126-417 Yiddish and German: The Uneasy Relatives

37.5 points of 2nd/3rd-year subjects

Yiddish, the language of the Central and Eastern European Jews (Ashkenazim) is a language that has developed out of medieval German. During its development it has incorporated many Hebrew elements, such as its writing system and a lot of its vocabulary, but also elements of many Central and Eastern European languages. During their long co-existence as neighbouring languages as well as within a diglossia situation, Yiddish and German experienced a lot of mutual exchanges as well as other phenomena of language contact. The subject is an introduction to the linguistic structure and the cultural and sociological situation of historical and contemporary Yiddish from the viewpoint of German linguistics, sociolinguistics and contact linguistics. The centuries of symbiosis between Yiddish and different standards of German as well as the role of Yiddish as a gateway for the transfer of linguistic material from third languages into German sublanguages such as regional and group-specific varieties will provide an understanding of the interaction between neighbouring languages.

A 1000-word classpaper and an essay of 3000 words for 3rd year, 4000 words for 4th year.