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Language Multilingualism Both the dropping of final letters and “Ethnicity and Supra-Ethnicity in Corpus the naturalization of Hebrew-/Aramaic- Planning,” Nations and Nationalism 10.1–2 origin words—part of the Soviet antireli- (2004): 79–94; Joshua A. Fishman, “Do Not gious posture—were also defended on the Leave Your Language Alone: The Hidden Sta- tus Dimension in Corpus Planning,” Wawah grounds of making Yiddish more Euro- (2005); Dovid Katz, Klal-takones fun yidishn pean and modern. oysleyg (Oxford, 1992); Heinz Kloss, “Ausbau Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Languages and Abstand Languages,” Anthro- both the naturalized system of spelling pological Linguistics 9.7 (1967): 29–41; Y. M. Hebrew/Aramaic-origin words and the Lifshits, Rusish-yidisher verterbukh (Zhitomir, discarded final letters have been almost 1869); Mordkhe Schaechter, “Four Schools of universally discontinued. Thus, in the Thought in Yiddish Language Planning,” world of Yiddish, there has been a com- Michigan Germanic Studies 3.2 (1977): 34–66; plete triumph for “classicism,” on the one Mordkhe Schaechter, “Fun folksprakh tsu hand (in connection with the spelling kultursprakh: An iberblik,” in Der eynheytlikher yidisher oysleyg (New York, 1999); Mendl Lefin and the preferences for Hebrew/Aramic- Sotenever, “Mishli” (1813 ms.; reproduced, origin words), and on the other hand, for Vilnius, 1930); Max Weinreich, “Vos volt “internationalism” (in connection with yidish geven on hebreyish?” Di tsukunft modern econo-technical vocabulary). 36.3 (1931): 194–205; Max Weinreich, This is an example of how opposite di- “Daytshmerish toyg nit,” Yidishe shprakh rections can be pursued simultaneously, (1975): 23–33. rather than only seriatum, in language —Joshua A. Fishman planning. Although the profile of Yiddish lan- Multilingualism Torah mantle. Sušice, Czechoslovakia (now in guage planning is multidirectional when Throughout most of their history, the Czech Republic), early twentieth century. viewed as a whole, just as are the profiles Jews were a multilingual nation, both in This mantle, donated to the synagogue by Dr. almost all other language-planning efforts fact and as part of their identity con- He÷man Barthï and his wife Kamil, represents the world over, the Yiddish undertaking sciousness. As small Jewish minorities an unusual example of Czech written in He- is preponderantly oriented toward mod- moved from one land and culture to an- brew characters. (Jewish Museum in Prague) ernization and participation in the world other, they carried with them their multi- community (via ample use of both purity lingual library of texts. Jewish multilin- and internationalism), rather than being gualism in Eastern Europe was influenced (Vladimir Jabotinsky), or Czech (Siegfried self-isolating and rejective of such partici- by the nature of the Jewish historical ex- Kapper). Those who immigrated to South pation (via classicism and Ausbau). Al- perience, by the Jews’ own myth of ori- America learned Spanish or Portuguese; though it reveals the input of the right gins, and by the exceptional historical sit- knowledge of Polish and Russian made and of the left, of the Soviet orbit and uation of the Jews in Eastern Europe reading Ukrainian poetry easy; and in of the capitalist West, of religious tradi- between the eighteenth and the twenti- Palestine, many Jews studied Arabic. tionalism and of secular modernization, eth centuries. An exuberant multilingual- Those multilinguals had at least some Yiddish language planning has weathered ism was widespread among the first gen- sense of the grammar, vocabulary, and the Holocaust and has continued to be a eration of Jews from Eastern Europe who poetry of several languages, drawn from voluntary presence and to provide a vol- broke out of small-town (shtetl) exis- at least three language groups: Germanic, untary standard to this very day. The tence, went to the cities, and immigrated Slavic, and Semitic. community that is voluntarily bound by to Western Europe, America, or Palestine. This phenomenon was not unique to this standard can point to its being ac- Multilingualism was a moving force in intellectuals. Many Jews of the period of cepted by virtually every tertiary (college the total transformation of the Jews in mass emigration were born in the Pale and university level) school, Yiddish pub- the modern age, affecting their place in of Settlement before the Revolution of lishing house, and Yiddish periodical the geography and history, their education, 1917, moved to a city in Eastern Europe world over. The major holdouts today are choice of professions, behavior, and con- (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vilna, Warsaw, in ultra-Orthodox circles and even there, sciousness. Odessa), emigrated to Germany, then to beginnings of acceptance have been The number of languages spoken by France, then to America, and at some made (see, for example, the textbooks Jews in the modern age and mentioned point tried out Palestine. Some went from prepared for use in the first few years of in Jewish memoirs and conversations Ukraine to Canada or the United States, the twenty-first century in the Jerusalem ranged from five to seven and, in special moved from there to the Soviet Far East to Beys Yankev schools and teachers semi- cases, to 13 or 15. The standard set would build a Jewish state in Birobidzhan, went nary) and will doubtlessly continue to in- include Yiddish and Hebrew, Polish and on to Moscow, and eventually to Israel. crease in number in the future. Russian, German, perhaps French, and Other itineraries led people to South the New World language, English. Indi- America, South Africa, Australia, New • Shloyme Asher Birnbaum, Alef-beys fun viduals who attended yeshivas or had pri- Zealand, or Uzbekistan. ortodoksishn oysleyg (Êódß, 1930); Michael vate tutors could read Aramaic; graduates In medieval Europe, the same phenom- Clyne, ed. Undoing and Redoing Corpus Planning (Berlin and New York, 1997); Jack of a humanistic gymnasium would know enon prevailed on a smaller scale. Fellman, The Revival of a Classical Tongue: ancient Greek and Latin. In particular Whether because of persecutions and S Eliezer ben Yehuda and the Modern Hebrew Lan- cases we may add other languages, that is, expulsions or because of opportunities R guage (The Hague, 1973); Joshua A. Fishman, Lithuanian (Emmanuel Levinas), Italian grasped combined with a lack of “rooted- L LANGUAGE: Multilingualism 991 ness,” Jews experienced unease staying in them had written. Writing about Men- litical or cultural authority worked to en- one place, and frequently traveled be- dele Moykher-Sforim, the founder of force this unity, identifying ethnic and tween territories and languages. Their both Yiddish and Hebrew modern litera- political boundaries with language bor- very existence in the Christian world was tures, Klausner discussed the Hebrew ders. If the ideal of national unity did not defined by the religious opposition: Jew novels but not their original Yiddish ver- match the linguistic facts, that ideal was vs. Christian. It might be said that in this sions. Klausner was a nationalist Zionist imposed on deviant persons or groups. In way, Jews acquired a critical perspective and strove to realize the formula of one the twentieth century, Yiddishists sought of biculturalism and bilingualism, as well language on one land by one Hebrew to impose a unified “standard language” as a sense of cultural relativity, flexibility, (rather than Jewish) nation. Much earlier, on various dialects, mainly by means of and irony. Mediation was typical of Jews, Mendele Moykher-Sforim had countered the school system and mandatory unified who tended to specialize in the exchange this restrictiveness: “I like to breathe with spelling. Similarly, in Palestine in the be- of goods (trade), signs (languages), and both my nostrils” (Yiddish and Hebrew). ginning of the twentieth century, the Se- signs of goods (money). Yet for both Niger and Klausner, Jews who phardic pronunciation was imposed on Basic Concepts wrote in non-Jewish languages, like Kafka immigrants who were fluent in various Multilingualism is the knowledge of or Freud, were not part of “Jewish” litera- Ashkenazic dialects of Hebrew. Yet the as- more than one language by a person or ture. sumption of an overlapping identity of within a social group; it assumes the abil- In modern times, Jewish society in East- nation, land, and language is an essen- ity to switch from one language to an- ern Europe supported the use of Yiddish, tialist fallacy. In history, these three cate- other in speech, in writing, or in reading. Hebrew, Aramaic, Russian, German, and gories are most often asymmetrical. The Other terms describing this phenomenon Polish. All these languages could be active identity of language, ethnic group, na- include bilingualism, polylingualism, in a single community and even in a sin- tion, and state is an ideal, an instrument plurilingualism, diglossia, and languages- gle family, but not all individuals knew for homogenizing larger social groups, in-contact. Multilingualism may be per- every one of them. Many women and and a goal of nationalist and cultural sonal, social, or intersubjective. Personal men, especially of the lower classes, knew movements. multilingualism refers to the knowledge only Yiddish and some “Goyish” (the lo- The Structure of Multilingualism and verbal behavior of an individual, not cal dialect). Economically active men No society or state has just one lan- necessarily shared by the whole commu- knew some German as the lingua franca guage, nor can language be isolated from nity. Social multilingualism refers to the of trade, as well as the languages of Jewish culture. Societies are multilingual because communicative practices of a nation, learning, Hebrew and Aramaic. Yet the so- of minorities that live within the domi- tribe, or other social group that sustains ciety as a whole was familiar with the en- nant language group, and also because two or more languages. When Shmuel tire set of five or six languages, creating the official language itself presides over Niger, the prominent Yiddish literary what can be described as a third, inter- numerous dialects.
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