Yiddish as a Mixed Language: Yiddish-Slavic Language Contact and Its Linguistic Outcome(3 Brill Studies in Language Contact and the Dynamics of Language)

Yiddish, the language of Eastern-European Jews, has so far been mostly described as Germanic within the framework of the traditional, divergence-based Language Tree Model. Meanwhile, advances in contact linguistics allow for a new approach, placing the idiom within the mixed language spectrum, with the Slavic component playing a significant role. So far, the Slavic elements were studied as isolated, adstratal borrowings. This book argues that they represent a coherent system within the grammar. This suggests that the Slavic languages had at least as much of a constitutive role in the inception and development of Yiddish as German and Hebrew. The volume is copiously illustrated with examples from the vernacular language. With a contribution of Anna Pilarski, University of Szczecin.

Table of Contents:
Preface List of Illustrations and Tables Abbreviations 1 Max Weinreich and Slavic Component of Yiddish  Michał Gajek  1 Introduction  2 Max Weinreich on Slavic-Yiddish Language Contact—Attempts at Revision  3 Slavic Elements in Subsystems of Yiddish  4 Discussion and Conclusions 2 Yiddish in the Framework of the Mixed Language Debate  Ewa Geller and Michał Gajek  1 Introduction  2 Defining Terminology  3 Yiddish-Slavic Language Contact  4 Language Shift in Inception of Eastern Yiddish  5 Borrowing in Development of Eastern Yiddish  6 Yiddish as Mixed Language  7 Conclusions 3 Role of Slavic Matter Borrowings in New Pattern Grammaticalization  Ewa Geller  1 Introduction  2 Theoretical Framework  3 Method  4 Analysis and Its Results  5 Conclusions 4 De-Construction of German-Type Compounds  Agata Reibach  1 Introduction  2 Methods  3 Compound Types in Yiddish  4 Compounds in Yiddish Component Languages  5 Results  6 Conclusions 5 Core Vocabulary Borrowability Restrictions: Case of Semantic Field ‘Body’  Agata Reibach  1 Introduction  2 Methods  3 Results  4 Discussion and Desiderata  Appendix 6 Convergence of Syntactic Structures of Yiddish and Polish Direct Interrogative Sentences: Remarks on Parametric Structure of CP and wh-Movement  Anna Pilarski  1 Introduction  2 Methods  3 Analysis  4 Results  5 Conclusions 7 Yiddish as Donor Language for Polish  Michał Gajek  1 Introduction  2 Methodological Issues  3 Yiddish Loanwords in Polish—Integration and Assimilation  4 Yiddishisms in Polish Vocabulary as Example of Low-Variety Influence  5 Conclusions and Desiderata References Index

About the Author :
Ewa Geller is full professor of Linguistics at the Department of German Studies at the University of Warsaw. Her research focuses on the origins and structure of Eastern Yiddish. She is the author of Warschauer Jiddisch and other significant works in the field. Michał Gajek obtained his Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of Warsaw, defending a dissertation entitled Mechanisms of the Integration of Yiddish Loanwords in Polish from the Point of View of Contact Linguistics. His primary fields of work are language contact, diachronic linguistics, digital lexicography. Agata Reibach obtained her Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of Warsaw, defending a dissertation entitled Der jidišer šnajder: Jewish-Polish Linguistic Contact on Example of ‘Tailoring’ Semantic Field in Yiddish. Her research interests focus on Yiddish lexicology, semantics and sociolects from a contact-linguistic perspective. She is a translator and teacher of Yiddish.