Uriel Weinreich

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Dear Joshua,

I'm sorry this error got through; I usually forward messages like these
"as is" without editorializing since I've been criticized for doing so. I
should have appended an editorial comment.  Thanks for your correction on
this.  I never had the opportunity to meet Uriel Weinreich, but we are all
indebted to him for his pioneering work in bilingualism and
sociolinguistics.

Hal


Harold F. Schiffman


On Thu, 26 Jan 2006 JoshuaAFishman at aol.com wrote:

> To see Uriel Weinreich described as a German linguist in   tghe nes-item from
> Indonesia is a double miscarriage of justice. He was initially a Jew fron
> Vilna (then in Poland) who came from a very famous and actively Jewish family. He
> escaped from Europe, with his father [the famous Yiddish linguist Max
> Weinreich] at the time of the German invasion of his homeland. He received his higher
> education in Columbia University (New York City) where he later held the
> endowed Atran chair in Yiddish Language and Culture, and also served as the chair
> of the Department of Linguistics until his untimely death at a very young age.
> The Lgpolicy -list should not permit errors such as those that I am reacting
> to to appear without some corrective footnote.
>