Most records used in Jewish research are written in the language of the country. In past centuries Jews did not generally keep birth, marriage, and death records unless required to do so by the laws of the country of residence. These laws also dictated the language records were to be kept in. Depending on the time period, information for Jews who appear in church records may also be in Latin. You do not need to speak or read these languages to do Jewish research, but you will need to know some key words and phrases to understand the records.

Some languages have grammatical structures which may affect the way names appear in genealogical records. For example, in Polish the name Icek [Isaac] may be grammatically changed to Icka, which means “of Icek.” In Czech, a female with the surname Neumann would appear as Neumannová.

Spelling problems make some records difficult to interpret. Family names and place names were often spelled phonetically, which would alter the spelling from record keeper to record keeper. This problem is further complicated by spelling names in different languages that have different spelling rules or even different alphabets. For example, foreign words with an h are generally rewritten in Russian with the letter g []. The Russian letter b (pronounced as a “v”) is written in English as v but in German as w. The Family History Library has genealogical word lists that include suggested spelling variations. You may want to become familiar with the spelling rules of the languages in the areas you research.