The Myths and Misconceptions of Jewish Linguistics

Wexler, Paul

doi:10.1353/jqr.2011.0016

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 3 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Some of the confusion contributing to the establishment of this hypothesis stems from the erroneous association of the term “Ashkenaz” with “German lands, Germans (Jews and non-Jews)” in the late 11th century, contemporaneous with the rise of Yiddish ( Wexler 2011b ). Ashkenazic began with the meaning of “Scythian.” In the 10th century in Baghdad it meant “Slavic” and by the early 1100s in Europe it assumes the meaning of German/Yiddish, and later the German non-Jews and the German lands.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When these Jews began settling in Western and Eastern Slavic lands, Yiddish went through a relexification process, that is, replacing the Eastern Slavic and the newly acquired Sorbian vocabularies with a German vocabulary while keeping the original grammar and sound system intact ( Wexler 2011a ). Critics ofthis hypothesis cite the fragmentary and incomplete historical records from the first millennium ( King 1992 ) and discount the relevance of relexification to Yiddish studies ( Wexler 2011b ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Localizing Ashkenazic Jews to Primeval Villages in the Ancient Iranian Lands of Ashkenaz

et al. 2016

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Yiddish language is over 1,000 years old and incorporates German, Slavic, and Hebrew elements. The prevalent view claims Yiddish has a German origin, whereas the opposing view posits a Slavic origin with strong Iranian and weak Turkic substrata. One of the major difficulties in deciding between these hypotheses is the unknown geographical origin of Yiddish speaking Ashkenazic Jews (AJs). An analysis of 393 Ashkenazic, Iranian, and mountain Jews and over 600 non-Jewish genomes demonstrated that Greeks, Romans, Iranians, and Turks exhibit the highest genetic similarity with AJs. The Geographic Population Structure analysis localized most AJs along major primeval trade routes in northeastern Turkey adjacent to primeval villages with names that may be derived from “Ashkenaz.” Iranian and mountain Jews were localized along trade routes on the Turkey’s eastern border. Loss of maternal haplogroups was evident in non-Yiddish speaking AJs. Our results suggest that AJs originated from a Slavo-Iranian confederation, which the Jews call “Ashkenazic” (i.e., “Scythian”), though these Jews probably spoke Persian and/or Ossete. This is compatible with linguistic evidence suggesting that Yiddish is a Slavic language created by Irano-Turko-Slavic Jewish merchants along the Silk Roads as a cryptic trade language, spoken only by its originators to gain an advantage in trade. Later, in the 9th century, Yiddish underwent relexification by adopting a new vocabulary that consists of a minority of German and Hebrew and a majority of newly coined Germanoid and Hebroid elements that replaced most of the original Eastern Slavic and Sorbian vocabularies, while keeping the original grammars intact.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Localizing Ashkenazic Jews to Primeval Villages in the Ancient Iranian Lands of Ashkenaz

et al. 2016

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Moreover, around 1600, Rabbi Meir Katz Ashkenazi of Mogilev (in eastern Belarus) complained in a responsum on the subject of bilingualism that, ‘the majority of our coreligionists, who live in our midst, speak Russian’ (although by Russian it may be meant Russian per se or another Slavic language) (see van Straten 2011, p. 126, who, in turn, cites M. Katz Ashkenazi’s Hebrew/Aramaic-language book from 1687). Although little overall is known about Judeo-Slavic communities as they were, the fact that Yiddish, Slavic or Germanic contains so little of the Romance languages, so little Greek, and so little Aramaic or Hebrew, suggests that the word ashkenaz does refer to Scythia after all (see Wexler 2011, p. 277-78).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Tale of Two Hypotheses: Genetics and the Ethnogenesis of Ashkenazi Jewry

Yardumian

2013

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The debate over the ethnogenesis of Ashkenazi Jewry is longstanding, and has been hampered by a lack of Jewish historiographical work between the Biblical and the early Modern eras. Most historians, as well as geneticists, situate them as the descendants of Israelite tribes whose presence in Europe is owed to deportations during the Roman conquest of Palestine, as well as migration from Babylonia, and eventual settlement along the Rhine. By contrast, a few historians and other writers, most famously Arthur Koestler, have looked to migrations following the decline of the little-understood Medieval Jewish kingdom of Khazaria as the main source for Ashkenazi Jewry. A recent study of genetic variation in southeastern European populations (Elhaik 2012) also proposed a Khazarian origin for Ashkenazi Jews, eliciting considerable criticism from other scholars investigating Jewish ancestry who favor a Near Eastern origin of Ashkenazi populations. This paper re-examines the genetic data and analytical approaches used in these studies of Jewish ancestry, and situates them in the context of historical, linguistic, and archaeological evidence from the Caucasus, Europe and the Near East. Based on this reanalysis, it appears not only that the Khazar Hypothesis per se is without serious merit, but also the veracity of the ‘Rhineland Hypothesis’ may also be questionable.

show abstract

Wpływy polskie w jidysz według "History of the Yiddish Language" Maxa Weinreicha – przegląd i próby weryfikacji

Gajek

2016

sfps

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Polish influence on Yiddish as described in Max Weinreich’s History of the Yiddish Language – overview and attempts at verificationThe Article concentrates on the findings regarding Slavic influence on Yiddish, described in the newest English-language edition of Max Weinreich’s History of the Yiddish Language – a canonical title for modern Yiddish studies. Its first task is to acquaint Polish readers with M. Weinreich’s propositions and findings on the general character of Polish-Yiddish and Slavic-Yiddish language contact. This will also be taken as an opportunity to briefly review the research on this subject conducted by Polish scholars. Additionally, the article will elaborate (albeit not exhaustively) on the attempts to question and verify M. Weinreich’s theories which may prove interesting from the point of view of Slavic studies. Its second, equally important task is to describe chosen examples of the results of Slavic influence, in which Polish played a significant role, as they present themselves in the lexicon, morphology, word formation and syntax of Yiddish. Wpływy polskie w jidysz według History of the Yiddish Language Maxa Weinreicha – przegląd i próby weryfikacjiArtykuł skupia się na ustaleniach na temat wpływów słowiańskich w jidysz, zawartych w najnowszym, anglojęzycznym wydaniu pracy Maxa Weinreicha pt. History of the Yiddish Language, mającej status pozycji kanonicznej współczesnej jidyszystyki. Jego pierwszym celem jest przybliżenie polskiemu czytelnikowi tez i ustaleń M. Weinreicha, dotyczących ogólnego charakteru językowych kontaktów polsko- i słowiańsko-żydowskich. Przy tej okazji uwzględnione zostaną informacje na temat badań, jakie do tej pory poczynili w tej materii językoznawcy polscy. Ponadto (niewyczerpująco) poruszona zostanie kwestia prób weryfikacji i podważenia jego twierdzeń, interesująca z punktu widzenia slawistyki. Drugim, nie mniej ważnym zadaniem jest przedstawienie wybranych wpływów słowiańskich, w których niemały udział miała polszczyzna, w poszczególnych podsystemach języka jidysz: leksyce, morfologii i słowotwórstwie oraz składni.

show abstract

The Myths and Misconceptions of Jewish Linguistics

Cited by 3 publications

References 3 publications

Localizing Ashkenazic Jews to Primeval Villages in the Ancient Iranian Lands of Ashkenaz

Localizing Ashkenazic Jews to Primeval Villages in the Ancient Iranian Lands of Ashkenaz

A Tale of Two Hypotheses: Genetics and the Ethnogenesis of Ashkenazi Jewry

Wpływy polskie w jidysz według "History of the Yiddish Language" Maxa Weinreicha – przegląd i próby weryfikacji

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About