The First Textbook of Lithuanian for Yiddish-speakers
The First Textbook of Lithuanian for Yiddish-speakers

Summary/Abstract: In 1923, the Jewish population of the independent Republic of Lithuania constituted 153,700 persons, or approximately 7.6 percent of the whole population (Vilnius and Klaipëda areas are not included). All in all, minorities constituted 15.5 percent of the population. Although Jews had settled on the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania already in the fourteenth century, they lived predominantly among Slavic peoples, and their contacts with ethnic Lithuanians and the Lithuanian language started several centuries later. There is little if any research on older language and cultural contacts between Jews and Lithuanians. It is reasonable to assume that at least some Jews had a working command of Lithuanian, while some Lithuanians that lived side by side with Jews and interacted with them on an everyday basis, had a certain proficiency in Yiddish. Although, on a larger scale, both peoples remained cultural strangers for each other, the picture started to change in the beginning of the twentieth century.

• Details
• Contents