16.3620, Review: Language Description: Jacobs (2005)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-16-3620. Mon Dec 19 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.3620, Review: Language Description: Jacobs (2005)

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1)
Date: 17-Dec-2005
From: Ariann Stern < arianns at gmail.com >
Subject: Yiddish: A Linguistic Introduction 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2005 21:14:51
From: Ariann Stern < arianns at gmail.com >
Subject: Yiddish: A Linguistic Introduction 
 

Author: Jacobs, Neil G.
Title: Yiddish
Subtitle: A Linguistic Introduction
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2005
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-1092.html 

Ariann Stern, Critical Languages Institute, Russian and East European 
Studies Center, Arizona State University

This is a comprehensive volume on the Yiddish language, with 
substantive chapters devoted, in the following order, to the history of 
Yiddish, dialectology, phonology, morphology, syntax, and 
sociolinguistics.  It is a major contribution to the field and will, as 
Jacobs says in the introduction, appeal to a wide audience, including 
Germanic linguists, Yiddishists, theoretical linguists, scholars of Jewish 
studies. Though Jacobs does not acknowledge this, the book will be a 
useful tool for students of the language, who can use the morphology 
section as a reference grammar. 

SYNOPSIS

Chapter 1, ''Introduction'', describes Jacobs' goals for the monograph 
followed by a very broad introduction to what Yiddish is - when it 
emerged as a language, and a general historical and demographic 
description of Yiddish speakers/Ashkenazim. Next Jacobs explains 
that he will frame the investigation by primarily describing and 
analyzing Yiddish ''in terms of the patterns within Yiddish itself'' (4), 
only secondarily comparing it with German. Jacobs' approach to 
Yiddish as a complete system that can be described without resorting 
to comparisons with other contact languages (indeed, there is a great 
deal of dialectal comparison, but very little comparison between 
Jewish and German, Hebrew, or the Slavic languages) is fundamental 
to this work. After stating this, Jacobs provides some overview to the 
development of Yiddish studies and background information on Jewish 
languages, including an explanation of Jewish bilingualism and some 
commentary on languages used for communication between Jews. 

Chapter 2, ''History'', begins by contrasting two major views of the 
history of the language -- divergence from German and convergence --
 that Yiddish and German never were identical, and therefore Yiddish 
did not diverge from it (the view most suitable for his approach to the 
work described in the introduction).  Jacobs leads the reader through 
various scenarios posited for the origins and ''homelands'' of Yiddish, 
including discussion of German sources in Yiddish.  This is followed by 
in-depth discussion of the Yiddish sound system, with special attention 
paid to the vowels, and an examination of vocalic divisions in the 
major dialects (Jacobs recognizes five: West Yiddish, Central Yiddish, 
Southeast Yiddish, Northeast Yiddish, and Standard Yiddish).  The 
next major part of the chapter discusses Hebrew elements in Yiddish, 
and their history, especially in the earliest stages of the language.  
Useful here are insights into Jewish languages in general. Next, 
Jacobs introduces on-going questions about older ''Yiddish'' texts and 
whether or not they are in fact Yiddish, because they have features 
not evident in more modern manifestations of the language. He bases 
his periodization of Yiddish on M. Weinreich's work. Both the 
periodization discussion, as well as the textual questions about the 
earliest evidence of written Yiddish lead directly into discussion about 
Yiddish writing, the role of written Yiddish in earlier periods of diglossia 
with Hebrew, and the history of Yiddish orthography.  The chapter 
concludes with a short, albeit detailed overview on names for Yiddish. 

Chapter 3, ''Dialectology'', begins with an overview of studies in 
Yiddish dialectology before moving onto the actual classification of 
Yiddish dialects, which Jacobs already identified in Chapter 2 as the 
five major dialects recognized in the Language and Culture Atlas of 
Askenazic Jewry.  Helpfully, in the third chapter, he provides a dialect 
map, followed by a very good overview of the major phonological, 
morphological, lexical, syntactic, and cultural differences between the 
five dialects. Jacobs does not claim his survey of these differences is 
exhaustive, but the examples he provides are characteristic of the five 
varieties of Yiddish.  The section on cultural features is of particular 
interest, introducing background information underlying the more 
easily linguistically delineated phonological, morphological, etc. 
distinctions. As the Yiddishists responsible for the Language and 
Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry understood, this attention to the 
cultural aspects of the differences is crucial to any thorough 
description of this language. An exegesis on the geolinguistic 
topography of Yiddish with an emphasis on language contact follows 
this section.  Jacobs very usefully describes the areas in geographic 
detail, so the reader can visualize (or even locate on a map) the areas 
discussed. The chapter ends with information on supraregional 
varieties, which is of particular interest to speakers learning Standard 
Yiddish.

The next three chapters are more purely grammatical and they 
comprise the bulk of the book.  Chapter 4 covers phonology, Chapter 
5 morphology, and Chapter 6 discusses syntax.  The information is 
presented in conventional, logical order.  Chapter 4 begins with the 
vowels, followed by consonants, syllable structure, cyclic and lexical 
phonology, stress and prominence, and concludes with discussion of 
intonation. One of the highlights of this chapter are the comparisons, 
in both tables and other examples, of dialect-based differences in 
many of the sounds and features described. Jacobs uses material and 
background information from his previous three chapters in 
discussions of various influences on the sound system, including 
historical changes, and influences from both languages in contact with 
Yiddish and those that lent lexical and other elements to Yiddish.  
Chapter 4 contains very rich data. Jacobs, for example, not only 
discusses consonant clusters in the abstract in Chapter 4, but he lists 
each potential cluster and an example for each. Jacobs has organized 
this abundant and useful information in easily-read charts and tables. 

Similar to Chapter 4, Chapter 5, which includes a great deal of data 
and description from Zaretski, Yudl Mark, and Birnbaum, presents 
information in a logical progression through the parts of speech: 
nouns (including sections on derived nouns, prefixation, suffixation, 
diminutives, compound nouns, nouns ''formed through clipping, 
abbreviation, and similar processes'' (171), and grammatical 
categories - gender, number, case) and the noun phrase, adjectives, 
pronouns, numerals, adverbs,  prepositions, conjunctions, fillers, and 
verbs (formation and types, non-finite and finite forms, tense, mood, 
passive voice, reflexives, and aspect).  This chapter presents 
historical and synchronic information on word formation and 
derivations in addition to excellent information on the modern 
language, including both notes on usage as well as examples of word 
forms.  

Chapter 6, ''Syntax'', provides substantive information on clauses 
(declarative, imperative, interrogative, subordinate, relative), 
constituent structures (NPs and VPs and their relationships with other 
structures, and negations), sub-categorization, grammatical functions 
(subjects, objects, adverbials), movements, transformations, and 
deletions. 

The final chapter covers sociolinguistics, beginning with an 
introduction to language attitudes and ideology central to Yiddish 
studies.  In this introductory matter, Jacobs poses one of the 
fundamental questions about Yiddish, namely the "relationship of 
Yiddish speech to other types of speech''. This relationship of Yiddish 
to other languages and their speech functions is, he states, ''for 
Yiddish speakers... an intriguing and complex playing field, owing to 
several factors, including: (1) the surface and similarity of Yiddish to 
German and Yiddish speakers' over awareness of this; (2) internal 
Jewish bilingualism...; (3) the role of external Jewish bi-
/multilingualism; (4) Yiddish speakers' component consciousness.'' 
Because of its singular relevance to Yiddish speakers, this question 
and its attendant factors resonate throughout Chapter 7, particularly 
factors 2 and 3. The first major section in this chapter addresses 
attitudes and ideology and covers language contact, bi-/multi-
lingualism, and diglossia; code-switching, style, and register; and 
spoken Yiddish (including spoken Yiddish in the pre-modern and 
modern periods, styles of spoken Yiddish, male and female 
speech, ''refined speech'', euphemism, taboo avoidance, secret 
languages and professional jargons with fascinating information from 
the speech of criminals and musicians, the aptly named 'klezmer-
loshn'). 

Next is a section on models of spoken Yiddish, including descriptions 
of the formation and problems inherent in Standard Yiddish and Soviet 
efforts to standardizeYiddish. This section describes how the 
standardized model created a hierarchical sociolinguistic 
superstructure resulting in the stigmatization of dialect with very clear 
examples of how this is manifest.  This is followed by information 
about New York Hasidic Yiddish based on Jacobs' observations of 
printed material including his commentary on the heavy code-
swtiching evident in his data.  Next is a short account of tempo's 
influence on forms and includes examples of drawl and dropped 
pronouns. The chapter concludes with a very satisfying account of 
written Yiddish, including more information (already presented in 
Chapter 2) about the diglossic situation between Hebrew and Yiddish, 
descriptions of Jewish scribal language, the development of literary 
and modern written Yiddish (with emphasis on the YIVO model), more 
information on orthographic developments (again, drawing on 
discussion started in earlier chapters), and a brief overview of the 
debates over Romanization in certain Yiddishist circles.

Appropriately, the chapter (and the monograph) concludes with a 
section on ''Post-Yiddish Ashkenazic speech'', which describes ''the 
post-Yiddish [European language] ethnolects [which] are successor 
lects to Yiddish, arising via language shift.'' (303) Beginning with a 
synopsis of the decline of Yiddish in the twentieth century, this section 
briefly covers the modern successors to Yiddish in Europe and the US.

EVALUATION

As Jacobs himself notes, his work is unique in the field, covering the 
range of grammar, history, and sociolinguistics. Most sections begin 
with references to the contributions of major scholars relevant to the 
topic under discussion. Notably, Jacobs cites Max and Uriel Weinreich 
primarily for the history and dialectology (though of course, there are 
references to the Weinreichs throughout the book), Ayzik Zaretski and 
Yudl Mark in the grammatical chapters (with most data directly 
attributed to Zaretski), and a panoply of scholars in the section on 
sociolinguistics, including Joshua Fishman, S. Birnbaum, and, for the 
interesting klezmer loshn, Robert Rothstein.  These references and 
Jacobs' comments on their application to modern Yiddish studies are 
one of the best features of this altogether excellent work. At times, 
Jacobs' ability to incorporate the work of others so seamlessly into his 
own scholarship acknowledging and explaining, sometimes in great 
detail, the contributions of his predecessors can make it difficult to 
differentiate where this background research ends and his original 
contributions begin.   

Jacobs' claim that this book will have broad appeal is borne out in its 
variegated contents and rich examples. At some junctures in these 
chapters, I was struck and often distracted by Jacobs' broad 
definitions of the linguistic phenomena under discussion, e.g., what is 
diglossia, what are the categories like aspect or structures like 
interrogative clauses where he otherwise assumes his readers 
possess a rather high degree of linguistic sophistication. He likely 
includes these rather elementary explanations because of his 
intention to address a relatively wide audience. Readers, particularly 
linguists, should be prepared for this. 

As I mentioned in my overview of the chapters on phonology and 
morphology, but as is true in all chapters, there is a very rich amount 
of data in this book and excellent, relevant examples, both of which 
add tremendously to its overall value. This is especially so, because 
unlike other dense monographs of this nature, in which, all too often 
and to the detriment of a book's overall usefulness as a reference, 
examples and data are repeated to describe a variety of phenomena,  
Jacobs has a very good and satisfyingly diverse variety of examples. I 
only noticed some repetition with dialect forms, of which there are 
presumably a limited number of attested forms for some regions.

One of the cleverest aspects of the book is the comparison of dialects 
and the way in which Jacobs expands his discussion of dialects to 
more broadly demonstrate the development of Yiddish. Jacobs is 
committed to comparing Yiddish forms, rather than comparing Yiddish 
to languages in contact. However, through descriptions of individual 
dialects and comparisons of their forms, and through discussion of 
contact between dialects, Jacobs also manages to reveal influences 
from other languages in contact with each major dialect of Yiddish and 
to demonstrate where these other languages failed to impact Yiddish 
forms. These comparisons of dialects also prepare the reader for 
discussion on the formation of Standard Yiddish. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Ariann Stern directs the Arizona State University Critical Languages 
Institute.  Her primary research is currently on second language 
acquisition, especially language teacher training and issues of cross-
cultural instructional norms and classroom behaviors.  Ideally she 
would also like to be researching verbal morphosyntax in eastern 
varieties of Yiddish.





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