Yiddish Dialects Research Articles

Auxiliary Selection in Yiddish Dialects

The variation of the two past tense auxiliaries (HAVE and BE) is a well-studied phenomenon in European languages, especially in the West Germanic varieties. So far, however, the situation in Eastern Yiddish has not been examined. This paper focuses on auxiliary selection in these Yiddish dialects based on data from the Language and Culture Archive of Ashkenazic Jewry, which were collected in the 1960s. Like most of the current works on this topic, the following analysis uses and discusses Sorace’s (1993, 2000) Auxiliary Selection Hierarchy, which allows to examine the Yiddish structures in light of historical and diatopic evidence from other Germanic varieties, particularly German and Dutch. The main focus is on intransitive verbs that show a high degree of variation—state verbs, controlled and uncontrolled motional process verbs, and change-of-state verbs. However, the Auxiliary Selection Hierarchy also has weaknesses, as is demonstrated in the following.*

Complete loss of case and gender within two generations: evidence from Stamford Hill Hasidic Yiddish

Yiddish was the everyday language spoken by most Central and East European Jews during the last millennium. As a result of the extreme loss of speakers during the Holocaust, subsequent geographic dispersal, and lack of institutional support, Yiddish is now an endangered language. Yet it continues to be a native and daily language for Haredi (strictly Orthodox) Jews, who live in close-knit communities worldwide. We have conducted the first study of the linguistic characteristics of the Yiddish spoken in the community in London’s Stamford Hill. While Krogh (in: Aptroot, Aptroot et al. (eds.) Leket: Yiddish studies today, Düsseldorf University Press, Düsseldorf, pp 483–506, 2012), Assouline (in: Aptroot, Hansen (eds.) Yiddish language structures, De Gruyter Mouton, Berlin, pp 39–62, 2014), and Sadock and Masor (J Jew Lang 6(1):89–110, 2018), investigating other Hasidic Yiddish-speaking communities, observe what they describe as morphological syncretism, in this paper we defend the claim that present-day Stamford Hill Hasidic Yiddish lacks morphological case and gender completely. We demonstrate that loss of morphological case and gender is the result of substantial language change over the course of two generations: while the case and gender system of the spoken medium was already beginning to undergo morphological syncretism and show some variation prior to World War II, case and gender distinctions were clearly present in the mental grammar of both Hasidic and non-Hasidic speakers of the relevant Yiddish dialects at that stage. We conclude the paper by identifying some of the language-internal, sociolinguistic and historical factors that have contributed to such rapid and pervasive language change, and compare the developments in Stamford Hill Hasidic Yiddish to those of minority German dialects in North America.

Uvular rhotic weakening in Yiddish adjectival suffixes

In traditional Yiddish dialects, the presence versus absence of word-final rhotics after unstressed [3] in adjectival suffixes carries a heavy functional load, making distinctions of gender, number, and case. Belk et al. (2019) note that some Yiddish speakers with uvular rhotics do not fully articulate them word-finally, endangering this crucial distinction and perhaps contributing to the loss of gender and case in the Yiddish of contemporary Hasidic communities. This study analyzes adjectival endings in publicly available recordings of four speakers with uvular rhotics. The majority of speakers generally do not produce an audible [R] or [] before consonants, but for these speakers, an underlying rhotic conditions lower F1 and sometimes higher F2 in the pre-rhotic vowel [3]. These formant differences tend to be relatively consistent over the course of the vowel, suggesting that they are phonologized, rather than a phonetic effect due to coarticulation with a following uvular rhotic whose articulation may be covert. Word-final [3] similarly exhibits lowered F1 and higher F2 before a word starting with [R] or a dorsal fricative [x/ü], suggesting that coarticulation with a following dorsal is the phonetic precursor to the phonological effect observed for underlying rhotics.

Mode and Tense in Yiddish

The historical dialect area of Eastern Yiddish in Central and Eastern Europe is widely detached from the Germanic languages and mainly surrounded by Balto-Slavic (but also Romanic and Uralic) languages. The geographical location of Eastern Yiddish lead to looking at language contact with mostly Slavic languages. But this perspective simplifies the real language situation in two ways: on the one hand, the contact to Germanic languages (especially to German) was not completely broken off even in predominantly Slavic-speaking areas, for example via administrative languages or German-speaking settlements (language islands), and on the other hand, much more decisively, Yiddish has not suddenly ceased to be a Germanic language in the Slavic language area, so it still follows the internal rules of a continental West Germanic language. The following article examines the European Yiddish dialects, as they were collected in the 1960 s within the survey of the “Language and Culture Archive of Ashkenazic Jewry” (LCAAJ), in the mirror of a West Germanic dialect continuum. Looking at just one random area of morphosyntax as an example, we can see how analytical tendencies of Yiddish dialects fit into this continuum. A distinctive Germanic tendency is the decline of the synthetic subjunctive form in favour of analytical formations as a result of a structural remodelling of the TAM-system. Besides the analyses of the subjunctive additional evaluations of the analytic formations of the pluperfect and future are considered.

Between Fiction and Reality: The Vienna Jewish Cabaret as a Mirror of Vienna Jewish Speech

Abstract This article shows what we can learn from Vienna Jewish cabaret, so-called Jargontheater ‘jargon theater’ and the language situation of Vienna Jews at the end of the 19th century. By analyzing one of the most popular plays of this genre, we can see how structures from Yiddish dialects fused with Viennese German and what may have caused ‘Vienna Jewish speech,’ a Judeo-German city variety in the First Austrian Republic (1920s and 1930s).

Origins of Yiddish Dialects, written by Beider, Alexander. 2015

Abstract Oral transmission of the Tannaitic Hebrew double genitive vocative ribbono šella‘olam ‘Master of the Universe’ maintains the definite article in the Hebrew component of two ancient Jewish vernaculars: Jewish Neo-Aramaic and Judeo-Arabic in Djerba. The textual transmission of the phrase, changed it graphemically from the Tannaitic original רִבּוֹנוֹ שֶׁלָּעוֹלָם into medieval רִבּוֹנוֹ שֶׁל עוֹלָם. The new spelling was the source of its final formation in Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish, without the definite article. The decategorialization of this double genitive phrase from a theocentric vocative to a semantically bleached interjection in these Jewish languages, especially Yiddish, was the point of departure for its meaning and pragmatic function in nascent spoken Modern Hebrew, as evidence from Mendele’s bilingual oeuvre indicates. It may be tentatively proposed that further grammaticalization and broadening of this substrate component structure-function pairing may have led to the emergence of a new category of analogically constructed discourse markers in Modern Hebrew.

The Erasure of Hasidic Yiddish from Twentieth Century Yiddish Linguistics

Abstract Unlike other Yiddish dialects that were diminished to the point of virtual obsolescence in the decades following World War II, Hasidic Yiddish remains the dominant language for several hundred thousand Hasidic Jews across the globe. And yet, a survey of the research on Yiddish linguistics published during the second half of the 20th century does not reflect this reality. In this article, I review how the ideological underpinnings of Yiddish linguistics created and perpetuated a disciplinary preoccupation with a hypothetical standard at the expense of theoretically informative empirical studies of an evolving Yiddish dialect. Specifically, I show how linguistic chauvinism, a series of calamitous events, and historical anti-religiosity complicated by new resentments, led to the erasure of Hasidic dialects from Yiddish scholarship. Finally, I highlight significant contributions that recent empirical studies of Hasidic Yiddish are making to the field of linguistics.

Reapplying the Language Tree Model to the History of Yiddish

Abstract The article discusses several definitions of the notion of Yiddish that exist in linguistic studies. The Germanistic approach emphasizes differences between various German and Yiddish dialects. The Judeo-Centric approach, developed during the second half of the 20th century as an alternative method to that used by the Germanistic school, puts the uninterrupted chain of languages spoken by Jews in the center of its linguistic analysis. For the representatives of this school, Yiddish is a fusion language from its inception, the process they generally posit to the period when the first Jewish communities appeared in German-speaking territories. As suggested in this article, for the adequate understanding of the development of Yiddish, several notions used by the two approaches should be combined. Only the Germanistic approach provides appropriate frames for analyzing the genesis of Yiddish according to the Language Tree model. Its (re)application shows the inadequacy of certain basic positions of the Judeo-Centric Approach. Yet, several notions introduced by the proponents of the latter method still represent a major contribution in Yiddish studies. The notion of “fusion” creates an appropriate theoretical tool for studying the development of Yiddish varieties. The consideration of the uninterrupted chain of languages spoken by Jews sheds light on factors that were invisible within the Germanistic approach. The article also suggests a classification of languages spoken by Jews useful for the analysis of their historical development.

Yiddish Proto-Vowels and German Dialects

This paper suggests a series of schemas aimed at eliminating the main drawbacks of existing schemas of Yiddish proto-vowels. It attempts to complete the schemas developed by other scholars mainly in two aspects, proposing derivational rules that (1) account for Proto-Western Yiddish and its sub-dialects and (2) explain the relation between the vowels of the German donor language and Yiddish proto-vowels. This analysis shows the impossibility of constructing a schema of a single Proto-Yiddish as a historical reality and thus implies the polygenesis of the system of stressed vowels and diphthongs of Yiddish. Proto-Western Yiddish and Proto-Eastern Yiddish had no common, specifically Jewish ancestor. The comparative analysis of various German dialects and Yiddish proposed here provides the basis for determining the regions (East Franconia and Bohemia, respectively) where the stressed vocalism of the Yiddish dialects likely appeared and the corresponding time period (the 14th–15th centuries).

The Pronunciation of 'Argentinean Standard Yiddish'

Modern Yiddish is usually divided into several subgroups: the Eastern European Yiddish dialects, divided at least into a Northern and a Southern variety, and the so-called ‘Standard Yiddish’ (= StY). I will not discuss in detail the problem of the standardization but I would like to point out that I plead for a differentiation into subgroups when talking about the phonetics of ‘StY’, for there are striking differences in pronunciation in the new Diaspora all over the world.

THE CHILDREN OF HETH AND THE EGO OF LINGUISTICS: A STORY OF SEVEN YIDDISH MERGERS

The accepted history of Yiddish, based on historical and literary records, places its origin in the Rhineland, in the far west of the German speaking area. The Germanic parts of Yiddish, however, point to dialects much further east. This has been explained through a ‘Principle of Exchangeability’, whereby ongoing contact with other German dialects on the long trek eastward obliterated earlier forms. Unambiguous evidence may be gleaned from the Semitic elements in Yiddish, which have no European cognates. Modern Yiddish dialects show no trace of the old Rhineland merger of Semitic/h/with/h/. The standard model explains this by reversal of merger, and invokes additional reversals to explain the modern Yiddish oppositions/s/vs./Š/, and five long vs. five short vowels in Semitic-origin items. Reversal of unconditioned merger is untenable. Where seven such reversals are needed to sustain a historical model, it should be abandoned. The comparative method, which takes empirically confirmed modern data as its point of departure, is superior to the writing of language history as a corollary of external or literary history.