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The Romance Component in Yiddish: A Reassessment

The Romance Component in Yiddish: A Reassessment Abstract The presence of a lexical stock of Romance origin in Yiddish has been interpreted differently by various authors. For D. S. Blondheim they represent a direct continuation of Judeo-Latin. For Max Weinreich, those Romance components go back to specifically Jewish languages, which he called southern and western Loez (a variation on the terms “Italkic” and “Zarphatic” once used by Salomon Birnbaum). This study reconsiders the history of those Yiddish words of Romance origin, focusing on the phonetic development they underwent as they integrated into Yiddish. The contribution of Romance historical linguistics confirms the huge importance of the Italo-Romance connection in this lexical stock, which may reflect the phase when Jews from Byzantine Italy began to settle beyond the Alps. A pinpointed examination of the morphophonemic shape of the loanwords may even hint at specific places of origin on the Italo-Romance dialectal maps. In spite of the dominance of Italo-Romance dialects in the Romance-borrowed lexical stock of Yiddish, some terms attested in both Western and Eastern Yiddish obviously have an Old French origin. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Jewish Languages Brill

The Romance Component in Yiddish: A Reassessment

Journal of Jewish Languages , Volume 1 (2): 261 – Jan 1, 2013

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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
2213-4387
eISSN
2213-4638
DOI
10.1163/22134638-12340014
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Abstract The presence of a lexical stock of Romance origin in Yiddish has been interpreted differently by various authors. For D. S. Blondheim they represent a direct continuation of Judeo-Latin. For Max Weinreich, those Romance components go back to specifically Jewish languages, which he called southern and western Loez (a variation on the terms “Italkic” and “Zarphatic” once used by Salomon Birnbaum). This study reconsiders the history of those Yiddish words of Romance origin, focusing on the phonetic development they underwent as they integrated into Yiddish. The contribution of Romance historical linguistics confirms the huge importance of the Italo-Romance connection in this lexical stock, which may reflect the phase when Jews from Byzantine Italy began to settle beyond the Alps. A pinpointed examination of the morphophonemic shape of the loanwords may even hint at specific places of origin on the Italo-Romance dialectal maps. In spite of the dominance of Italo-Romance dialects in the Romance-borrowed lexical stock of Yiddish, some terms attested in both Western and Eastern Yiddish obviously have an Old French origin.

Journal

Journal of Jewish LanguagesBrill

Published: Jan 1, 2013

Keywords: Yiddish; Italo-Romance dialects; Old French; Italian; morphophonemic integration

References