INTRODUCTION
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The
Yiddish Language
Yiddish, the mam'e loshn (mother tongue) of the East European
Jewish immigrants, is a '"diaspora language", one of sixteen or
more such languages created in the various lands of the Jewish
dispersion (Goldsmith, 1976, p.27). A diaspora language is written
in Hebrew characters, with which most Jews were familiar, and
was created to meet the special needs of their particular way
of life. It formed a kind of linguistic bridge between the vernacular
of the host country and the revered Hebrew-Aramaic of the Bible
and Talmud, which was reserved primarily for prayer and scholarship.
Some other examples of diaspora languages are: Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-Spanish
(Judezmo or Ladino) and Judeo-Persian.
Yiddish, the creation of the Ashkenazi Jews, was the most widespread
and generative of all the diaspora languages. The word, Yidish,
means "Jewish" in the language itself. In 1939 there were an estimated
eleven million Yiddish speakers in the world, comprising 65 to
70 percent of the world Jewish population (Weinreich, 1971, col.
789). In 1915 the Yiddish press of New York City alone had five
daily newspapers with an approximate circulation of 525,690 (Soltes,
1950, p. 24), and the world Yiddish periodical literature in 1939
amounted to more than 400 publications (YIVO, 1946, p. 9).
Yiddish is generally thought to have originated about a thousand
years ago in the upper and middle Rhine basin. It is believed
that the Jews who lived there fused elements of old French and
old Italian with various dialects of medieval German, and interlaced
them with the Hebrew or Hebrew-Aramaic of the liturgy and of biblical
and rabbinic study, which permeated so much of their lives. As
Yiddish-speakers migrated through Central and Eastern Europe,
the language continued to grow and transform itself, incorporating
elements of Slavic and other tongues along the way. A fusion language,
that absorbed and adapted words from other languages, Yiddish
developed into a unique, fluid, zesty tongue which was an expression
of the Ashkenazi way of life, of Jewish ethics and values.
The status of the language, as the twentieth century approached,
was still considered suspect by many intellectuals, who often
referred to it as the jargon of the common people. Advocates of
various ideologies, whether they were propounding the virtues
of Haskalah, Zionism, or Bundist socialism, originally preferred
to communicate their messages in established languages like German
and Russian, or in the case of the first two movements, in the
respected but not yet colloquial modem Hebrew. It was soon realized,
however, that to reach the people, one would have to speak to
them in their own familiar, intimate Yiddish. The non-Zionist
sections of the Jewish Labour Movement, in particular, came to
regard Yiddish as an asset of intrinsic cultural value.
Yiddish was standardized from several fluid dialects and transformed
into a modern literary tongue in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. Perhaps more than any other single factor,
the Yiddish periodical Kol mevaser (1862-1871) contributed
to the standardization of Yiddish orthography and the refinement
of modern Yiddish literary diction. The earliest work of the Zeyde
(Grandfather) of modern Yiddish literature, Mendele Mokher Sefarim
(1835-1917) (3),
appeared in its pages. (The name, which means "Mendele the Book
Peddler", is the pseudonym of Sholem Yankev Abramovitsh [romanized].)
The work of Mendele, along with that of the other two klasiker
(classic writers, or "Fathers") of modern Yiddish literature -
Isaac Leib Peretz (1852 or 1853-1915) and Sholem Aleichem (1859-1916)
- was critical in the forging of literary Yiddish. ("Sholem
aleykhem", a Hebrew-Yiddish form of greeting, which means
literally, "Peace be upon you", is the pseudonym of Sholem Rabinovitsh
[romanized].) The process of literary honing continued through
the appearance of two landmark publications: the Yidishe folks-bibliotek
(Jewish People's Library) (1889-1889), edited by Sholem Aleichem
in two anthologies, and the literary annual, Hoyz-fraynd
(House-friend) (1888-1896), edited by Mordecai Spector.
The first Czernowitz Yiddish Language Conference was held in that
city in 1908 to address the role of Yiddish in Jewish life, and
to mark its national significance. The conference formed a milestone
in the history of Yiddish. Attended by leading Jewish literary
and cultural figures of the time, and representing all shades
of Jewish opinion, the conference did much to bolster and galvanize
the acceptance of Yiddish as a literary language.
It is interesting that many of the early modern literary figures
were bilingual - in Yiddish and Hebrew - and sometimes trilingual
- in Russian or Polish as well. For most writers, embracing Yiddish
as a mode of creative expression did not mean abandoning Hebrew.
The noted Yiddish literary critic, Samuel Niger, like his predecessor,
Baal-Makhshoves, speaks of the tsveyshprakhikeyt (bilingualism)
of Jewish literature - one literature expressing itself in two
languages at various times in history, and most notably in Hebrew
and Yiddish [# 1705; 1706]. Mendele is considered to be the "Grandfather"
of both modern Hebrew and Yiddish literatures. Sholem Aleichem
and Isaac Leib Peretz deliberately chose to write in Yiddish even
though their work was first published in Hebrew and Russian. Authors
would sometimes translate, or rather recreate, their own works
into Hebrew from Yiddish or vice versa. Outstanding poets,
like Hayyim Nahman Bialik and Uri Zvi Greenberg, were productive
in both Yiddish and Hebrew. The distinguished Hebrew writer, Micah
Joseph Berdichevsky, and the Israeli Nobel laureate, Shmuel Yosef
Agnon, also wrote in Yiddish.
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Goldie Sigal
Jewish Studies Librarian
McGill University Libraries
