No, the question is whether there is a distinct Judeo-German language,
as opposed to Yiddish. Do Yiddish speakers (writers) using what they
perceive as standard German constitute a new language, or merely Yiddish
affecting Germanism beyond the rather high percentage of German that is
normally with
All I was thinking of was German in Hebrew script = Judeo-German, which is
well attested, though rather limited in time and place. Obviously I should
have paid closer attention.
Stephen D. Corrsin
Assistant Director for Acquisitions
New York Public Library
917 229-9508
718 472-4605 fax
Sorry, I haven't been paying close attention, but did someone on this list
actually argue that Yiddish is merely a form of German? Hard to believe
that anyone here would say that.
German in Hebrew script is, however, well-attested, included in the first
Jewish-interest Warsaw periodicals in the
Once upon a time (in a galaxy far, far away) I tried to track down
the saying about a language is a dialect with an army and a navy
(or whatever, approx like that). I found Weinreich referring to a
night school class he taught in the Bronx, in Yivo Bleter, ca.1945.
That is, he said that it was
Yiddish is certainly not a dialect of German.
If a dialect is defined (among others) by mutual intelligibility the
it's certainly not a dialect. Most Yiddish speakers don't understand
German. I, as a speaker of Yiddish can say that I don't understand
German and I know that Germans don't
My undergraduate and graduate degrees are both in linguistics. While
I'm no expert on Yiddish, nor on German, I remember learning that
linguistically, Yiddish is actually a dialect of High German. A
dialect as opposed to a separate language is defined by mutual
intelligibility. The
I think there's a difference, Aaron.
Americans speaking the American dialect still think of themselves as
speaking English. The Maskilim writing German in Hebrew characters
did not think of themselves as writing Yiddish. In general I think
catalogers try to represent the intention of the
A few years ago I met two gentile ladies from Speyer, Germany (on the
Reine River), where Jews
had flourished from 1084-1349 C.E., and where Yiddish was born. Their
German dialect was
almost 100% Yiddish compatible. They even unknowingly used Hebrew
derived words.
What were they speaking?
To a distinguished scholar---I do not understand this???self hated???
---
Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author
and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL)
The progression of the Jews in Germany in learning the German
language included using the Hebrew characters to write in the
language they were learning. It has nothing to do with self-hatred.
It was a transitional way of easing them into an unfamiliar language
which they needed to acquire in
I find this discussion fascinating.
I am sure that at some point that cross-over generation of German
Jews that initially spoke the Western dialect of what we call Yiddish
and aspired to speak proper Hochdeutsch, were certain that the
mixed dialect they spoke - and wrote - was Hochdeutsch, but
Is that any different than when an American affects an upper class
(RP) English accent. IF the languages are mutually intelligible, they
probably should be one language, especially if written in a single
script (crf: treatment of various versions of Serbo-Croatian which are
mutally intelligble but
According to current MARC language list on Catalogers Desktop, the MARC
code to use is the one for Yiddish. LCSH also considers Judeo-German to
be a synonym for Yiddish. I check this a few minutes ago from home.--Aaron
P.S. What exactly is Judeo-German other than Yiddish (presumably the
almost
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