We have, then, here an analogous case to the formation of Osmanli out of the Turkish, and Modern Persian out of the Old by means of the Arabic, and if the word Jargon is used to describe the condition of Judeo-German in the past three centuries, then Gibberish would be the only word that would fit as a designation of the corresponding compounds of the beautiful languages of Turkey, Persia, and India. A Jargon is the chaotic state of a speech-mixture at the moment when the foreign elements first enter into it. That mixture can never be entirely arbitrary, for it is subject to the spirit of one fundamental language which does not lose its identity. All the Romance elements in English have not stifled its Germanic basis, and Hindustani is neither Persian nor Arabic, in spite of the overwhelming foreign element in it, but an Indian language. Similarly Judeo-German has remained essentially a German dialect group. Had the Judeo-German had for its basis some dialect which widely differs from the literary norm, such as Low German or Swiss, it would have long ago been claimed as a precious survival by German philologists. But it happens to follow so closely the structure of High German that its deviations have struck the superficial observer as a kind of careless corruption of the German. A closer scrutiny, however, convinces one that in its many dialectic variations it closely follows the High German dialects of the Middle Rhine with Frankfurt for its centre. There is not a peculiarity in its grammatical forms, in the changes of its vocalism, for which exact parallels are not found within a small radius of the old imperial city, the great centre of Jewish learning and life in the Middle Ages. No doubt, the emigration into Russia came mainly from the region of the Rhine. At any rate those who arrived from there brought with them traditions which were laid as the foundation of their written literature, whose influence has been very great on the Jews of the later Middle Ages. While men received their religious literature directly through the Hebrew, women could get their ethical instruction only by means of Judeo-German books. No house was without them, and through them a certain contact was kept up with the literary German towards which the authors have never ceased to lean. In the meanwhile the language could not remain uniform over the wide extent of the Slavic countries, and many distinct groups have developed there. The various subdialects of Poland differ considerably from the group which includes the northwest of Russia, while they resemble somewhat more closely the southern variety. But nothing of that appears in the printed literature previous to the beginning of this century. There a great uniformity prevails, and by giving the Hebrew vowels, or the consonants that are used as such, the values that they have in the mouths of German Jews, we obtain, in fact, what appears to be an apocopated, corrupted form of literary German.