GS/HUMA 6222 3.00 Jews, Language, and Society
MC 101A Wednesday, 11:30-2:20
Prof. K Weiser, kweiser@yorku.ca
Office hours, Wednesday 2.30-3.30 or by appointment, 754 York Research Tower
Course Description
Hebrew, the language of the Torah and much of Jewish legal and religious writing for thousands of years,
has come to be closely associated with Jews despite the fact that this Canaanite dialect was not uniquely
used by Israelites or Jews and ceased to be a spoken language for roughly 2000 years. Over time, Jews
came to speak a multitude of vernaculars closely related to non-Jewish languages and to honour Hebrew
and Aramaic, a lingua franca of the ancient Near East, as their sacred tongues. This pre-modern model of
language use - Hebrew/Aramaic alongside a diasporic vernacular - prevailed for centuries until the
breakdown of traditional Jewish society and the beginnings of Jewish integration into European and other
societies. With the advent of nationalism, Jewish language use took on new directions as language-centric
movements, usually tied to political movements, began to arise. In the 21st century, Jewish language
practices are again rapidly changing. Most traditional Jewish vernaculars, with the exception of Yiddish,
are headed toward disappearance. More than half of today's Jews speak Hebrew as their mother or
dominant tongue. Yet, despite the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language and symbol of nationhood,
English is the language that unites most Jews for secular functions in an age of globalization. And,
paradoxically perhaps, Hebrew is a language of everyday life for many non-Jews while Russian has in
some contexts become an emblem of Jewish life. Finally, Jews, particularly in North America, may be on
their way to creating new Jewish vernaculars.
Drawing on the disciplines of linguistics, sociology, and history, this course will examine the use of
language among Jews from antiquity through the contemporary era. The focus will be on understanding the
transition from models of language and identity in the pre-modern era until the Enlightenment and beyond.
In particular, attention will be given to the effects of nationalism and social integration into non-Jewish
society on Jewish language use from the 18th century until today.
This course will examine questions such as the following: do Jews speak differently than non-Jews in all
eras and what marks speech as Jewish? What constitutes a Jewish language and why are some languages
used by Jews seen as Jewish and others not? How does Jewish language use compare with that of other
ethno-religious communities? What can we learn about Jewish/non-Jewish relations through language use?
What role does language play in Jewish identity? How does language serve different purposes, e.g. secular
and religious? How does language help to construct identity and create community boundaries? What can
language tell us about patterns of migration and cultural exchange? What is the relationship between
language and power within Jewish societies?
Required Books and Readings
John Myhill, Language in Jewish Society. Towards a New Understanding. Clevedon,
Buffalo, Toronto: Multilingual Matters, Ltd., 2004
Sander Gilman, Jewish Self-Hatred. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986
Jeffrey Shandler, Adventures in Yiddishland: post-vernacular language and culture
Berkeley: UCLA Press, 2006
All other readings will be made available by the instructor and are subject to change with
advance notice. Primary sources will be announced weekly. For more information and
course updates, see my webpage: http://www.yorku.ca/kweiser/.
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Recommended
Steven Lowenstein, The Jewish Cultural Tapestry. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2002
Assignments
1. Academic book review comparing two books, 7-10 pages (30%).
2. A research paper treating a theme of this course, 20-30 pages (50%). It is
recommended (but not necessary) that this paper build on themes explored by the
academic book review. The writing of the paper will be in stages: a) submission of
proposed topic and sources (due 21 October); b) outline (due 11 November); c) final
paper (due at end of semester)
3. Oral presentation of one’s research in progress (10%).
4. Regular participation in class discussion and introduction of readings (10%).
Class Schedule
I. Introduction
16 September
Jews, language, and communities: an overview
John Myhill, Language in Jewish Society, 1-29
Primary sources:
R. Akiba Joseph Schlesinger, “An Ultra-Orthodox Position.” The Jew in the Modern
World, 202-204
Ehud Banai, “Hebrew Man”
Recommended:
Steven Lowenstein, The Jewish Cultural Tapestry, 1-48
II. Jews and language in antiquity: Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin
30 September
What is a Jewish language?
Chaim Rabin, “What Constitutes a Jewish Language?” International Journal of the
Sociology of Language 30 (1981): 19-28
Joshua Fishman. “The Sociology of Jewish Languages from a General Sociolinguistic
Point of View,” Readings in the Sociology of Jewish Languages, 3-20
Uzzi Ornan, “Hebrew is not a Jewish Language,” Readings in the Sociology of Jewish
Languages, 22-24
Myhill, 29-57
Jews and language in antiquity
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Max Weinreich, History of the Yiddish Language, “Yiddish in the Framework of Other
Jewish Languages,” 45-74
Myhill, 58-69, 109-118
Bernard Spolsky, “Jewish Multilingualism in the First Century: An Essay in Historical
Sociolinguistics,” Readings in the Sociology of Jewish Languages, 35-50
Primary Sources:
Genesis 10:1-32; Genesis 11:26-32, 12:1-9; Genesis 31:43-50
Deuteronomy 26:5-10
For on an online translation of the Hebrew bible: http://www.mechonmamre.org/p/pt/pt0.htm
III. Jews and language in medieval and early modern society
7 October
Jewish languages and Diglossia
Charles Ferguson, “Diglossia” Word 15 (1959): 325-340
Peter Burke, Languages and Communities in Early Modern Europe, ch.2, “Latin: a
Language in Search of a Community,” 43-60
Max Weinreich, History of the Yiddish Language, 74-174, selections
Lowenstein, 54-67
David Bunis, “Judeo-Spanish Culture in Medieval and Modern Times,” Sephardic and
Mizrahi Jewry, 55-75
14 October
Language and Religion.
Max Weinreich, “Yiddishkayt and Yiddish. On the Impact of Religion on Language in
Ashkenazic Jewry,” Mordecai M. Kaplan Jubilee Volume, 481-514
Max Weinreich, History of the Yiddish Language, 351-4 (merged Hebrew)
Myhill, 62-69
Lowenstein, 49-54
Shaul Stampfer, “Heder Study, Knowledge of Torah, and the Maintenance of Social
Stratification in Traditional East European Jewish Society,” Studies in Jewish Education,
3 (1988): 271-289
Aya Elyada, “Protestant Scholars and Yiddish Studies in Early Modern Europe,” Past
and Present 203 (2009): 69-98
Norman Stillman “Language Patterns in Islamic and Judaic Societies.” Islam and
Judaism: 1400 Years of Shared Values, 41-55
IV. The Crisis of Modernity
21 October
The breakdown of traditional society and its linguistic impact
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Sander Gilman, Jewish Self-Hatred, select chapters
Lowenstein, 69-83
28 October
The Jewish “National Renaissance” and the quest for monolingualism
Hebrew and Haskalah
Dan Miron, Traveler Disguised, 34-66
Shaul Stampfer, “What did ‘knowing’ Hebrew mean?” Hebrew in Ashkenaz, ed. Lewish
Glinert, 129-140
Myhill, 126-140
Primary Sources
Haskalah texts TBD
Language and Nationalism: Yiddish, Judezmo, Esperanto, Hebrew
Yael Chaver, What Must Be Forgotten, 1-44
Yisrael Bartal, “From Traditional Bilingualism to National Monolingualism.” Hebrew in
Ashkenaz, 141-149
Norman Berdichevsky, “Zamenhof and Esperanto,” Ariel 64 (1986): 58-71
4 November
The Interwar Period: the contested linguistic sphere and language authorities
Ezra Mendelsohn, On Modern Jewish Politics, 3-62
Sarah A. Stein, "Asymmetric Fates: Secular Yiddish and Ladino Culture in Comparison,"
The Jewish Quarterly Review 96: 4 (Fall 2006): 498–509
Todd Endelman, “Assimilation.” YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, 81-87
Benjamin Harshav, “Language. Multilingualism.” The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in
Eastern Europe, 991-996
Primary Sources:
Vladimir Zabotinsky, “Edmée,” 127-139
Ber Borochov, "The Tasks of Yiddish Philology," Science in Context 20:2 (2007): 341–
352.
Shlomo (Solomon) Birnbaum, "Jewishness and Yiddish," Irving Howe and Eliezer
Greenberg, ed., Voices from the Yiddish, 122-128
Yosef Klauzner, "Ancient Hebrew and Modern Hebrew," Benjamin Harshav, Language
in Time of Revolution, 208-215
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VI. Language use in contemporary Jewish life
11 November
Post-World War II: the case of Israel
Benjamin Harshav, Language in Time of Revolution, 153-180
Ghilad Zuckermann, “’Abba, why was Professor Higgins trying to teach Eliza to speak
like our cleaning lady?’" Mizrahim, Ashkenazim, prescriptivism and the real sounds of
the Israeli language.” Australian Journal of Jewish Studies 19 (2005): 210-231
Lewis H Glinert, “Holy land, holy language: a study of an ultraorthodox Jewish
ideology.” Language in Society 201 (1991): 59-86
Joshua Fishman, “Language Planning for the ‘Other Jewish Languages’ in Israel.”
Language Problems and Language Planning 24/3 (2000): 215-231
Ami Elad-Bouskila, "Arabic and/or Hebrew: The Languages of Arab Writers in Israel."
Israeli and Palestinian Identities in History and Literature (1999), 133-158
Primary Sources:
Philologos, "Hebrew vs. Israel" http://www.forward.com/articles/4052/
Ghilad Zuckermann, "Let my people know!"
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1242212397385&pagename=JPost%2FJPArti
cle%2FShowFull
Arab Labor
18 November
Yiddish and Jewish identity in Anglo-North America
Cynthia Ozick, “Envy; or, Yiddish in America”
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/envy-or-yiddish-in-america-a-novella/
Jeff Shandler, Adventures in Yiddishland, select chapters
25 November
Death and birth of Jewish languages
Neil Jacobs, Yiddish: a Linguistic Introduction, “Post-Yiddish Ashkenazic Speech,” 306
Chaim Weiser, Frumspeak, excerpt
Sarah Bunin Benor, “Do American Jews Speak a "Jewish Language"?: A Model of
Jewish Linguistic Distinctiveness,” Jewish Quarterly Review 99:2 (Spring 2009): 230269
Deborah Tannen, “New York Jewish Conversational Style,” International Journal of the
Sociology of Language 30 (1981): 133-149
Anna Verschik, “Jewish Russian and the Field of Ethnolect Study.” Language in Society
36/2 (2007): 213-232
Primary Sources:
If these knishes could talk
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Yona Sabar, “Burying My Mother Tongue”
http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c228_a15559/Special_Sections/Text_Contex
t.html
"Rise of Yiddish Scholar Elicits Kvetches From Traditional Yiddishists,”
http://www.forward.com/articles/13102/
VII. Summary and Conclusions
2 December
Yiddish and Black Vernacular English
Max Weinreich, “The Reality of Jewishness Versus the Ghetto Myth: the Sociolinguistic
Roots of Yiddish,” To Honor Roman Jacobson. Essays on the Occasion of His Seventieth
Birthday, 2199-2211
John R. Rickford, “The Ebonics controversy in my backyard: a sociolinguist’s
experiences and reflections”
http://web.stanford.edu/~rickford/papers/EbonicsInMyBackyard.html
Academic book review paper (7-10 pages double-spaced)
Carefully read and study two books on a related topic, making note of the main
arguments of the author. Write a review comparing the two works. Be sure to



Outline the main argument (or point) of the book and how each author builds up
his/her main arguments throughout the chapters.
Discuss the authors’ methods (or approaches) and use of evidence to support his
or her points.
Providing a critical assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the book. Does
the authors achieve what they set out to do? Are their arguments convincing or
not, and in what ways? What theoretical assumptions and/or value judgements
influence the authors’ arguments? Be sure to provide concrete examples (citing
page numbers in parentheses) of the problems or strengths you discuss.
(assignment based on Philip Harland’s graduate seminar “Honouring the Gods in the
Ancient Mediterranean: A Regional Study of Asia Minor”)
Paper proposal and bibliography (2-3 pages double-spaced)
Choose a topic relating to the course that interests you. Speak with me to confirm the
topic. Write a succinct proposal and outline of the paper, which entails:



Stating your topic, its relevance to the course, and the sort of material you expect
to cover.
Outlining your tentative thesis or main argument and how you expect to structure
the paper.
Discussing primary and secondary sources that will be useful in research.
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
Providing a bibliography (following an accepted academic style of bibliography
correctly).
Selected Bibliography of English-language sources
Benedict Anderson. Imagine Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism. London, New York: Verso, 1991
Jean Baumgarten. Introduction to Old Yiddish Literature. Edited and translated by Jerold
C. Frakes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005
Simeon D. Baumel. Sacred Speakers. Language and Culture among the Haredim in
Israel. New York: Berghahn Books, 2006
Joan Bratkowsky. Yiddish Linguistics. A Multilingual Bibliography. New York: Garland
Pub., 1988.
David M. Bunis. Sephardic studies: a research bibliography incorporating Judezmo
language, literature and folklore, and historical background. New York: Garland
Pub., 1981.
David M. Bunis and Andrew Sunshine. Yiddish linguistics: a classified bilingual index to
Yiddish serials and collections, 1913-1958. New York: Garland Pub., 1994.
Peter Burke, Languages and Communities in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Yael Chaver. What Must Be Forgotten. The Survival of Yiddish in Zionist Palestine.
Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2004.
Peter T. Daniels and William Bright, eds., The World’s Writing Systems. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1996.
Lucy Dawidowicz. From That Place and Time. A Memoir 1938-1947. New York:
Bantam Books, 1989
Aya Elyada. A Goy who speaks Yiddish. Christians and the Jewish Language in Early
Modern Germany. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012
Gennady Estraikh. Soviet Yiddish. Language Planning and Linguistic Development.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999
David E. Fishman, The Rise of Modern Yiddish Culture. Pittsburgh: University of
Pittsburgh Press, 2005
Joshua A. Fishman, Ideology, Society & Language. The Odyssey of Nathan Birnbaum.
Ann Arbor, MI: Karoma Publishers, 1987
Readings in the Sociology of Jewish Languages. Leiden: Brill, 1985
Jerold C. Frakes, The Politics of Interpretation. Alterity & Ideology in Old Yiddish
Studies. Albany: SUNY Press, 1989.
Sander Gilman, Jewish Self-Hatred Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986
Lewis Glinert, Hebrew in Ashkenaz. A Language in Exile. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1993.
Tracy Harris. Death of a language: the history of Judeo-Spanish. Newark: University of
Delaware Press; London : Associated University Presses, 1994.
Benjamin Harshav. The Meaning of Yiddish. Berkeley: UCLA Press, 1990
Language in Time of Revolution. Berkeley: UCLA Press, 1993
Joel M. Hoffman. In the beginning: a short history of the Hebrew language. New York:
New York University Press, c2004.
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Miroslav Hroch, “The Social Interpretation of Linguistic Demands in European National
Movements,” EUI Working Paper EUF No.94/1 (1994)
Neil G. Jacobs. Yiddish: a Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2005
Dovid Katz. Words on Fire. The Unfinished Story of Yiddish. New York: Basic Books,
2004
John Myhill, Language in Jewish Society. Towards a New Understanding. Clevedon,
Buffalo, Toronto: Multilingual Matters, Ltd., 2004
Shmuel Niger. Bilingualism in the History of Jewish Literature. Translated by Joshua A.
Fogel. Landham, MD: University Press of America, 1990
Eugenia Prokop-Janiec, Polish-Jewish Literature in the Interwar Years. Translated by
Abe Shenitzer. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2003
Angelo Saenz-Badillos, A History of the Hebrew Language. Translated by John Elwolde.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993
Naomi Seidman, Faithful Renderings. Jewish-Christian Difference and the Politics of
Translation. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2006
Naomi Seidman. A Marriage Made in Heaven: The Sexual Politics of Hebrew and
Yiddish. Berkeley: University of Califoria, 1997
Jeffrey Shandler. Adventures in Yiddishland. Postvernacular Language & Culture.
Berkeley: UCLA Press, 2006
Bernard Spolsky. The Languages of Jerusalem. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993
Bernard Spolsky. The Languages of the Jews. A Sociolinguistic History. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2014
Ilan Stavans. Resurrecting Hebrew. New York : Nextbook: Schocken, 2008.
Sarah A. Stein, Making Jews Modern. The Yiddish and Ladino Press in the Russian and
Ottoman Empires. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004
Barry Trachtenberg. The Revolutionary Roots of Modern Yiddish, 1903-1917. Syracuse:
Syracuse University Press, 2008
Max Weinreich. History of the Yiddish Language. ed. Paul Glasser, trans. Shlomo Noble.
New Haven and London: Yale University Press and YIVO Institute for Jewish
Research, 2008
Kalman Weiser. Jewish People, Yiddish Nation. Noah Prylucki and the Folkists in
Poland. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011
YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. Gershon Hundert, ed. New Haven: Yale
University Press and YIVO, 2008
Zion Zohar, ed. Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry; from the Golden Age of Spain to Modern
Times. New York: New York University Press, 2005
NOTE: For extensive references see
http://jewish-languages.org
and individual articles in
Martin Goodman, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2002
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Consult also RAMBI on the website of the Jewish National & University Library
(www.jnul.huji.ac.il)
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