The Origins of Yiddish (2014)
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The Origins of Yiddish (2014)
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Re: The Origins of Yiddish (2014)
#2These discussions generally do not cover Knaanic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knaanic_language. Based on Old Czech, it is the first language like Yiddish or Ladino and predates all of them by like 500 years.
Re: The Origins of Yiddish (2014)
#3The article is quite interesting, but I have to say I don't understand why Yiddish being a Slavic language would suddenly mean that all European Jews are Iranian; the Slavic languages aren't descended from anything spoken in Iran in the first century CE. That really feels like it came out of nowhere.
Re: The Origins of Yiddish (2014)
#4These discussions generally do not cover Knaanic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knaanic_language . Based on Old Czech, it is the first language like Yiddish or Ladino and predates all of them by like 500 years.
And they wouldn't, because the only person who suggests that Knaanic was ancestral to Yiddish, rather than having been displaced by it, is Wexler. Who is an unpleasant and academically dishonest crank, who, in addition to his discredited linguistic views, makes claims about the ethnic origins of the Ashkenazim which were always on shaky ground, and which have been conclusively disproven by modern genetic analysis. Not that this fact has motivated Wexler to retract his bullshit arguments.
Re: The Origins of Yiddish (2014)
#5If you are into this I reccomend the book Outwitting History; great read.
https://shop.yiddishbookcenter.org/products/outwitting-histo...
Re: The Origins of Yiddish (2014)
#6The article is quite interesting, but I have to say I don't understand why Yiddish being a Slavic language would suddenly mean that all European Jews are Iranian; the Slavic languages aren't descended from anything spoken in Iran in the first century CE. That really feels like it came out of nowhere.
It didn't exactly come out of nowhere, it was prefaced by "a fringe tends to develop; in Yiddish linguistics, that would be Paul Wexler".
As an L2 german (standard & dialect) speaker who's learning a slavic language I think "fringe" may be the charitable way to put it. (I've experimented with alemannic dialect speakers and upon first exposure they tend to think of yiddish as a different german dialect with some bizarre vocabulary)
> In a lokh in der erd hot gevoynt a hobit. Nit keyn bridke, koytike, nase lokh, ongefilt mit di ekn fun verem un a dripendikn reyekh, oykh nit keyn trukene, hoyle, zamdike lokh mit gornisht vu zikh avektsuzetsn tsi vos tsu esn: zi iz geven a hobit-lokh, un dos heyst bakvemlekhkeyt. —JRRT
Lagniappe: https://www.petitnicolas.com/livre/le-petit-nicolas/le-petit...
(honorable mention to https://yi.wikipedia.org/wiki/הויפט_זייט )
Re: The Origins of Yiddish (2014)
#7I speak native English, fluent German and beginning Dutch. A few years ago I picked up a Yiddish primer. In my layman's eyes, Yiddish is indisputably a Germanic language. Learning it was like learning to read German backwards in Hebrew letters. I understand why Yiddish speakers would not want to believe Yiddish is Germanic. And yet...
Re: The Origins of Yiddish (2014)
#8I speak native English, fluent German and beginning Dutch. A few years ago I picked up a Yiddish primer. In my layman's eyes, Yiddish is indisputably a Germanic language. Learning it was like learning to read German backwards in Hebrew letters. I understand why Yiddish speakers would not want to believe Yiddish is Germanic. And yet...
Compare hindi/urdu...
Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH1fERC_504
Re: The Origins of Yiddish (2014)
#9I speak native English, fluent German and beginning Dutch. A few years ago I picked up a Yiddish primer. In my layman's eyes, Yiddish is indisputably a Germanic language. Learning it was like learning to read German backwards in Hebrew letters. I understand why Yiddish speakers would not want to believe Yiddish is Germanic. And yet...
My dad learned Yiddish in his family home, both parents were immigrants and native speakers, though he never spoke it. But he loved to watch WWII movies, and would translate the German dialog for us and sometimes correct the subtitles.
Re: The Origins of Yiddish (2014)
#10I speak native English, fluent German and beginning Dutch. A few years ago I picked up a Yiddish primer. In my layman's eyes, Yiddish is indisputably a Germanic language. Learning it was like learning to read German backwards in Hebrew letters. I understand why Yiddish speakers would not want to believe Yiddish is Germanic. And yet...
Compare hindi/urdu... Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH1fERC_504
Aren't they essentially the same language (unlike Yiddish vs. German)?