Codified Traditions? Yivo’S Filologishe Sektsye In Vilna And Its Relationship To German Academia

Abstract

In June 1938, Max Weinreich, then head of YIVO’s (Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut) philological section in Vilna, published an article which became one of his most popular texts to appear during his long career as a leading scholar of Yiddish language. The pamphlet, Daytshmerish toyg nit ‘Germanisms are not acceptable,’ is widely known for its strong impetus against the influence of German on Yiddish.1 In blaming the Yiddish speaking masses, and even famous lexicographers and writers, for their thoughtless adaption of vocabulary and grammatical elements from German, Weinreich insisted on the purity of Yiddish klal-shprakh: in cases where there was no suitable term in Yiddish, he recommended using internationalisms. In addition to this, he instructed his readers not to be too anxious when picking up expressions from Slavic languages,2 while introducing German words to Yiddish was regarded as a sincere “act of linguistic impotence.”3 Max Weinreich’s campaign to protect Yiddish against borrowing from German should be seen against the background of YIVO’s long-standing attempt to establish a standardized written form of Yiddish, which could serve the practical needs of a highly diverse society. As all proponents of early linguistic and national movements, Yiddishists like Weinreich faced the problem that Yiddish lacked the prestige of a “fully-fledged” language. Thus, borrowing from other surrounding languages was considered highly dangerous. This was especially the case with German, which had served as a lingua franca among Eastern European Jews for a long time. Moreover, the fact that Yiddish is closely related to German from a linguistic point of view, and that state authorities, and also the maskilim, regarded Yiddish as “corrupted German” (jargon), boosted the efforts of Weinreich and other members of YIVO to eliminate Germanisms. Given these facts, the relationship between YIVO and German academia – used in its broadest sense, i.e. with respect to both YIVO’s scholarly work connected to German and its exchange with the scientific community in German