ERIC Number: EJ901388
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2010-Nov
Pages: 21
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1479-0718
EISSN: N/A
Ethnolect Debate: Evidence from Jewish Lithuanian
Verschik, Anna
International Journal of Multilingualism, v7 n4 p285-305 Nov 2010
This article presents the concept of Jewish Lithuanian as a range of post-Yiddish varieties spoken by some Jews in Lithuania and seeks to synthesise findings in contemporary ethnolect studies and in the field of Jewish language research. The legitimacy of the term "ethnolect" is questioned by some researchers; however, it is argued that contemporary ethnolect research concentrates on postmodern urban immigrant communities in the west, which are very different from the situation of Jews in contemporary Eastern Europe. It is argued that language and identity matters are more complex than just "Jewish", "Lithuanian" or "assimilated Jew". Jewish Lithuanian exhibits realisation of diphthongs and palatalised consonant different from that in mainstream Lithuanian. These features are traceable back to Yiddish. There is very little Yiddish impact on the lexical level; as for morphosyntax and pragmatics, more data are needed. The informants exhibit a high degree of linguistic awareness and their metalinguistic comments provide relevant information. Different from other post-Yiddish varieties, Jewish Lithuanian is not a transitional stage towards monolingualism: the speakers remain multilingual and code-switching between varieties of Lithuanian, Yiddish and Russian is a common phenomenon. (Contains 1 table and 11 notes.)
Descriptors: Jews, Language Research, Multilingualism, Monolingualism, Foreign Countries, German, Immigrants, Pragmatics, Language Variation, Indo European Languages, Pronunciation, Morphology (Languages), Syntax, Metalinguistics, Russian, Code Switching (Language)
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Lithuania
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A