Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-04T19:37:38.990Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Gennady Estraikh, Soviet Yiddish: Language planning and linguistic development. (Oxford modern languages and literature monographs.) Oxford: Clarendon; New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. x, 217. Hb $70.00.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2001

Robert D. King
Robert D. King
Affiliation:
Linguistics, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78713, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Soviet Yiddish occupies a special place in Yiddish linguistics. It is different from klal-Yiddish – ‘rule’-Yiddish, or normative Yiddish – in having certain orthographic peculiarities and a quite striking oddness in the spelling of words of Hebrew-Aramaic origin. These differences, which were ideologically driven and enforced by the Soviets, are plain to see and visually startling even to neophyte readers of ordinary Yiddish. The older British spellings gaol, kerb, and tyre for jail, curb, and tire convey something of the effect to the American English speaker.

Type
Book Review
Information
Language in Society , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , January 2001 , pp. 118 - 121
Copyright
2001 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)