Yiddish speech-to-text API (ייִדיש)

Transcribe Yiddish with one request

Set language to yi and start a job. Poll GET /transcribe/{jobId} for the result, or pass a webhook_url.

curl https://app.kolwrite.com/transcribe \
  -H "x-api-key: $KOLWRITE_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"audio_url": "https://example.com/oral-history-yi.m4a", "model": "oracle", "language": "yi", "include_diarization": true, "output_format": "json"}'

Translate Yiddish audio into English in the same job (Oracle models only):

curl https://app.kolwrite.com/transcribe \
  -H "x-api-key: $KOLWRITE_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"audio_url": "https://example.com/oral-history-yi.m4a", "model": "oracle_mini", "language": "yi", "translate_to": "en", "output_format": "srt"}'

Yiddish at a glance

What to know about Yiddish transcription

• Yiddish is written right to left in Hebrew letters. Display transcripts with dir="rtl".
• Spelling conventions differ (standard YIVO orthography and the spellings common in Hasidic publications). The transcript may not follow your house style; plan a normalization step.
• Yiddish is a lower-resource language for speech recognition. Expect more variation than for Hebrew or English and test a sample before you transcribe an archive.
• Recordings often switch into Hebrew, English or Russian. Send yi when Yiddish dominates.

Where teams use Yiddish transcription

• Oral-history and archive digitization projects.
• Community media and lectures in Yiddish-speaking communities.
• Research on Yiddish speech, with word timings for alignment.

Choosing a model

Start with oracle (US$1.44 per hour) for production Yiddish audio. Use base (US$0.48) for clean, single-speaker recordings at volume, oracle_mini (US$0.96) for the cheapest translation, and oracle_pro or oracle_max for noisy or difficult audio. KolWrite does not publish a Yiddish accuracy figure for this API, so test a sample of your own recordings before committing. Full comparison: models and prices.

Questions and answers