    its a shande
    its a shande
    13 years ago

    This is the biggest churban for kllal yisroel all they want from the frum people is to make them frei now they will bring in computers in our community & who knows how many frum yiddin will drop kollel & actually take a job

    Babishka
    Member
    Babishka
    13 years ago

    I have a degree in Mathematics and Computer Science and I have worked in automotive industry for 20 years, but now I am unemployed because of this economic recession.

    not bad
    not bad
    13 years ago

    would have be a good idea to have it in a version for adults not just for kids (as I far I know programing) it wouldn’t work out between our local computers.(usa) they don’t undarstand yiddish in the back end….

    Anon Ibid Opcit
    Anon Ibid Opcit
    13 years ago

    This isn’t a full-blown general-purpose programming language. Think this generation’s version of Logo. It’s designed to create mildly-scripted animations, a nice start but not my first choice to teach programming to kids.