A slavoturkic people in search of a jewish identity, a sequel of sorts to his 1990 book in which he argues that modern hebrew too is a slavic language, relexified to biblical hebrew. Yiddish is originally a germanic language and aside from having a germanic basis and largely germanic vocabulary, influences from hebrew, slavic and even some romance languages such as romanian. On slavicinfluenced syntactic changes in yiddish nyu. Often thought of as a fusion of german and hebrew with some slavic thrown. Languages in the slavic department why study yiddish. The only germanic languages that show significant slavic influence are yiddish and the historical colonial dialects of german that were spoken east of the oderneisse line, such as silesian german formerly spoken in silesia and south of east prussia and the eastern varieties of east low german, with the exception of low prussian, which had a strong baltic substratum. To help fill the gap, the author deals in depth with several etymologically problematic words in various germanic, jewish, romance, and slavic languages, all of which have hitherto either been misetymologized or not etymologized at all. Yiddish is unparalleled as a darkly comic language of complaint, a way to look on the dark side of life and laugh at it. Entries can be categorized here, too, when the proper subcategory is unclear. We have included here books, book chapters, articles, and special issues of journals that in some way encounter yiddish as the language of primary documents when investigating ashkenazi histories in their transnational dispersion, as an identifying marker of jewish communities and cultures from the early modern period to the present, or as a. Dna suggests yiddish began on the silk road ancient origins. This contact resulted in widespread slavic influences on yiddish at every level.
Knowledge of slavic languages can also prove helpful, especially given that some gendered nouns in yiddish can lean more towards slavic than germanic not also to mention many latinate loan words end in tziye, which shows obvious slavic influence. Hebrew modern hebrew was created when yiddish speaker relexified their language to biblical and mishnaic hebrew yiddish is a slavic language, derived from sorbian and thus, modern hebrew is a slavic. How much polish is there in yiddish and how much yiddish is. Developed out of hebrew and german, yiddish became its own rich lingustic culture, with a unique mode of expression all its own. A slavoturkic people in search of a jewish identity, a sequel of sorts to his 1990 book in which he argues that modern hebrew too is a slavic.
The khazarian hypothesis and the nature of yiddish. In most cases the coterritorial nonjewish language with which yiddish speakers came into contact was one of the slavic tongues, such as polish, belorussian, or ukrainian, and yiddish slavic bilingualism among jews was the rule rather than the exception. A calligraphic segment in the worms mahzor, the oldest surviving literary document with written yiddish. These detractors include all serious yiddish linguists except for wexler himself. A growing collection of indepth interviews with people of all ages and backgrounds, whose stories about the legacy and changing nature of yiddish language and culture offer a rich and complex chronicle of jewish identity. In a sense the language uses the same premise as yoda from the star wars movies. Slavic, romance, and semitic languages, yiddish soon became the. This claim is essentially based on application of the geographic population structure gps approach. Slavic influence on the phonology, morphology, and lexicon of yiddish.
Introducing how yiddish changed america and how america. Erika timm, a professor at university of trier in germany believes that yiddish is one of the jewish languages, in the sense given by solomon. One linguist has recently argued that yiddish began as a slavic language that. Many of the yiddish words brought by migrants have enriched english. Somehow yiddish seems to like all these slavic words for confusion and disorientation. Arguably the most influential has been a treasury of yiddish stories 1954. He proposes that the bavarian influence entered the language after yiddish. The book s chapters deal with the linguistic development of each etymological component of the language hebrew, romance, german, slavic.
A cursory examination of the german component of yiddish indicates that no yiddish dialect stands in a onetoone relationship to any german dialect. By the sixteenth century, yiddish became a written language in addition to a spoken one, with greater slavic influence as jews became a stronger presence in poland. Hebrew and aramaic together contributed to the learned tradition of yiddish due to the five books of moshe, the daily prayers, and technical discourse in the yeshivah. Even in western europe, most jews spoke yiddish until the 18th century. With time, the eastern forms of yiddish spoken in poland rose in importance and overtook the yiddish of western europe. The theory that yiddish is a slavic language was originally proposed by paul wexler in his 1993 book the ashkenazic jews. While slavic languages have had a monumental influence on. They and the local jews introduced slavic words and given names into their budding yiddish language. The other large influence on yiddish were the slavic languages, which are the source of many more yiddish words than hebrew ones, because of the vast populations of ashkenazi jews across poland and russia, many of which had migrated from germanspeaking lands and brought yiddish. The case of vos relative clauses article in international journal of the sociology of language 2014226 january 2014 with 52 reads how we measure. In praise of yiddish, by maurice samuel commentary. Under the influence of slavic languages, yiddish has grown far away from its german language beginnings.
This book traces the origins of modern varieties of yiddish and presents evidence for the claim that, contrary to most accounts, yiddish only developed into a separate language in the 15th century. On the other side are those who think that eastern yiddish, with its slavic influence and bohemian vowel structure, is so different from western yiddish that it must have arisen independently. Pitfalls of the geographic population structure gps approach applied to human genetic history. The major component of yiddish, in both its western and eastern varieties, is middle high german, with varying admixtures of slavic, hebrew, and other languages. Origins of yiddish dialects alexander beider oxford. Slavic influence on the phonology, morphology, and lexicon of yiddish is welldocumented weinreich 1980, inter alia. To this end, it is compared to german, semitic and slavic constructions that. I dont know if that is slavic influence, but friends from the former gdr had this weird way of telling the time. Cultural encounters, were featuring a podcast with faith jones about her work translating the experimental yiddish poet celia dropkin, a dadaist sound poem about coney island from the late 1930s, and an article about. A language used by german and other jews, being a middle german dialect developed under hebrew and slavic influence. Yiddish is a thousandyearold jewish language, with origins, according to a broad scholarly consensus, in the german rhineland.
In contrast, syntactic innovations triggered by contact with slavic languages are rarely investigated. Terms in yiddish that originate from slavic languages this category should, ideally, contain only other categories. The slavic influence on yiddish, samuel observes at one point, extends beyond the linguistic. Hebrew sources in the yiddish sermons of ultraorthodox women home language usage and the impact of modern hebrew on israeli hasidic yiddish nouns and noun plurals. This helps to express an activity that starts suddenly, is abrupt or momentary. The jews who wandered in the lands of the diaspora in the centuries following the destruction of their homeland communicated with their neighbors in the local languages, but within the jewish communities a special situation arose, which m.
Anna karenina by leo tolstoy, men and monsters by elena may, the master and margarita by mikhail bulgakov, the bear and the nigh. Slavic influences on the culture of eastern germany. Yiddish book collection of the russian avantgarde beinecke. Prior to 19th20th century, yiddish was the most geographically widespread language in europe after russian, so locally it differed. But as far as i call tell everybody agrees that there is a strong slavic influence on yiddish syntax and morphology. It originated during the 9th century in central europe, providing the nascent ashkenazi community with a highgermanbased vernacular fused with elements taken from hebrew and aramaic as well as slavic languages. Why are the yiddish and german languages so similar. Yiddish, although germanic, is not a typical germanic language. I gobbled up his book on zoroastrianism, but this one wasnt as sharp, writingwise. The present article is concerned with the origin of this construction. The eastern european yiddish vocabulary is predominantly german, but below the surface is a slavic influence. It originated during the 9th century in central europe, providing the nascent ashkenazi community with a highgermanbased vernacular fused with elements taken from hebrew and aramaic as well as slavic languages and traces of romance languages. Dictionaries usually give only brief treatment to etymologies and even etymological dictionaries often do not lavish on them the attention which many deserve.
I know languagehat has studied some yiddish if i have gotten anything wrong, perhaps he can correct or clarify. The melancholy of the steppes echoes in chassidic melodies, and there is a kinship between the mystical religious yearnings of certain russian and jewish types. The first written evidence of yiddish literature is a brief rhyme inscribed in the manuscript of a hebrew prayer book from the city of wormsthat was completed in 127273. The aim of this book is to present a very different picture of yiddish, true to. Why the mystery of the origins of yiddish will never be solved. Through a careful analysis of yiddish phonology, morphology, orthography, and the yiddish lexicon in all its varieties, alexander beider shows how what are commonly referred to as eastern yiddish. Around 14% of romanian language is of slavic origin and the esimates i have found for yiddish stand between 510% of vocabulary being slavic in origin, so i guess that the influence is higher in romanian. After the late seventeenth century western yiddish began to decline as the eastern dialect became the. At the same time, during the th and 14 th centuries, polish rulers welcomed jews, issuing charters of equal rights for them. A dozen yiddish words appear inside the empty spaces of five large hebrew characters. Under slavic influence yiddish developed the category of aspect a phenomenon generally unknown to germanic languages.
In honor of national poetry month and the yiddish book centers decade of discovery theme for this year, yiddish in america. Pitfalls of the geographic population structure gps. Different yiddish dialects, depending on the region. Sadly, the horrific purges of jews in nazi germany and soviet russia led to a decline in the use of yiddish, claiming the lives of many millions of its speakers. The yiddish book collection of the russian avantgarde contains books. In addition to yiddish terms of slavic, greek, romance and german origin which express aspects of the jewish religion and folk culture, the book shows that many elements of ashkenazic folklore and religion themselves were of slavic origin either west sorbian and polabian or balkan slavic. Which language has a bigger slavic influence, romanian or. Yiddish is a highgermanderived language historically spoken by the ashkenazi jews. The origins of yiddisha response to philologos, part fir. Public domain yiddish is truly a combination of familiar and adapted german words using slavic grammar. Can we call it a jewish accent rather than, say, a new. A slavic language in search of a semitic past mediterranean language and culture monograph. How much polish is there in yiddish and how much yiddish. Slavic, yiddish, and the accusative existentials and possessives in modern hebrew predicate nominal sentences with the hebrew ze and its russian counterpart eto bleached verbs as aspectual auxiliaries in colloquial modern hebrew and arabic dialects.