HISTORY OF THE YIDDI SH LANGUAGE VO LUM E 2 H I S T O R Y O F T H E Y I D D I S H L A N G U A G E V O L U M E 2 MAX WEINREICH Edited by Paul Glasser Translated by Shlomo Noble with the assistance of Joshua A. Fishman Published in cooperation with YI VO Institute for Jewish Research Yale University Press New Haven and London Text and notes first published in 1973 in Yiddish as Geshikhte fun der yidisher shprakh by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Text first published in 1980 in English as History of the Yiddish Language by the University of Chicago Press. Copyright © 2008 by YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Set in Baskerville type by Tseng Information Systems, Inc., Durham, North Carolina. Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Weinreich, Max, 1894-1969. [Geshikhte fun der Yidisher shprakh. English] History of the Yiddish language / Max Weinreich ; edited by Paul Glasser, translated by Shlomo Noble, with the assistance of Joshua A. Fishman, p. cm. — (Yale language series) “Published in cooperation with the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.” Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-300-10887-3 (set: alk. paper) isbn 978-0-300-10959-7 (v. 2 : alk. paper) [etc.] 1. Yiddish language—History. I. Yivo Institute for Jewish Research. II. Title. III. Series. PJ5119.W3813 2006 439'.k>9—dc22 2006044339 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents v o l u m e 1 Editor’sPreface vii Translators’Foreword xi Introduction xiii 1. YiddishandAshkenaz:TheObjectofStudyand theApproach 1 2. YiddishintheFrameworkofOtherJewishLanguages; AshkenazintheFrameworkofJewishCommunities 45 3. TheLanguageoftheWayoftheSHaS 175 4. InternalJewishBilingualism 247 5. TheNameYiddish 315 6. TheHistorical-GeographicDeterminants:Loter,theCradle ofYiddish 328 NotestoChapters1–6 a1 Appendix:ParallelParagraphNumberingofMaxWeinreich(1973): GeshikhtefunderyidishershprakhandMaxWeinreich(2008):Historyof theYiddishLanguage a347 SelectBibliographyof MaxWeinreich’sWorks a355 vi Contents v o l u m e 2 7. TheLinguisticDeterminants 349 8. SelectivityandFusion 599 9. TheIdealEarlySchemeofYiddishProtovowels 658 10. CriteriaforthePeriodizationofYiddish 719 NotestoChapters7–10 a359 Appendix:ParallelParagraphNumberingofMaxWeinreich(1973): GeshikhtefunderyidishershprakhandMaxWeinreich(2008):Historyof theYiddishLanguage a717 SelectBibliographyof MaxWeinreich’sWorks a725 Index a729 7 The Linguistic Determinants 7.1 Ashkcnaz is a great factor in the history of the Jewish people, and since language is an important element in culture, the Yiddish language is also a great factor in Jewish history. But all this is in retrospect. Initially, it must be said that the Yiddish language could not have come into existence if it were not for a certain extralinguistic constellation. Yiddish came into being because Loter came into being. But there is no language that has risen in a different manner: French is a Romanic language spoken by the descendants of Celts, and the name of the country, the people, and the language— France, French— is taken from a Germanic tribe, the Franks (6.3.1). Thus historical-geographic determinants in the rise of Loter necessi­ tated the linguistic components (1.8, 1.10,6.8): Hebrew as the language of vertically legitimated Jewishness, Loez in two versions as the accom­ panying vernacular, and the regional variants of German in the new places of settlement. But even concerning these pattern factors that the past and the surrounding world provided, we quickly note that the specific combination in which they appear is a one-time event; in no other community have the factors combined in such a manner. The further development of the fusion is surely indigenous. The components in the fusion have affected one another and led to linguistic results impossible within any of the languages entering into the fusion. In other words, each determinant itself begins to determine the system, and pro­ gressively so as time passes. This could be expressed in a political metaphor as follows: there is no independence in language, but there is self-determination. 7.1.1 Sometimes we hear the history of Yiddish condensed into such a formula: Jews at first had spoken German and then recast it in their own manner. Since quantitatively the German component in Yiddish is the largest, we may justify this formulation. If we modify: Jews adopted German ... then the formula is not downright false. But it is not adequate, for it is apt to summon the false notion that there actually was a time when Jews spoke “pure German.” The Jews who settled in Loter were not linguistically fastidious; they adopted the neutral elements of the coterritorial population’s vernacular 35° The Linguistic Determinants with considerable freedom (3.3 ff.). But there was no Jewish community speaking “pure German” up to the nineteenth century. The first genera­ tion of immigrants to Loter, and possibly more than one generation, entered upon a situation of multilingualism (7.18), and the first years of the new language Yiddish must have been uncertain and stammering, that is, rich in alternate sounds, forms, and words. All alternates were acceptable as long as there was communication. When a more stable form of language began to emerge in Loter, it was not the coterritorial variant of German. The intonation and the “differential phonetics” (1.9.1) were not the same; they were adapted from the prelanguages that were brought along. Surely the Hebrew and Loez components were a conspicuous variance in the language of the Jews compared to that of the coterritorial German. And even had these components been repre­ sented to a lesser extent than they presumably were, they would still be basically something that the language of the Germans could not have been. Even within the German component itself the facts were grouped in the Jewish community in a manner entirely different from the grouping in German (7.31). The basic difference between Yiddish and German has no direct bearing on the question of whether a German and a Jew, say in the year 1000 in Cologne, could communicate. Communication was possible even nine hundred years later, when Yiddish and German were most certainly independent linguistic systems (2.16.1). Scandinavians among themselves, a Dutchman and a northern German, a Russian and a Ukrainian, even a Russian and a Pole, or an Italian and a Spaniard can “communicate.” In the case of some of the languages mentioned the difficulties in communicating are greater, in the case of others they are less, but it is irrelevant whether the subjects know if linguists view the cases under consideration as separate languages or as different dialects within one language. 7.2 If its fusion character determines the entire subsequent linguistic fate of Yiddish (1.8), we have to fashion a picture of each determinant. Determinant and component are not identical. From the German determinant, for example, there was only one step to the German component of Yiddish, but not all linguistic units that could have been taken over into Yiddish potentially were actually taken over. But the German determinant is also not identical with the German stock language; it is an excerpt (not always exactly definable) of the stock language— that part of the stock language to which the Loter-Ashkcna- zic community had access. An acquaintance with the history and structure of the stock language from which the determinant derived does not yet yield a proper picture of the determinant. For example, Sephardic Hebrew is for Yiddish an extraneous formation; maskilic The Linguistic Determinants 35* Hebrew and modern Israeli Hebrew appear different from our point of view (4.25.2, 4 25.3) than their appearance in the history of the Hebrew language. In the case of German we are interested in both Middle High German (and to some extent even Old High German) and New High German, but from different points of view. On the other hand, the student of Yiddish is considerably interested in the so-called Ash- kenazic rabbinic Hebrew, whereas the Hebraist may regard it as a comparatively insignificant matter; and in the case of the German determinant, the student of Yiddish must occasionally ponder over a sole medieval isogloss that even a professional Germanist has ignored. The same applies to the other two determinants, Loez and Slavic. The interest of the student of Yiddish, as will be seen, is always specific, determined by the time, the territory, and the social stratification. This leads to the conclusion that the student of Yiddish does not find ready-made all he has to know about the determinants. The stock languages are comparatively well investigated— in this respect students of the oldest Latin, the oldest Greek, or the oldest Hebrew may envy us considerably— but the spccial problems that Yiddish poses frequently call for special research. (This yields a by-product: not only does general linguistics profit from research on Yiddish, but so does the study of the individual stock languages.) We shall take up the determinants in the order of their age among Jews in the entire course of historical development: Hebrew {7.3-7.16), Loez (7.18-7.23.5), German (7.24-7.44.3), Slavic (7.48-7.61). Jews were connected with Hebrew ever since they became a people; Loez in two versions was brought to Loter by the immigrants; German they first found in Loter; Slavic they owe to the eastward expansion of Ashkenaz. 7.3 It is best to begin the examination of Hebrew with the clarification of the fundamental difference between two linguistic formations: Whole Hebrew and Merged Hebrew. The guest reciting the benediction after the meal together with the family will pronounce, in accordance with the rules of Whole Hebrew, “May the Merciful bless this /'baal-ha'bajis/ (master of the house),” but in conversation at the table he will address him as /bale'bos/ or /bal'bus/, as Merged Hebrew requires. The same difference can be observed constantly, not only with reference to whole sentences or phrases, but also with reference to single lexical units. In Merged Hebrew the word taanit (fast) is /tones/ or /tunes/, depending on the dialect. Esler-jtonesj (/tunes/) (Fast of Esther) is also pronounced in this way in the expression fun ester tones biz purim, but the more formal designation calls for /tajnis/ or /tanis/. Rabonon-kadish (the rabbis’ kaddish) is said after study, but in the prayer book it is called kadish derabonon.