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The Meaning of Yiddish

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In The Meaning Of Yiddish, Benjamin Harshav (Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at Yale University) has written an impressive work of scholar erudition and insight into the major aspects of the Yiddish language and culture. Professor Harshav reveals where Yiddsh came from and what it has to offer contemporary Jewish culture, even as it is starting to die out with the passing of the generations of ghettoized Eastern Europe Jewry. The Meaning Of Yiddish is an outstanding recommendation for any personal, Temple, or academic Yiddish studies collection.

Vocabulary of the English language consists of several layers, which are not genre-neutral. Stories about Merrie Olde England, such as the Mother Goose nursery rhymes, are heavily Germanic; more formal English writing, such as the United States Declaration of Independence, is heavily Old French; as for modern French borrowings, I am reminded of the Internet forum tagline, "Pretentious? Moi?". It was similar with Yiddish: the Germanic, Hebrew-Aramaic and Slavic layers each had their own connotations and could be combined to give expressive richness to a text. Harshav illustrates this with both 19th century Yiddish literature and with the Yiddish poetry of American immigrants. I doubt Harshav's assertion that most Yiddish speakers have always been multilingual, though; Mendele the Book Peddler's Benjamin the Third certainly wasn't.