{"title":"Growing Up on the Wrong Side of the Mechitza: A Case Study of Contemporary Queer Jewish Language","authors":"Ellen Perleberg, G. E. C. Dy","doi":"10.1163/22134638-bja10019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22134638-bja10019","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article presents vocabulary and approaches for expressing LGBTQ+ identities and practices, which derive from Jewish tradition used by queer Jews in the Seattle area. From thirty-four semi-structured interviews with affiliates of Seattle Jewish life, the authors identify eight tokens of queer Jewish English vocabulary, including multilingual wordplay used to construct new terms for queer concepts, the mechitza as a spatial idiom for transgender identity, and “Talmudic genders” being reclaimed as contemporary nonbinary identities. Additionally, queer Jews utilize a variety of approaches to navigate Hebrew, from formal efforts like the Nonbinary Hebrew Project to invoking low-proficiency-driven circumlocution. These approaches demonstrate that queer Jews draw on a range of linguistic and cultural resources to describe their identities and experiences, and the distribution of queer language reflects the continued challenge cis-heteronormatively gendered religious practices present for queer Jews and the corresponding need for queer Jewish vocabulary to make space within them.","PeriodicalId":40699,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Jewish Languages","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-05-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47464136","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Yiddish Causal-Noncausal Alternation in Areal Perspective","authors":"E. Luchina","doi":"10.1163/22134638-bja10017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22134638-bja10017","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Languages differ in the way they code causal-noncausal alternations, in which an event is presented as either having an external causer or happening by itself. Some languages make no distinction between the two situations, while others make a morphosyntactic distinction. Yiddish, a Germanic language, differs from other genealogically close Germanic varieties: Yiddish codes causal-noncausal alternation similarly to the coterritorial Slavic languages with which it was in contact, for instance Polish and Russian. The two tendencies that make Yiddish similar to the Slavic languages in this respect are the rise of anticausative marking (direct calquing) and the development of a causative (preference for overt marking).","PeriodicalId":40699,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Jewish Languages","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43570105","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Expressions of Tense and Aspect in the Tunisian Varieties of Arabic: A Comparative Study of Jewish and Muslim Dialects","authors":"Wiktor Gębski","doi":"10.1163/22134638-bja10018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22134638-bja10018","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The aspectual and temporal value of the verb is one of the most discussed problems in Semitic linguistics. Nonetheless, in the field of North African Arabic dialectology this subject has not received its due attention, and compared to other Arabic dialects, it remains terra incognita. The present article explores strategies by which spoken varieties of Tunisian Arabic express tense and aspect. The core data examined in this study comes from an endangered dialect spoken by the Jews of Gabes (southern Tunisia). Comparative material includes an array of examples from both Jewish and Muslim varieties. I reconstruct the origin of the preverbal particles and auxiliaries in Tunisian Arabic, and argue that, in contradistinction to Moroccan Arabic, the ka- particle in Jewish Gabes does not originate in kān. I present evidence that the active participle in Jewish and Muslim varieties has divergent functional distribution, which suggests a Northwest Semitic substrate in Judeo-Arabic.","PeriodicalId":40699,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Jewish Languages","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45234463","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Language of Modern Jewish Cultures: Comparative Perspectives, edited by Joshua Miller & Anita Norich","authors":"E. Dean-Olmsted","doi":"10.1163/22134638-bja10016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22134638-bja10016","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40699,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Jewish Languages","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46878777","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Modern Judeo-Provençal as Known from Its Sole Textual Testimony: Harcanot et Barcanot (Critical Edition and Linguistic Analysis)","authors":"Peter Nahon","doi":"10.1163/22134638-bja10014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22134638-bja10014","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This study offers a linguistic description of the idiom of the Jews of the Comtat Venaissin (“Judeo-Provençal”) at the end of the 18th century, based on a critical edition of the only relevant document illustrating this language, a theatrical play in verse entitled Harcanot et Barcanot. The introduction provides a philological inventory of all known sources of “Judeo-Provençal.” The critical and variorum edition of the text, accompanied by linear glosses in English, is followed by a commentary comprising a glossary and analysis of all relevant linguistic features. It reveals, inter alia, that this language possessed words pertaining to the linguistic repertoire of French Jews since the Middle Ages; as for the phonetic features of the Jewish dialect of Provençal, their etiology is to be found in the history of the communities. The study concludes with a reassessment of the nature of linguistic variation in the dialect of the Jews of Provence.","PeriodicalId":40699,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Jewish Languages","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42197338","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Twenty-Four Egyptian Days in Yiddish","authors":"Justine Isserles","doi":"10.1163/22134638-bja10015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22134638-bja10015","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The object of this study is a list of twenty-four Egyptian days in Yiddish discovered at the end of a Hebrew miscellany from medieval Ashkenaz, preserved in the Basel Universitätsbibliothek. Egyptian days are inauspicious days for bloodletting; these are listed according to the Julian calendar and sometimes identified by saint names and feast days. The list is edited and translated into English. Dates and variants of these Egyptian days are then compared with those of the only other known list of its kind, found in the earliest dated astro-medical fragment in Old Western Yiddish, from 1396–1397. A tabular comparison and descriptive commentary of the names and dates in both lists follows. Preceding this analysis, the status and knowledge of Jewish physicians in medieval Ashkenaz is addressed, as well as a brief description of Ms R IV 2, revealing its rich content and some of its codicological and paleographical characteristics.","PeriodicalId":40699,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Jewish Languages","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46157369","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Splitting Definitives: The Separation of the Definite Article in Medieval and Pre-Modern Written Judeo-Arabic","authors":"Magdalen M. Connolly","doi":"10.1163/22134638-BJA10010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22134638-BJA10010","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article explores the reasons behind the orthographic practice of representing the definite article in written Judeo-Arabic as an independent entity, a phenomenon which became widespread in Jewish Arabic-speaking communities in the pre-modern era. Commencing with its representation in fifteenth to nineteenth-century Egyptian Judeo-Arabic manuscripts, the orthographic feature is traced back to Judeo-Arabic texts produced in medieval al-Andalus, Sicily, and the Maġrib, and from there, to post-1492 CE Sephardī Jewish refugees, who settled in North Africa and Egypt. The phenomenon is revealed to be the result of a two-stage process: (i) direct language contact between Romance and Judeo-Arabic; and (ii) the influence of Judeo-Spanish writing on Judeo-Arabic spelling practices in diaspora communities after their expulsion from the Spanish Kingdoms.","PeriodicalId":40699,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Jewish Languages","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49461131","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Loshn Koydesh Component in Contemporary Hasidic Yiddish","authors":"Z. Belk, L. Kahn, K. Szendrői","doi":"10.1163/22134638-bja10007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22134638-bja10007","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The loshn koydesh (Hebrew and Aramaic) component has historically influenced the development of Yiddish lexis and grammar. We examine its contemporary use among 26 native speakers of contemporary Hasidic Yiddish from Israel, New York, and London using a written questionnaire examining the gender of loshn koydesh nouns, periphrastic verbs with a Hebrew/Aramaic element, and adjectives derived from the loshn koydesh element of periphrastics. Our findings show that there are differences on both the geographical and gender axes, many of which are consistent with the speakers’ varied exposure to Modern Hebrew, English, and loshn koydesh. We also found that the loshn koydesh component has developed since the pre-War stage of the language in ways that seem to affect contemporary Hasidic Yiddish usage in all locations and for both genders. We take these developments to provide evidence for the existence of this newly emergent variety of Yiddish – Contemporary Hasidic Yiddish.","PeriodicalId":40699,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Jewish Languages","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2020-12-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47359775","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"מילון משווה למרכיב העברי בלשונות היהודים על יסוד האוסף של פרופ׳ שלמה מורג ז״ל, מהדורה שנייה מתוקנת ומורחבת (Synoptic Dictionary of the Hebrew Component in Jewish Languages, Based on the Collection of Shelomo Morag, z”l, Revised and Expanded Second Edition), written by Maman, Aharon","authors":"Sarah Bunin Benor","doi":"10.1163/22134638-bja10002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22134638-bja10002","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":40699,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Jewish Languages","volume":"35 1","pages":"289-294"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2020-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138538281","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Categorical Shifts of the Idiom Ribono shel(a)olam: From a Tannaitic Vocative to a Jewish Theocentric Interjection to a Substrate Component in Israeli Hebrew Discourse","authors":"Yishai Neuman","doi":"10.1163/22134638-06011139","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22134638-06011139","url":null,"abstract":"AbstractOral transmission of the Tannaitic Hebrew double genitive vocative ribbono šella‘olam ‘Master of the Universe’ maintains the definite article in the Hebrew component of two ancient Jewish vernaculars: Jewish Neo-Aramaic and Judeo-Arabic in Djerba. The textual transmission of the phrase, changed it graphemically from the Tannaitic original רִבּוֹנוֹ שֶׁלָּעוֹלָם into medieval רִבּוֹנוֹ שֶׁל עוֹלָם. The new spelling was the source of its final formation in Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish, without the definite article. The decategorialization of this double genitive phrase from a theocentric vocative to a semantically bleached interjection in these Jewish languages, especially Yiddish, was the point of departure for its meaning and pragmatic function in nascent spoken Modern Hebrew, as evidence from Mendele’s bilingual oeuvre indicates. It may be tentatively proposed that further grammaticalization and broadening of this substrate component structure-function pairing may have led to the emergence of a new category of analogically constructed discourse markers in Modern Hebrew.","PeriodicalId":40699,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Jewish Languages","volume":"26 1","pages":"190-226"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-12-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138538401","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}