New book on (Slavic) history of Yiddish

[Richard Robin]

Hi, Seelangovtsy!

As a non-specialist with a strong interest in Slavic historical linguistics,
I would like to see a discussion of Wexler's ideas. _Two-tiered
Lexification..._ is the latest of three major items Wexler has published
over the last 10 years suggesting that Yiddish is a Slavic language
relexified by German. (His even more controversial claim is that modern
Hebrew is Semitically relexified Yiddish and therefore by extension an
underlyingly Slavic language!)

I don't know enough about Sorbian (or West Slavic in general) to begin to
evaluate the veracity of his claims. But they certainly make for fascinating
reading.

Is anyone willing to weigh in on Wexler?

PS - Whatever the verdict (and I expect that most will express their
incredulity), Wexler does provide an excuse for that typically American
academic phenomenon: the mixed Germanic/Slavic department.

-Rich Robin
----- Original Message -----
From: Loren A. Billings <billings at ncnu.edu.tw>
To: <SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2002 4:37 AM
Subject: [SEELANGS] New book on (Slavic) history of Yiddish


> The following appeared recently on the Linguist List, FYI.
> As always, please contact the e-mail address below for more
> information. I'm just passing it on.
>
> Best, --Loren Billings
>
>
>
> Date:  Tue, 17 Sep 2002 14:13:15 +0200
> From:  Julia Ulrich <Julia.Ulrich at deGruyter.com>
> Subject:  Paul Wexler: Historical Ling/Language Description
>
> Mouton de Gruyter
>
> Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs
> Editors: Werner Winter/Walter Bisang
>
> Paul Wexler
> TWO-TIERED RELEXIFICATION IN YIDDISH
> Jews, Sorbs, Khazars, and the Kiev-Polessian Dialect
>
> 2002. 23 x 15,5 cm. xi, 713 pages. Cloth.
> Euro 128.00 / sFr 205 / approx. USD 128.00
> ISBN 3-11-017258-5
>
> (Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 136)
>
> This study applies the relexification hypothesis to the genesis of
> Yiddish. The author believes Yiddish began as a Sorbian dialect
> relexified to High German between the 9th-12th centuries. The present
> study, rich in data (much of it presented as entries to a projected
> etymological dictionary), also suggests new diagnostic tests for
> identifying relexification. The presence in Yiddish of East Slavic
> features (e.g. pseudo-dual, gender and plural suffix assignment)
> suggests that the descendants of the Judaized Khazars also relexified
> Kiev-Polessian (northern Ukrainian and southern Belarussian) in the
> 15th century to Yiddish and German. Yiddish is thus a mixed West-East
> Slavic language and the best proof that Khazar Jews were a major
> component in the ethnogenesis of the Ashkenazic Jews. Two dramatic
> findings are that by comparing Middle High German and Slavic
> vocabulary and derivational machinery, it is possible (a) to "predict"
> with high accuracy which German components could be accepted by
> Yiddish and (b) whether lexicon was most likely acquired in the first
> or second relexification phase or thereafter. Blockage of many
> Germanisms also necessitated reliance on Hebrew and invented
> Hebroidisms. Thus the study also contributes to an understanding of
> the genesis of (Slavic) Modern Hebrew, relexified from Yiddish in the
> 19th century.
>
>
> Contents:
> Introduction
> 1. The Relexification Hypothesis in Yiddish
> 2. Approaches to the study of Yiddish and other Jewish languages
> 3. Criteria for selecting German and Hebrew-Aramaic and for retaining
> Slavic elements in Yiddish
> 3.1. Component blending in Yiddish
> 3.2. The status of synonyms in Yiddish
> 3.3. Constructing an etymological dictionary for a relexified language
> 4. Evidence for the two-tiered relexification hypothesis in Yiddish: From
> Upper Sorbian to German and from Kiev-Polessian to Yiddish
> 4.1. Sixteen observations about the relexification hypothesis in Yiddish
> 4.2. German morphemes and morpheme sets fully accepted by Yiddish
> 4.3. German morpheme sets blocked fully or in part in Yiddish by the
> Slavic substrata
> 4.4. The status of individual German morphemes and semantically related
> sets in Yiddish
> 4.5. Slavic gender and markers of plural and dual in Yiddish
> 4.6. Unrelexified Upper Sorbian and Kiev-Polessian elements in Yiddish
> 5. Future Challenges
>
>
> For more information please contact the publisher:
> Mouton de Gruyter
> Genthiner Str. 13
> 10785 Berlin, Germany
> Fax: +49 30 26005 222
> e-mail: wdg-info at degruyter.de
>
> Please visit our website for other publications by Mouton de Gruyter
> http://www.degruyter.com
>
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