A Language Without An Army Regulates Itself by Rakhmiel Peltz A chapter in the book, Germanic Standardizations - Past and Present, eds., Deumert, A. and Vandenbussche, W., Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2003, pp. 435-457. 1. Background Yiddish is the language associated with Ashkenazic Jews, whose settlement became significant in Germanic lands in about the ninth century. Ashkenaz, in fact, is a Hebrew name, which appears in the book of Genesis. It was applied in Jewish texts of medieval times to Germanic territory in Europe. By the thirteenth century, some Ashkenazic Jews moved eastward, settling in Poland, Ukraine, Belorussia, the Baltic lands, Hungary and Romania. By the eighteenth century a majority of the Ashkenazic Jews were living in East Central Europe. Because of persecutions and repeated forced expulsions from Germanic areas, as well as invitations from local Polish royalty to help develop their frontier areas, the majority of Jews settled in Poland and Lithuania. Further emigration, in largest numbers at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, brought Yiddish from Eastern Europe to the Western hemisphere, Palestine (later the state of Israel), Western Europe, South Africa, and Australia. The travels of this language and culture provide a unique case, in which the locations which spawned the language and nurtured it in its early years (i.e. in Germany, Alsace, and the Netherlands, territories in which non-Jewish neighbours spoke Germanic tongues) were different from the areas in which Yiddish culture matured (mostly among Slavic speakers in East Central and Eastern Europe). Moreover, the fate of Yiddish was sealed by the extermination of the residents of its East European heartland by the Nazis during World War II. Thus, although the elaboration of a modern Yiddish culture took place on Slavic territory, the activities of this culture, both old and new, were laid to rest by the descendants of those German speakers present at the birth of the language. Yiddish still exists in the twenty-first century, mostly in the lands to which Ashkenazic Jews emigrated at the end of the nineteenth century. The largest groups of speakers include members of religiously observant, traditional communities in Israel and the United States, often deriving from East European centres decimated by the Nazis. The major efforts at conscious Yiddish language planning blossomed between the World Wars in Eastern Europe, in Jewish secular, cultural, academic, and political institutions, modelled after analogous non-Jewish European organizations concerned with social and cultural planning. However, continuity of these initiatives, as well as opposition to standardization, has proceeded in the years after World War II, despite the shrinking number of institutions that might enact the recommended changes. Within the context of a discussion of standardization of Germanic languages, the Yiddish language distinguishes itself because of its historical, geographic, cultural, and religious individuality. Furthermore, its modern cultural growth has been marked by conflicting attitudes on the part of its speakers toward the functioning of modern German as a source language for linguistic developments in Yiddish. Yiddish evolved as a linguistic and cultural system resulting from the fusion of elements modified from several stock languages. The main components of Yiddish are Germanic, Semitic (derived from Hebrew and Aramaic) and Slavic (mostly derived from Belorussian, Czech, Polish and Ukrainian). Although the Germanic component is predominant in spoken and written Yiddish, the Slavic component is integrated in the language, including in constructions that are Germanic in form but modelled after Slavic usage. Within traditional European society, Yiddish functioned as a vernacular in a diglossic relationship with loshn koydesh ('the sacred tongue') Hebrew. Yiddish was the language of conversation in the family and community, as well as the language in which the sacred texts were studied, while Hebrew was the language of prayer and the language in which the Bible was read. The Aramaic of the Talmud, studied, discussed and analyzed by Ashkenazic scholars, adds another language to the equation. Such functional distribution is common to the language make-up of Jewish communities the world over. Accordingly, Yiddish can be compared, in regards to its social and cultural role, with other members of the family of Jewish languages.1 Such a comparison would also make more sense, when approaching questions of standardization, than to compare Yiddish with other Germanic languages. Within East European Jewish society, many Jews used Slavic languages, such as Polish, Russian, or Ukrainian, in addition to Yiddish and Hebrew. Thus, the language scene is complex, even for the ordinary Jewish woman or man. Dialectal differentiation has been studied in great detail, especially for Yiddish in East Central and Eastern Europe, but also for areas in Western Europe such as the Alsace, Germany, Holland, and Switzerland (Katz 1983; Herzog et al. 1969; Herzog 1992, 1998, 2001). In fact, the use of East European dialects and their perceived contrastive identification were carried over to the USA and continue to influence standardization activities. Although there was dialect levelling because of intermarriage in the lands of immigration, certain stereotypes and symbols of prestige and derision continued to be associated with specific dialects (Gutmans 1957; Jochnowitz 1969; Peltz 1998: 162-170; Schaechter 1986: 285-295). Language planning for Yiddish was indeed coloured by many languages and dialects as well as by their numerous contrastive roles in Jewish society. However, as is the case in the establishment of standards for all languages, the dominating factors at play are always in the realm of attitude towards language, on the part of both speakers of the language and outsiders to the cultural group. Attitudinal concerns are especially relevant to members of minority groups in a society. Ashkenazic Jews were always minorities in the countries in which they resided. Anti-Semitism in these societies helped to foster feelings of biological and cultural inferiority within the Jewish population. Gilman (1986), in his treatment of Yiddish in Germany, associates the hatred of Jews by non-Jews, as well as Jewish self-hatred, with the idea of Yiddish as the secret language of the Jews. Although the Yiddish language was central to Jewish identity, it also symbolized everything that was negative and despoiled about the Jews. Such twisted associations coloured the relationship between Yiddish and German from before the time of Emancipation.2 The negative attitude to Yiddish was accepted by non-Jews, German Jews, and then internalized by East European Jews. The German language was viewed as an authentic language, complete and pure, whereas Yiddish was merely a corruption of German, a marginal woman's language.3 This is but one of many historical relationships that connected modern Yiddish to its stock languages and which undoubtedly influenced both Yiddish speakers and language planners. 2. The Arena for Yiddish Language Planning In this treatment of Yiddish standardization within a comparative framework of Germanic standardizations, it is necessary to situate the processes of Yiddish standardization within the history of the language and culture. I use the term "standardization" to connote centripetal changes in language use, both consciously orchestrated in the society and due to the day-to-day social forces operating in the community. The former actions I call "language planning" and the latter changes constitute part of language history. Both aspects of standardization influence each other. From the early days of sociolinguistic inquiry it has been clear that there is no linguistics that is not socially motivated, and, indeed, the social forces that synchronically influence language change are the same factors that account for linguistic diachrony (Weinreich et al. 1968). Before there were committees on Yiddish orthography and terminology, centuries-old processes of making oneself understood in speaking and writing had developed in Jewish society from Amsterdam to Odessa. This led to the evolution of standard ways of expressing oneself throughout the Yiddish-speaking, Yiddish-writing, and Yiddish-reading society. Uniformity co-existed with diversity, based on such factors as geographic location, gender, socioeconomic class, and register. In this exploration, I will attempt to identify and analyze some of the means by which standards for Yiddish were established. Since the language changed and its functions were elaborated as Jews experienced their minority status in varied lands and under an assortment of rulers, it was rare, with the exception of the Soviet Union between the world wars, that there was governmental support for Yiddish standardization. Consequently, the individual and spontaneous societal regulators of language use took on greater importance. It is relatively easy to prescribe standards, but it is a challenge to bring about implementation. Yiddish attracted skilled standardizers, but historical and social circumstances made it difficult to foster acceptance of the recommendations. Language planning for Yiddish made tremendous gains with the establishment of Yiddish-language-based academic research institutions in the 1920s in Minsk, in the Belorussian SSR and Kiev, in the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union as well as in Vilna in Poland. All of these efforts led to the establishment of active teams of researchers, with Yiddish language planning as one of their primary goals. The earliest and most short-lived initiative was that of the Yiddish section of the Institute for Belorussian Culture in 1921, which exhibited its major language-related activity from 1925 until the death of its leader Mordkhe Veynger (1890-1929). Its successor, the Institute for Jewish Proletarian Culture of the Belorussian Academy of Sciences produced little serious normative work in the 1930s. Kiev, on the other hand, demonstrated a relatively continuous effort, starting in 1926, at the philological section of the Jewish cultural branch of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (until 1939). This work was headed first by Nokhm Shtif (1879-1933) until his death, and then by Elye Spivak (1890-1952). Yiddish language planning was discussed in the Kiev linguistics journal Di yidishe shprakh 'The Yiddish Language' (later called Afn shprakhfront 'On the Language Front') from 1927-1939. In the journal specialized terminologies were published, along with detailed orthographic rules as well as discussions of syntactic and stylistic recommendations for a standardized Yiddish. In the years between the world wars, the heyday for Yiddish language planning and language and culture research, the circumstances for Yiddish were not that different from that of its neighbouring languages, Ukrainian and Belorussian. The strictest years of repression vis-à-vis the views of Moscow and Russian hegemony, the years of the Cultural Revolution (1929-1932), attempted to cut off the nationality planners from all contact and communication with their "bourgeois" compatriots who were living and working on the other side of the iron curtain, mostly in Poland, but also in the Baltic states and the USA (cf. Peltz 1985; Peltz and Kiel 1985; Estraikh 1999). The debates at the conferences and in the journals attempted to free the language from its religious and traditional elements, to foster economy in word and phrase structure as well as in the alphabet, thus acquiring a revolutionary appearance. Other topics of debate concerned the question of whether to resist or to succumb to the influence of Russian, especially at the level of the sentence, and whether to unify the language with post-revolutionary Soviet languages or whether to maintain Yiddish-specific traditions. YIVO (Der yidisher visnshaftlekher institut 'The Institute for Jewish Research', also known as 'The Jewish Scientific Institute') was founded in Vilna in 1925; it was proposed by N. Shtif and organized by a collective of scholars and community leaders headed by Max Weinreich (1894-1969). Its philological section was largely devoted to issues of language planning. In 1938-39 until the outbreak of World War II, YIVO published a language planning monthly, Yidish far ale 'Yiddish for All', edited by Noyekh Prilutski (1882-1941) in Warsaw. Re-established in New York City during the Second World War with its former research director, the language historian and Yiddish language planner Max Weinreich at its helm, its only journal devoted to linguistics, Yidishe shprakh ('Yiddish Language', 1941-86) carried the subtitle: "a journal devoted to the problems of standard Yiddish". Edited first by the grammarian Yudl Mark (1897- 1975) and in its latter years by the language planner Mordkhe Schaechter (1927-), most recommendations reflected the opinion of the respective editor. In recent years, Schaechter, the leading authority of all time on Yiddish standardization and language history, continues his recommendations in the quarterly Afn shvel 'On the Threshold', which he edits for the New York League for Yiddish. If one focuses on one typical area of language planning, that is, the compilation and creation of terminological lists in specific areas of endeavour, the concentration of activity between the two world wars and the geographic distribution of activity in Eastern Europe are clearly demonstrated: starting with the Terminology Committee of the Association of Yiddish Teachers (Vilna, Russia, later Poland, 1915-1921), followed by the Yiddish School- and Folk-Education Association (Lodzh, 1917-?), the Orthographic and Terminological Committee of Shulbukh 'School book' (Warsaw, 1917-?), Terminological Committee of the Cultural Conference in Warsaw (delegates from Warsaw, Vilna, Bialostok, Lodzh, and Shedlets, 1919), Central Dinezon School Committee (Warsaw 1920-21), The Mefitsey-Haskole 'Disseminators of Education' Boys School Terminology Committee (Vilna, 1920-?), The Commissariat for Jewish Affairs (Moscow, 1918-23), Kultur-Lige 'The League for Culture' (Kiev, Ukraine, 1919-late 1920s), Terminology Committee of ORT (Kiev, 1919-?), Philological Committee of the Central Jewish Education Department (Moscow, 1920-?), Yiddish Philological Committee of the Central Jewish Education Bureau (Kharkov, Ukraine, 1921-1925?), Jewish Section of the Institute for White Russian Culture (Minsk , Belorussia, 1924-?), Philological Section of the Institute for Jewish Proletarian Culture (Kiev, Ukraine,1927-39), Consulting Office for Terminology (Freidorf, Soviets of Crimea and the southern Ukraine, 1932-?), Terminology Initiatives of the Jewish Autonomous Region (Birobidzhan, 1934-36?), Philological Section of the Yivo Institute for Jewish Research (Vilna, 1925-41), Terminology Group connected to the new modern Yiddish-English English-Yiddish Dictionary (Stanford, CA. and New York, 1966), and the Terminology Working Group at Yivo (New York, 1970-?). For an overview see Kahn (1972, 1973, 1980). The above list reveals the striking surge of activity starting with World War I and largely finishing a quarter of a century later with the outbreak of World War II. This was a period characterized by rapid building of new cultural institutions, largely in the secular sphere of Jewish life in Eastern Europe. Almost all of the early initiatives in corpus planning were launched to serve the new schools. Although the majority of schools remained religious and used Yiddish as the medium of instruction (since Yiddish had to serve as a mediator for the languages of the holy books, Hebrew and Aramaic), secular schools arose, which taught all subjects, Jewish and secular, from Jewish history to physics in Yiddish or modern Hebrew. Secularization of Jewish society and politics had started in Germany at the end of the eighteenth century and in Eastern Europe in the mid-nineteenth century. The vast majority of the Jews lived in the Russian empire, wherein much public restriction of cultural expression in Yiddish and modern Hebrew pervaded. Jewish society had hardly ever before taught secular subjects. Following the schools came the advanced research institutes with their philological sections that aimed at providing Yiddish terms for all aspects of Jewish life, from technological work to a legal justice system. All of these budding efforts were eliminated by the Nazi extermination of the Jews and their institutions in Eastern Europe, the major heartland of Jewish life in the world at that time in history. 3. Norm Selection During the history of Yiddish language planning, we can distinguish the concept of klal-shprakh 'standard language' from kulturshprakh 'language of culture'. The concept of klal-shprakh addresses the problem of regional variation (M. Vaynraykh 1950; Mark 1978). klal-shprakh is the one language system that is on a higher level and unites all dialects and communities. The planning of klal-shprakh is squarely placed against the reality of spoken language (Mark 1978). The earliest example of a written klal-shprakh is the standardized literary kulturshprakh of pre-nineteenth century Yiddish literature (Vaynraykh 1950). Vaynraykh (same as Weinreich in English) admits that there is only stylistic variation in the klal-shprakh since regional variation has been eliminated, although he is willing to accept dialectal specificities of the lexicon. However, he does not extend such openness to syntax or phonology. Whereas the development of klal-shprakh is targeted towards the language of spoken and written communication that can be understood in all geographic areas, the concept of kulturshprakh refers to the goal of broadening the functions of a language to cover all realms of human activity and thought, in a multitude of societal niches and institutions (Vaynraykh 1950). The practical record of language planning shows that once societal functions have been decided upon by status planning, the corpus planning process is usually concerned with orthography and lexicon (terminologies). Let us study the role of the dialects in the centuries-long process of moulding the klal-shprakh. The first literary standard, shraybshprakh alef 'written language A', which was based on Western and Central European Yiddish dialects, held for literature created in the West and was also applied to literature created in Eastern Europe until the turn of the nineteenth century. We do not possess enough information to outline the changing relationship of the klal-shprakh to the dialects of Western Yiddish over the centuries. When turning to Eastern Europe, it is striking that prestige and tradition maintained a written standard that did not correspond to the Eastern dialects. Moreover, in times when Yiddish publishing centres existed in Italian and Dutch territories (during the sixteenth and seventeenth century), published works contained lexical items from the local Western Yiddish. No study has yet identified the role of local publishers in determining the printed language throughout Yiddish literary history. In Eastern Europe, where cultural differentiation of Yiddish reached its height, three definite dialect areas developed: Northeastern Yiddish, Central Yiddish and Southeastern Yiddish. It is thought that the varieties of Yiddish brought from the West became consolidated in several rather uniform large dialect areas. Colonial German, on the other hand, although experiencing some dialect levelling in Eastern Europe, exhibited mostly isolated dialect islands (Sprachinseln) that reflected the place of origin of the settlers. Whereas German seemed to maintain its diversity, Yiddish in Eastern Europe developed relative uniformity from previous diversity. This "Jewish organization of East European cultural space" (U. Weinreich 1958a: 35) into new dialectal regions also created a uniform literary language that was applied to all of the regions.4 All of this happened without the aid of a state government or a school system that taught the language (U. Weinreich 1958a: 32-37). The Northeastern dialect is generally considered to have higher prestige, in part because the corresponding region of Lithuania, Northern Poland and Belorussia is the area known for Torah and Talmud learning. The Southeastern region represents the greater population centre. The writing system of the klal-shprakh does not favour one dialect. In fact, Birnbaum (1954: 70) (1891-1990) dispelled the argument that the symbols of the alphabet are based on one dialectal pronunciation or a regional spelling tradition. We should note that Lifshits (1829-1878) did attempt to change traditional spelling to fit the pronunciation of Southeastern Yiddish in his dictionary (1869, 1876). In the realm of gender assignments, morphology and syntax, compromises were made in forming the klal-shprakh. Most speakers use three genders and it is this system that is found in the standard language, notwithstanding the presence of a seemingly two-gender-system in the more prestigious Northeastern Yiddish. Likewise, we find the dative and accusative pronoun forms differentiated in the standard but not in Northeastern Yiddish. In addition, we observe in the modern standard the preservation of zayn ('to be') as an auxiliary verb in the past tense, in contrast to its disappearance in favor of hobn ('to have') in Northeastern Yiddish. This tendency is accounted for by the model from shraybshprakh alef as well as the fact that most of the modern literary masters hailed from the South. The pivotal figure is Sholem-Yankev Abramovitsh (1836-1917), known as the grandfather of modern Yiddish literature, who was born in Kapulye in Belorussia (Northeastern dialect), but adopted southern linguistic traditions after moving to Ukraine (Southeastern dialect). However, the grammar of the more populous centres of the speech community was not always reckoned with in establishing the modern standard. For example, the declension for case of the reflexive pronoun did not enter the klal-shprakh. Neither did the pronoun alternative ets (second person plural) and enk (second person possessive plural). Schaechter (1977: 38-39) points to some dialect-based differences in the modern literary standard according to genre, but mostly alternating between the Central and Southeastern dialects in contemporary times. The powerful centripetal tendency of written standards, although institutionally based in literary and publishing efforts over a rather long period of time, was established before the days of committees and conferences (starting for Yiddish with the Czernowitz Language Conference in 1908; cf. Fishman 1981a; Goldsmith 1987). In later times, even if a language planner favoured the Northeastern dialect (cf., for example, Mark 1978), he would not dare to attempt to reverse the ingrained standardization that favoured the other dialects. Yiddish language planning efforts met strongest opposition in the recommendations for orthoepia. In this case, the first modern language planners were from the Northeast. The later southern critics objected, claiming that, "there is no standard pronunciation in Yiddish" (Birnbaum 1979: 100). Kats (1994: 233-35) demonstrated that the arguments for a Northeastern dialect-based pronunciation of Yiddish have their roots in the Hebrew reading traditions of the Torah and prayer book, as far back as the thirteenth century; yet, the opposing arguments for the southern tradition are also based on old evidence, going back to the fourteenth century. In actuality, although without formal decrees and studies, the new cultural institutions of the twentieth century, especially the schools, largely implemented Northeastern pronunciation. This system was favoured by planners, such as M. Weinreich, U. Weinreich, and Mark. The main exception to this trend was the language of modern Yiddish theatre, which had its roots in Romania and developed a Southeastern pronunciation. Prilutski (1927) described the Volhynian variant of this dialect as the theatrical standard, and suggested it as the standard for pronunciation. We have no empirical data to show whether this standard was widely accepted, even in the theatre. The only written report based on empirical data for spoken language refers to the American Yiddish radio. Gutmans (1958) found a tendency toward Northeastern Yiddish, but no uniformity within the speech of radio personalities who derived from non-Northeastern dialect areas. As an aside, regarding the richness supplied by dialectal pronunciation to the literary language, we find the use of dialect-specific rhymes, even when they are non-native to a poet (Goldberg 1986). To this day, Yiddish cultural leaders the world over have not expressed consensus on the necessity for a standardized pronunciation. Soviet Yiddish language planners, for example, represented all positions. Opposition to introducing one dialect pronunciation into the Yiddish schools centred on arguments that pointed to the possible alienation of the children from the dialect of their home, or the possible difficulty in understanding the dialogue of certain literary characters. Zaretski (1929: 26) delineated a maximal and minimal approach to standardized pronunciation. The former would apply to theatre performances and formal occasions. In the school, he recommended the latter, using the standard for dictation and reading, but not speaking (Peltz and Kiel 1985: 294-295). In the second half of the twentieth century, in Yiddish supplementary schools and universities in the United States, where most of the students did not come from Yiddish-speaking homes, it was easier to introduce one standard pronunciation, based on the Northeastern dialect (with the exceptions mentioned below). We possess the least information regarding the influence of standard language on spoken Yiddish in face-to-face interactions. Fishman (1981b: 741-43) suggested that Northeastern pronunciation is indeed a prestigious standard, and as situations tend toward the more formal, one can observe selective realization of Northeastern vocalism by speakers of other dialects. Moreover, he argued that some aspects of Northeastern-specific pronunciation have more prestige than others. Documentation of such trends is needed. We must point to the remarkably subtle and consensus-seeking developments that were subject to standardizing influences within the speech community. In these developments one would include the written language conventions of the writers of belles lettres, the language of instruction in the Yiddish schools in all parts of the globe, and the language of performance.5 Most notably, even though adaptation of the Northeastern dialect as a standard of pronunciation for the kulturshprakh was widespread in the twentieth century, the pronunciation of the /ey/ vowel in such words as breyt 'bread' and teyre 'Torah' was consciously rejected in such efforts, favouring the /oy/ vowel of the other Eastern dialects. In summary, modern Eastern Yiddish developed a written standard that morphosyntactically was closest to the Central and Southeastern dialects. Cultural institutions, if they accepted a spoken standard, would follow the grammar of those same dialects, but pronunciation was closest to the Northeastern dialect. We will examine in detail the language sources to which modern Yiddish turned for planning of the lexicon. Yiddish, a fusion language that draws on non-Germanic sources, distinguishes itself from most other Germanic languages in this regard. 4. Norm Codification Accompanying much of the long history of Yiddish language and culture is a record of the production of guides to the language that introduce the outsider to the linguistic norms, teach the language to Jews and non-Jews, and help to regulate usage for those in the community who accept these standards. These tools include glosses to Hebrew and Aramaic texts that probably date back to the thirteenth century and are linked to a tradition of taytsh or Bible translation (Katz 1986: 28-9). The roots of Yiddish lexicography continue in Bible concordances and multi-lingual thesauruses in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These guides had a variety of uses, including introducing Christians to the Jewish religious sources in Hebrew via Yiddish glosses, aiding the work of Christian missionaries in converting Jews, helping Jews understand their own texts, and presenting scholarly works on Yiddish etymology (Katz 1986). However, it is largely at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century that authors of dictionaries, terminological lists, and grammars started to serve the needs of the Jewish community's expanding functions in Yiddish. These tools were useful both in learning and teaching the language as well as for the scholarly investigation of the structure and history of Yiddish. They made use of the theory and methodology being used for the investigation of European languages at the time, especially for German and Russian (cf. the work of the Prague School). Geared to the Yiddish-speaking audience, these newer tools served the cultural construction in Yiddish. Among other things, this cultural construction consisted of the building of institutions based on the vernacular Yiddish, which would serve the nationalistic goals of the Jews: youth movements of various political persuasion, a vast and varied daily press, schools and training institutions at all levels, theatre, film, and a vast literary apparatus. The early grammars that were developed reflected the structure of nineteenth century grammars at first, and showed an emphasis on phonology (for example, Reyzen 1920). Next, Yiddish grammar, for the only time, was subjected to a theoretical analysis that approached the relationship between form and meaning, including an initial attempt to start with divisions of semantic territory, as well as relationships between parts of phrases and sentences (Zaretski 1926). Later in the twentieth century, texts such as Mark (1978 Gramatik fun der yiddisher klal-shprakh 'Grammar of the Yiddish klal-shprakh/standard language') reflected the self-consciousness and the more normative position taken by language planners, in presenting the rules and examples for a grammar of a standard language. During the first half of the twentieth century teaching and reference grammars were produced, including scores of instructional grammars for children in the secular Yiddish schools in different communities across the globe. Following are examples of the dictionaries that were created to serve the Yiddish-speaking and Yiddish-reading audience in Eastern Europe, as well as in the lands of emigration, especially the United States. In the nineteenth century Lifshits (1869, 1876) published the lexicon of eastern Yiddish that up until then had largely been presented in print in its older western form. By the twentieth century, the lexicographers could turn to the vast, published works of modern literature (for example, Harkavy 1928, 1988). In the second half of the twentieth century, the consciousness of rules for a standard language motivated the lexicographer not only to describe the lexicon, but also to prescribe neologisms which function in the new semantic territories of the language (U. Weinreich 1968). In addition, work was begun on a comprehensive, defining dictionary with etymologies and examples from written and spoken usage. Four volumes, representing perhaps a quarter of the lexicon, were published (Mark 1961, 1966, 1971, 1980). The production of specialized terminologies arose out of the newly organized societal functions for Yiddish after World War I.6 The collecting work, research, and editing were done by individuals and teams, largely organized by the research institutes in Kiev, Minsk, and Vilna. Much of this work was cut short by the Nazi onslaught on these communities. We will neglect the remnant archival collections which never reached published form, most of which can be found at the Yivo in New York (Kahn 1980). However, a survey of some of the published terminologies will reflect the diverse world of Jewish life before World War II that was in need of a guide to organized, specialized vocabularies in Yiddish: geography, mathematics, law, chemistry, physics, politics, technology, artisans' terms, trade, card playing, carpentry, colours, wagon parts, war, theatre, credit cooperatives, and metallurgy (Shmeruk 1961; Bibliography of the Publications of Yivo 1943; Slutski 1928-1929; Terminologye far metalurgye kulturshprakh 1930). Focusing on the investigation of one topic in one society, the process and standards of terminology planning can illustrate the need to serve new social functions. Work on legal and administrative terminology received almost continuous attention from 1925 to 1941 in the Soviet Union. Although rabbinic courts had existed for centuries, a non-religious criminal and court system along with regional administrative soviets, run by the state, but in Yiddish for Jewish residents, was instituted. The institutions themselves were treated with ambivalence, both by the central Russian powers and the local Ukrainian and Belorussian leaders, on the one hand, who manipulated them for their own political motivations, and the Jewish public, on the other hand, who often avoided them in favour of the majority institutions. Nevertheless, by 1931 there were 46 Yiddish courts in Ukraine, 10 in Belorussia, and 11 in the Russian republic. In 1936 the Yiddish court in Kiev handled 1175 cases. This legal system required legal codes in Yiddish, as well as police, investigators, lawyers, and judges, who could perform functions in the language (Pinkus 1971). The first terminology that was published in Minsk covered legal terms. The list of only 540 terms included 70 terms using Hebraic elements, but the overwhelming number of terms derived from the Germanic component of Yiddish (Institut far vaysruslendisher kultur 1926). In 1931, the committee on legal terminology of the Philological Section of the Kiev Institute, consisting of linguists, lawyers, and judges, reported that it had accepted 1000 terms. Although the list was not published, their stated principles for word formation were revealing: the understandable "word of the masses"; no hazy, broad terms; accepted internationalisms are preferred to newly created Yiddish terms; Ukrainian or Russian terms that Jews use widely, if there are not adequate Yiddish or international terms; words of Hebrew origin that are broadly accepted, but not "archaic remnants" of religious life; in creating new words, to avoid as much as possible a copy of the Russian term (Pekar 1931; Report 1932). The terminology was not published until 1941. As with most planning work in the Soviet Union a multiplicity of standards was followed, perhaps because of fear of being associated with a single standard that might fall out of favour. The linguist Spivak discussed the guiding standards, which included folkshprakh ('language of the folk') and the "rooted masntimlekhe ('of the masses') terms of the Hebraic component" for new word formation, but avoidance of the "archaic" (Spivak 1939; Spivak 1941). As with corpus planning for most languages, orthography and the lexicon have also received the most attention in Yiddish language planning. Orthography galvanized the interest of both the Yiddish planners and the literate audience that responded to their recommendations. The various modern spelling schemes all considered the same myriad principles and actually agreed on most points. However, the planners chose to emphasize the differences between the schemes. Because most spelling systems are historically conservative, the similarities between the orthography of texts of early Yiddish literature and the Yivo rules of 1937 are striking (Shekhter 1973; Shekhter 1999). In reviewing the recommendations of the orthographic rules published in the twentieth century, we note a limited number of principles that are considered (Shekhter 1999; Di sovetishe yidishe ortografye 1932). Firstly, spelling should approach the pronunciation or phonemic system; yet, it must also be based on morphology. Spelling should also reflect previous traditions, and indicate somewhat the etymology or source language system of the form. In addition, the spelling standard of the klal-shprakh must be above the level of any one dialect. If the work of the "Radical School" (Schaechter 1977: 55), the Soviet orthographic planners, is examined, the competing principles are evident. Naturalization of the spelling of words of the Hebrew component (instead of following the age-old spelling of Hebrew words and those of the Hebraic component of Yiddish, using rather the letter representations for most vowels, as in the Germanic and Slavic component words) sacrificed etymological concerns for phonemic concerns. The elimination of the word final position letter forms which were present in all older Yiddish and Hebrew texts, illustrated the triumph of another issue, economy, over historicity.7 The guides to Yiddish usage, which arose mostly at the beginning of the twentieth century, were produced with a surge of concentrated energy to serve the newly expanded needs of a minority that was filling in communication niches within newly constructed social and cultural organization. Sadly these institutions were nipped in the bud by the Nazi destruction of the world of East European Jews. However, the instructional and gate-keeping tools: the grammars, dictionaries, terminological lists, and spelling guides remained for the more limited use of future generations. 5. Norm Elaboration The methods that were followed in expanding the societal and cultural applications of the standard after World War I reflected processes that had been initiated largely in the realm of literary production in the nineteenth century. Component awareness - the sensitivity of speakers and writers to the supposed source of the word or phrase (i.e. the stock language from which it was derived and the component to which it belongs: Germanic, Slavic, Semitic) - and manipulation have stood at the centre of the stylistic history of Yiddish, not only in lexical choices in belles lettres, journalism, or private letters, but also in recommendations for stylistic use and neologisms made by the planners. In addition, more subtle recognition of componential influence on syntax, idioms, and overall textual structure and style has been discussed (Shtif 1930; Zaretski 1931; Shekhter 1986; Kats 1993). M. Vaynraykh (1973 vol.1: 33), who placed the fusion of components at the crux of his language history, underscored the component awareness of speaker and language researcher alike. Speakers and moulders of the kulturshprakh have demonstrated tendencies both toward and away from German, Hebrew, and the Slavic languages. At different times in the history of Yiddish literature, the componential choices that the authors selected helped to characterize the kulturshprakh, and to influence the nature of the standard language used in different social institutions. In old Yiddish literature, two styles have been noted: a resemblance to the literary German of the time and a word-for-word Germanic translation of the Hebrew Bible. Up until the nineteenth century, it was rare to see words of Slavic origin, other than khotsh 'although' or nebekh 'a pity,' even in texts originating in Eastern Europe. Yet, there were stylistic opportunities for a generous berth for Hebrew, such as mixed language chancery texts (U. Weinreich 1958b) or the portions of Yiddish correspondence that were whole Hebrew (not the integrated Hebraic component of Yiddish). The memoirs of Glikl of Hameln (Kaufmann 1896), a personal document written in Hamburg and Metz between 1690 and 1720, and not intended for publication, illustrate the author's remarkable capability in manipulating both the Germanic and Hebraic components. In contemporary times, the stylistic differentiation of written and spoken Yiddish remained. Written Yiddish often leaned toward daytshmerish ('the cultivation of new High German as a standard)', a development of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. In daytshmerish, we are not dealing with the stylistic flavouring of the Germanic component, but with borrowing from a modern language which is derived from a stock language of Yiddish and which carries cultural prestige. The position of the twentieth century planners was generally vos vayter fun daytsh ('as far from German as possible'). The rationale was to assert the autonomy of Yiddish and to allow for the expression of the historical Germanic component only (Peltz 1997). However, there were planners who recognized the need for new borrowings from German (so-called "necessary Germanisms", cf. Mark 1964; examples include lage 'state of being/condition'; oysgabe 'edition'; oysgelasn 'wanton, licentious'; oysdruk 'expression'). Schaechter (1969) demonstrated that during the development of the second literary standard, shraybshprakh beyz ('literary language B'), in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, if the major dialects disagreed, New High German acted as the "hidden standard". The writer Y. Y. Trunk (1887-1961) recalled in his memoirs that at the turn of the twentieth century, when he brought his first writings to the literary master Y. L. Peretz (1852-1915), Peretz erased Trunk's choice of the word for 'meadow' from the Slavic component lonke and substituted the New High German Wiese (Dawidowicz 1967: 303-4). In general, the interest in the Slavic component came late, both for the writers of the literary language and the linguist planners, and exhibited zigzags. In the nineteenth century, the stylistic innovator for Yiddish, Mendl Lefin (1749-1826), in his Bible translations, followed the spoken language, including the broad use of the Slavic and Hebraic components (Shmeruk 1964). In each decision that favours one component, the representation of a second component must suffer. In this case, representation of the Germanic component decreased. Later in that century, the reverse trend occurred in the literary language: away from Slavic. M. Vaynraykh's (1928: 334-351) study of the succeeding editions of Abramovitsh's Dos kleyne mentshele ('The little person'), from its debut of modern Yiddish literature in 1864 through 1879 and 1907, found a consistent displacement of words of the Slavic component by words of the Germanic and Hebraic components. Abramovitsh's developing aesthetic sense indicated that a decrease in the Slavic component was a sign of refinement (cf. Miron 1973; Weinreich 1980; Kerler 1999; Estraikh 1999). Thus, the language planning process between the World Wars could draw on multifarious sources from the dialects and the components. These traditions supported the short-lived efforts of the planners in the new societal niches, be they a Montessori school, a high school physics class, or the new film industry, all in Yiddish.8 Most resistant to planning recommendations was the linguistically conservative daily press that emerged in full force at the beginning of the twentieth century. The competing standards during the planning process of the new kulturshprakh can best be illustrated by the language planner Shtif's guidelines for the Soviet revolutionary society (inauguration of the language planning journal, Di yidishe shprakh, 1927). The ideal kulturshprakh was to apply to diverse situations, such as newspapers, teacher conferences, the business office, translations, and popular science books. Shtif offered three language styles from which to draw. The "living folkshprakh" was defined as both the living language of the older generations and the written language up to the writer Sholem Aleichem (1859-1916), obviously a mixed bag. The new literary language was represented by Shtif's favorite writer, Dovid Bergelson (1884-1952). The "actual kulturshprakh" was the language of the press, and was generally rejected as a guide, since it was subject to too much foreign influence in the lexicon, in calques of phrases, and in sentence structure. The folkshprakh had its limitations, since it lacked terminology regarding contemporary technology and was laden with expressions of traditional religion. The literary language was too individualistic. Thus, no one source is used; planning involved mixing and matching. The planners considered a variety of levels of language use for any given normative question. In this regard, M. Vaynraykh (1941) made recommendations in relation to the influence of American English at the time of the launching of Yivo's language planning journal in New York, Yidishe shprakh. To the lowest level of usage, "correct language," he admitted nativized forms like oysgeyn mit a meydl 'to go out with a girl' or gut op 'well off'. From the second level, kulturshprakh in America, he excluded words like "all right" but accepted terminology of institutional life, such as "assembly" or "publicity." To the highest level, the universal klal-shprakh, he only accepted new technical terms, such as "conveyor" or "subway." The theoretical basis for decisions was not clearly defined, but the planners had a kulturshprakh in mind that was stylistically differentiated, both socially and regionally. It did not represent one corpus that would apply in all situations nor in all parts of the globe. The processes of standardization and planning sometimes involved minimizing certain dialectal differences, yet at other times concentrated on drawing upon variation to meet the needs of corpus differentiation for new societal functions. 6. Norm Acceptance The amazing history of Yiddish demonstrates the innate tendency of this specific Jewish society and culture, tied together by a religious faith that provided for guided behaviour and a relatively uniform social structure, to regulate itself independently of governments and borders. This persistent minority set its own standards and established a cultural empire without a government. Modern Yiddish literature, which sprouted in the second half of the nineteenth century in Eastern Europe and then in the United States and other locations, had a tremendous influence on the spread of a standard language of culture.9 This discussion of Yiddish language planning concentrated only on situations in which planning recommendations were implemented, no matter how limited these were in time and social space. Since the organized planning processes were restricted to the years between the two World Wars and the cultural heartland of Yiddish was destroyed by the Nazis in World War II, there was no opportunity for evaluation of the acceptance and diffusion of the recommendations. Evaluation is the most essential part of the language planning process (Rubin 1971: 220; Haugen 1972: 288). Despite the absence of evaluation, the spread of a cultural standard is attested to in the remnant social niches for Yiddish after World War II, beyond the realm of literature, in the university classroom and even in the most resistant institution, the press (Shekhter 1986, 1999). 7. Recent Developments The post-World War II Yiddish-speaking communities that demonstrated population growth were the traditionally ultra-Orthodox religious ones that were oblivious to the efforts of the secular language planners and did not accept their recommendations. Correspondingly, the sectors that were cognizant of these efforts were shrinking after the War. Their younger members increasingly demonstrated language shift to the dominant language of the society, be it English, Russian, Hebrew, or Spanish. In the post-War period, the language planning effort that distinguishes itself most consistently until the present day is the work of Schaechter (in Yiddish texts, Shekhter). He has consistently discussed normative recommendations in his column, Laytish mame-loshn ('The Respectable Mother Tongue') in the journal he edits (Afn shvel). As a university instructor of Yiddish, he influenced hundreds of students to make use of standardized Yiddish. As the advisor to the Yiddish advocacy youth movement Yugntruf ('Call to the Youth', founded in 1964), Schaechter taught these generations of activists to appreciate the significance of a standardized language (see, for example, the report of Yugntruf's protest demonstration in support of standardized orthography in the press in 1970, Shekhter 1999: 41-43, 45-49). Schaechter's terminologies reflect decisions of a limited number of Yiddish cultural activists who were solicited to choose between competing alternative terms, as well as the complex usage and traditions followed throughout the history of the language. He focused on the fields of endeavour of the younger generation and the contemporary Yiddish usage that would conquer new semantic territory for the language, for example, the academic world (Schaechter 1988), pregnancy, childbirth, and early childhood (Schaechter 1990), and computers (Shekhter 2002). Since YIVO was the only planning institution to re-establish itself after the Second World War, it is not surprising that the standardized orthography that it recommended and the strong, anti-daytshmerish stand of its regulators should hold sway during the most recent period (Shekhter 1980; 1999). However, communities constantly resist organized planning efforts, and, in the 1990s, the Yiddish language community that is cognizant of standardization and planning work, experienced a challenge to the recommended positions of pre-War YIVO, both in the area of orthography (Klal-takones 1992) and the stylistic rejection of daytshmerish (Kats 1993).10 The efforts of Schaechter in response to these challenges were largely successful in maintaining the previous standards. The ability of standard Yiddish to resist the attempted undoing of corpus planning was an indication both of the earlier success of the normative activity and the lack of interest on the part of the smaller Yiddish cultural community in further changes of this nature (Peltz 1997). However, the devotion of the planners and the richness of the language's history remind us of the significance of language planning for a cultural community. The story of Yiddish is far from being over. Annotated Bibliography The vast literature on Yiddish language planning was published largely in Yiddish (see especially the serials described earlier). The following English-language sources provide unique coverage. Fishman (1981c) is the best place to start when considering Yiddish language planning in the context of the social history of the language and culture. Schaechter (1977) summarized the competing schools of thought in Yiddish language planning. In the work of Peltz (1985 and 1997), the anatomy of one planning issue in one society and its implications can be followed, as well as the attempts at undoing and redoing corpus planning at different times in the twentieth century. A book-length treatment of language planning and linguistic development for Soviet Yiddish is available (Estraikh 1999). The notion of authenticity, which has been interpreted differently by various planners, is discussed by Hutton (1993). However, for a more comprehensive treatment of the issues, one must turn to sources in Yiddish. The planner who best understood the link of organized planning to patterns in the language and its history was Reyzen (1938). He described regularities in Yiddish, exceptions and the competition that may have a role in the development of stylistic, regional, and supra-regional differentiation. But it is to the work of Shekhter that one must turn for an understanding of the long history of Yiddish standardization and planning. Shekhter's (1986) book is strongest in dealing with normative principles, especially in regard to lexical choices and neologisms. The most comprehensive account of orthographic reform can be found in Shekhter (1999). References Bibliography of the Publications of Yivo: 1925-1941. 1943. New York: Yivo. Birnbaum, S.A. 1954. "Two problems of Yiddish linguistics". In The Field of Yiddish (volume one), U. Weinreich (ed.), 63-72. New York: Linguistic Circle of New York. Birnbaum, S.A. 1979. Yiddish: A Survey and a Grammar. Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press. Dawidowicz, L.S. (ed.) 1967. The Golden Tradition: Jewish Life and Thought in Eastern Europe. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Di sovetishe yidishe ortografye. 1932. Kharkov and Kiev: Ukrmelukhenatsmindfarlag. Estraikh, G.1999. Soviet Yiddish: Language Planning and Linguistic Development. Oxford: Clarendon. Fishman, J.A. 1981a. "Attracting a following to high-culture functions for a language of everyday life: The role of the Tshernovits Language Conference in the rise of Yiddish". In Never Say Die, J.A. Fishman (ed.), 369-394. The Hague, Paris and New York: Mouton. Fishman, J.A. 1981b. "Epilogue: Contributions of the sociology of Yiddish to the general sociology of language". In Never Say Die, J.A. Fishman (ed.), 739-756. The Hague, Paris and New York: Mouton. Fishman, J.A. 1981c. "The sociology of Yiddish: A forword". In Never Say Die, J.A. Fishman (ed.), 1-97. The Hague, Paris and New York: Mouton. Gilman, S. 1986. Jewish Self-hatred: Anti-Semitism and the Hidden Language of the Jews. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Goldberg, D. 1986."Nikudat hamifgash beyn dialect lekharuz beyidish". Hasifrut 35-36: 220-227. Goldman, E. 1979 Visions, images and dreams: Yiddish filmpast and present. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press. Goldsmith, E. 1987. Modern Yiddish Culture. New York: Shapolsky and Workmen's Circle Education Department. Gutmans, T. 1958. "Di shprakh fun a yidisher radyo-stantsye in nyu-york". Yidishe shprakh 18: 65-72. Harkavy, A. 1928. Yidish-english-hebreisher veryerbukh. Second edition. New York: Hebrew Publishing. Harkavy, A. 1988. Yidish-english-habreisher verterbukh. Second edition, reprint. New York: Yivo and Schocken Books. Haugen, E. 1972. "Language planning, theory and practice". In The Ecology of Language: Essays by Einar Haugen, A.S. Dil (ed.), 287-298. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press. Herzog, M.I., Ravid, W. and Weinreich, U. (eds). 1969. The Field of Yiddish. Volume three. The Hague: Mouton. Herzog, M.I. (ed.). 1992, 1998, 2001. The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry. Three volumes. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Hoberman, J. 1992. Bridge of light: Yiddish film between two worlds. New York: Museum of Modern Art and Schocken. Hutton, C. 1993. "Normativism and the notion of authenticity in Yiddish linguistics". In The Field of Yiddish (volume five), D. Goldberg (ed.), 11-57. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. "Institut far vaysruslendisher kultur: Yidisher opteyl". 1926. Yuridishe terminologye proyekt. Minsk. Jochnowitz, G. 1968. "Bilingualism and dialect mixture among Lubavitcher Hasidic children". American Speech 43: 182-200. Kahn, L. 1972, 1973. "Yidishe terminologishe komisyes - an iberblik". Yidishe shprakh 31: 35-42; 32: 1-8. Kahn, L. 1980. "Der terminologisher oyftu fun Yivo". Yivo-bleter 46: 229-241. Kats, H-D. 1993. Tikney takones: Fragn fun yidisher stilistik. Oxford: Oksforder Yidish. Kats, H-D. 1994. "Naye gilgulim fun alte makhloykesn: Di litvishe norme un di sikhsukhim vos arum ir". Yivo-bleter (new series) 2: 205-257. Katz, D. 1983. "Zur Dialektologie des Jiddischen". In Dialektologie: Ein Handbuch zur deutschen und allgemeinen Dialektforschung, W. Besch, U. Knoop, W. Putschke, and H.E. Wiegand (eds), 1018-1041. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter. Katz, D. 1986. "On Yiddish, in Yiddish and for Yiddish: 500 years of Yiddish scholarship". In Identity and Ethos: A Festschrift for Sol Liptzin on the Occasion of his 85th Birthday, M.H. Gelber (ed.), 23-36. New York: Berne and Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Kaufmann, D. (ed.) 1896. Die Memoiren der Gluckel von Hameln. Frankfurt am Main. Kerler, D,-B, 1999. The Origins of modern literary Yiddish. Oxford: Clarendon. Klal-takones fun yidishn oysleyg. 1992. Oxford: Oksforder Yidish. Lifshits, Y.-M. 1869. Risish-yidisher verter bikh. Zhitomir. Lifshits, Y.-M. 1876. Yidesh-rusisher verter bikh. Zhitomir. Mark, Y. (ed.). 1961, 1966, 1971, 1980. Groyser verterbukh fun der yidisher shprakh. Four volumes. New York and Jerusalem: Yiddish Dictionary Committee. Mark, Y. 1964. "Kloymerishte, sfeykedike un nitslekhe daytshmerizmen". Yidishe shprakh 24: 1-19, 65-82. Mark, Y. 1978. Gramatik fun der yidisher klal-shprakh. New York: Congress for Jewish Culture. Miron, D. 1973. A Traveler Disguised: The Rise of Modern Yiddish fiction in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Schocken. Pekar, Y. 1931. "Di arbet fun der yuridisher terminologisher komisye ba der filologisher sektsye funem institut far yidisher kultur (Kiev)". Di yidishe shprakh 26-27: 87-94. Peltz, R. 1985. "The dehebraization controversy in Soviet Yiddish language planning: Standard or symbol?". In Readings in the Sociology of Jewish Languages, J.A. Fishman (ed.), 125-150. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Peltz, R. 1997. "The undoing of language planning from the vantage of cultural history: Two twentieth century Yiddish examples". In Undoing and Redoing Corpus Planning, M. Clyne (ed.), 327-356. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Peltz, R. 1998. From Immigrant to Ethnic Culture: American Yiddish in South Philadelphia. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Peltz, R. and Kiel, M. 1985. "Di yidish-imperye: The dashed hopes for a Yiddish cultural empire in the Soviet Union". In Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Soviet National Languages: Their Past, Present and Future, I.T. Kreindler (ed.), 277-309. Amsterdam: Mouton. Pinkus, B. 1971. "Yiddish-language courts and nationalities policy in the Soviet Union". Soviet Jewish Affairs 2: 40-60. Prince, E. 1987. "Sarah Gorby, Yiddish Folksinger: A Case Study of Dialect Shift". International Journal of the Sociology of Language 67: 83-116. Prilutski, N. 1927. "Di yidishe bineshprakh". Yidish teater 2: 129-144. [Report of the Philological Section: October 1931-May 1932] 1932. Afn shprakhfront 29-30: 115. Reyzen, Z. 1920. Gramatik fun der yidisher shprakh. Vilna: Sh. Shreberk. Reyzen, Z. 1938. "Norme, yoytse-min-haklal, gramatishe dubletn". Yidish far ale 6-7: 171-182. Roskes, D.-H. 1974. "Yidishe shraybshprakhn in 19tn y"h". Yidishe shprakh 33: 1-11. Rubin, J. 1971. "Evaluation and language planning". In Can Language Be Planned?. In J. Rubin and B. Jernudd (eds), 217-252. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii. Schaechter, M. 1969. "'The hidden standard': A study of competing influences in standardization". In The Field of Yiddish, volume three, Herzog et al.(eds), 284-304. The Hague: Mouton. Schaechter, M. 1977. "Four schools of thought in Yiddish language planning". Michigan Germanic Studies 3: 34-66. Schaechter, M. 1988. English-Yiddish Dictionary of Academic Terminology. New York: Yiddish Language Resource Center of the League for Yiddish. Schaechter, M. 1990. Pregnancy, Childbirth and Early Childhood: An English-Yiddish Dictionary. New York: Yiddish Language Resource Center of the League for Yiddish. Shekhter, M. 1973. Kurs fun yidisher ortografye: A konspekt. Third edition. New York: Committee for the Implementation of Standardized Yiddish Orthography. Shekhter, M. 1980. "Dem Yivos yidish-oftu: Roshe-protimdike observatsyes un sakh-haklen tsu a yoyvl-date". Yivo-bleter 46: 192-228. Shekhter, M. 1986. Laytish mame-loshn. New York: League for Yiddish. Shekhter, M. 1999. Der eynheytlekher yidisher oysleyg. New York: Yivo and Yiddish Language Resource Center of the League for Yiddish. Shekhter, M. 2002. "Hakol tole bemazl". Afn shvel 325: 1-3. Shmeruk, Kh. (ed.) 1961. Pirsumim yehudiim bevrit hamoatsot: 1917-1960. Jerusalem: Historical Society of Israel. Shmeruk, Kh. 1964. "Vegn etlekhe printsipn fun Mendl Lefins mishley-iberzetsung". Yidishe shprakh 24: 33-52. Shtif, N. 1927. "Di yidishe shprakh". Di yidishe shprakh 1: 1-6. Shtif, N. 1930. Yidishe stilistik. Kiev: Tsenterfarlag. Slutski, B. 1928, 1929. "Terminologye fun kredit-kooperatsye". Di yidishe shprakh 13: 39-46; 14: 65-72. Spivak, E. 1939. "Rekhtlekh-administrative leksik". Afn shprakhfront 3: 3-7. Spivak, E. 1941. Rusish-yidisher rekhtlekh-administrativer verterbukh. Kiev: Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. "Terminologye far metalurgye". 1930. Di yidishe shprakh 21-22: 91-96. Vaynraykh, M. 1928. Bilder fun der yidisher literaturgeshikhte: fun di onheybn biz Mendele mokher-sforim. Vilna: Farlag Tomor. Vaynraykh, M. 1941. "Vegn englishe elementn in undzer kulturshprakh". Yidishe shprakh 1: 33-46. Vaynraykh, M. 1950. "A vort frier funem redaktor". In Der oyster fun der yiddisher shprakh, ix-xviii. New York: Yivo. Vaynraykh, M. 1973. Geshikhte fun der yidisher shprakh. Four volumes. New York: Yivo. Weinreich, M. 1980. History of the Yiddish language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Weinreich, U. 1958a. "Yiddish and colonial German in Eastern Europe: The differential impact of Slavic". In American Contributions to the Fourth International Congress of Slavicists, 1-51. 'S-Gravenhage: Mouton. Weinreich, U. 1958b. "Nusakh hasofrim haivri-yidi". Leshonenu 22: 54-66. Weinreich, U. 1968. Modern English-Yiddish Yiddish-English Dictionary. New York: Yivo and McGraw-Hill. Weinreich, U., Labov, W. and Herzog, M.I. 1968. "Empirical foundations for a theory of language change". In Directions for Historical Linguistics, W.P. Lehmann and Y. Malkiel (eds), 95-195. Austin: University of Texas Press. Wexler, P. 1981. "Jewish interlinguistics: facts and conceptual framework". Language 57: 99-149. Zaretski, A. 1926. Praktishe yidishe gramatik far lerers un studentn. Moscow: Shul un bukh. Zaretski, A. 1929. "Vegn yidishe ortoepye". Di yidishe shprakh 16: 1-8; 17-18: 21-32. Zaretski, A. 1931. Far a proletarisher shprakh. Kharkov and Kiev: Tsenterfarlag. [1] Besides Yiddish, which was spoken by the most Jews, the best studied is the vernacular of the Sephardic Jews who were exiled from Spain in 1492 and settled in Greece, Turkey and North Africa. Called Judezmo in its spoken form and Ladino as a written language, it is but one of the group of Judeo-Romance languages, which includes Judeo-Provencal and Judeo-Italian. For more info on Jewish languages in general, see Weinreich (1980: 45-174) and Wexler (1981).Return [2] "Emancipation" refers to the acquisition of civil rights by Jews in Western Europe in the years following the French revolution.Return [3] Internal to the Jewish community Yiddish was the language of the kitchen and home, and even though it was also the language of Talmud study - the highest form of men's language - the serious H form of written language of the holy books and of rabbinic writing was Hebrew. Many of the forms of printed Yiddish literature in the Middle Ages and early modern period in an introduction addressed themselves to women, as if it were beneath the dignity of men to read such literature. Specifically, bible translations into Yiddish and biblical commentary in Yiddish in its older form were printed in a special typeface, called vaybertaytsh 'women's translation'.Return [4] This standardization process was a creation of Yiddish writers and editors. The rise of modern Yiddish literature was a result of the Enlightenment in Eastern Europe in the nineteenth century. The focus of this intellectual and cultural movement was to reform Jewish education and expose Jews to science, nature, and the major languages and cultures of the west. Without conferences or planning committees, it was the writers themselves who developed the modern Yiddish literary language during the nineteenth century (Miron 1973: 1-66; Roskes 1974: 1-11; Kerler 1999).Return [5] Prince (1987) published a quantitative analysis of the phonology of the recorded song repertoire of one Yiddish singer, Sarah Gorby, who was born in Bessarabia but lived in Paris and sang on tour (especially in Argentina and Israel). Over time Gorby steered away from the realization of the stigmatized vowels of her native dialect, a sub-dialect of Southeastern Yiddish.Return [6] When the Ashkenazic Jews were a minority in the empires, they experienced tremendous restriction of cultural expression. This was especially the case for the Russian empire where theatre and the daily press were limited. With the fall of the Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, Yiddish secular expression, which had been germinating during the Jewish Enlightenment in Eastern Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century, took off in the form of scores of daily newspapers (even in small cities), worker's cooperatives, a variety of youth movements, theatre, cinema, education from pre-school to specialized technical training and graduate level instruction, all organized in Yiddish. All of this new activity was nipped in the bud by the Nazis.Return [7] In Yiddish, all the Jewish languages and in Hebrew (from which their alphabets are derived) five letters have special forms in word final position: khof, mem, nun, fey, and tsadik. All of these final forms were eliminated from the alphabet by official decree in the Soviet Union. This was a visual message of the revolutionary, non-traditional, nature of Soviet language. It was also a move to signify economy of language, since using the other form of those five letters could not cause confusion.Return [8] More than 300 Yiddish-language films were made between the two World Wars, both in the USA and in Europe. This industry never revived itself after World War II (Goldman 1979; Hoberman 1992).Return [9] The Jewish Enlightenment in Eastern Europe was a successor to that of German Jews. As mentioned above, the movement was aimed at modernizing education and expanding the world to include science and the major cultures. Although there were attempts in Hebrew to spread this knowledge, people did not know the language, contrary to Yiddish. As such, Modern Yiddish literature was the conveyor of new sensibilities. Nevertheless, a large portion of the society remained observant and non-interested in the new secular Yiddish achievements.Return [10] Examples of these orthographical challenges include undoing the elimination of the silent aleph and reintroducing it between three repeating vovs or yuds, and between certain vowels that border syllables; introducing the rofe, a diacritic line above certain letters, that had not been used in certain cases since the Middle Ages, and changing the rules that govern whether certain words are written as compounds or as separate words.Return |