Soviet Yiddish occupies a special place in Yiddish linguistics. It is different from klal-Yiddish – ‘rule’-Yiddish, or normative Yiddish – in having certain orthographic peculiarities and a quite striking oddness in the spelling of words of Hebrew-Aramaic origin. These differences, which were ideologically driven and enforced by the Soviets, are plain to see and visually startling even to neophyte readers of ordinary Yiddish. The older British spellings gaol, kerb, and tyre for jail, curb, and tire convey something of the effect to the American English speaker.