Yiddish–German, Slavic, Or Oriental?
Yiddish–German, Slavic, Or Oriental?

Summary/Abstract: Yiddish is still seen frequently as a Jewish variety of German; however, the differences in inner structure between Yiddish and German are so huge that scholars tried to explain these differences by using varying theories and presuppositions. One particular trait of Yiddish as a linguistic system was, nevertheless, overlooked: Yiddish, just like Persian, Ottoman Turkish and other languages of the Islamic civilization (except Arabic), uses two parallel linguistic sub-systems with different syntactic and morphological features, one of the native elements, the other of the more prestigious elements of the language[s] of higher status. In this sense, Yiddish, born in post-Reformation Poland and in close vicinity of the Ottoman Empire at its zenith, behaves like an “Oriental” language.

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