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Are you more likely to use the word "temple," "synagogue," or "shul"? On a Friday night do you typically greet someone with a "good Shabbos," a "Shabbat shalom," or a "gut Shabbes"? Do you read from the Torah or do you "lein"?

These are among the questions addressed in the recently released Survey of American Jewish Language and Identity, a project by Hebrew Union College scholars Sarah Bunin Benor and Steven M. Cohen on how American Jews speak English.

"If there's one culture that values speaking, it's Jewish culture," Cohen, a noted sociologist of American Jewry, told The Jewish State in an interview following the release of the survey's results. "Part of who you are is what you say, how you say it, and who you say it to."

In the summer of 2008, Benor and Cohen sent email invitations to approximately 600 people asking them to complete the survey, and six weeks later more than 40,000 people had done so. The analysis of the survey was limited to native English speakers who grew up and currently resided in the United States, a total of 25,179 Jews and 4,874 non-Jews.

While Benor and Cohen acknowledge that the "snowball" method of sampling has its inherent limitations (such as the overrepresentation of Jews with strong Jewish engagement and the fact that the non-Jews invited to participate are more likely than the general American population to have Jewish friends), they nevertheless believe that it is representative enough to reveal some patterns.

"The results here should not be taken as strictly representative of all American Jews or, certainly, American non-Jews," Benor and Cohen write. "However, it is possible to cautiously compare subgroups within the sample and derive what we believe are meaningful patterns and insights. Indeed, we demonstrate intriguing patterns of variation along major axes of social differentiation, such as age, religious engagement, Israel experience, Jewish friends, and region."

The survey centers on how American Jews incorporate Yiddish and Hebrew words and grammatical structures into their English, and how such usage correlates with one's Jewish identity.

Yet while Jews are more likely to use Yiddish and Hebrew words and phrases than their non-Jewish neighbors (an exception is "mazel tov," which, according to the study, is used by 38 percent of non-Jews with no close Jewish friends and 87 percent of non-Jews with mostly close Jewish friends), what words and structures one uses also differentiates Jews from other Jews, both along lines of religious observance and even age.

One of the most pronounced trends in language use by American Jews is that older Jews are more likely to know some Yiddish, whereas younger Jews are more likely to know some Hebrew.

Consequently, Yiddish words such as "heimish" (homey) or "macher" (important person) are more likely to be used by older Jews, whereas Israeli Hebrew words like "yofi" (nice), balagan (mess), or the Arabic-derived word popular in Israel "yala" (let's go) are more common among younger Jews.

There are some Yiddish words, however, that are more frequently used by younger Jews, especially those who are religiously involved and of those, particularly Orthodox Jews. Words such as "bensch," (say grace after meals) or "lein" (read Torah) are more common among younger Jews who are more traditionally observant than among older Jews.

More traditionally observant Jews, especially those who identity as Orthodox, are also more likely to mimic Yiddish grammatical constructions in their English such as "She's staying by us" or "She has what to say." Furthermore, these constructions are more common among younger religious Jews than older ones.

Benor, a linguist who has written extensively on how Orthodox Jews incorporate Yiddish into their speech, explained that the greater use of Yiddish words and constructions by younger Jews reflects two trends: that the younger generation of American Jews feels increasingly more comfortable expressing their ethnicity and that this generation is also becoming more involved in religious life.

"These communities are interconnected," Benor told The Jewish State, explaining how Yiddish grammatical constructions become absorbed into the English of communities who do not speak the language as a vernacular. "'Black hat' Jews who speak Yiddish as a vernacular interact with 'black hat' Jews who don't speak Yiddish fluently, who interact with modern Orthodox Jews, who interact with non-Orthodox Jews."

Benor predicts that this trend will continue and begin to impact younger Reform Jews, as words like "shul" become more popular among this demographic and those like "temple" begin to wane.

Both Benor and Cohen said that language usage provides a unique vantage point in understanding the changing realities and identities of American Jews.

"While research on the language of Jews has been done before, it's the first time a sociologist and a linguist have come together to examine this topic," Benor said.

"It provides a new lens by which to study Jews," Cohen said. "For years, we've had questionnaires, qualitative interviews, and participant observations, but now we have one more lens that allows us to see not just what Jews think, or how they feel, but now how they speak."