Book contents
- Language in Britain and Ireland
- Language in Britain and Ireland
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Map of Britain and Ireland
- Introduction
- Part I English
- Part II Multilingualism in Britain and Ireland: The Celtic Languages
- Part III Multilingualism in Britain and Ireland: Minority Languages
- 15 Channel Islands French
- 16 South Asian Languages
- 17 Chinese
- 18 Yiddish
- 19 European Immigrant Languages
- 20 Sign Languages in Britain and Ireland
- Part IV Multilingualism: The Development of Urban Contact Varieties
- Part V Applied Sociolinguistic Issues
- Index
- References
18 - Yiddish
from Part III - Multilingualism in Britain and Ireland: Minority Languages
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 October 2024
By
Edited by
Book contents
- Language in Britain and Ireland
- Language in Britain and Ireland
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Map of Britain and Ireland
- Introduction
- Part I English
- Part II Multilingualism in Britain and Ireland: The Celtic Languages
- Part III Multilingualism in Britain and Ireland: Minority Languages
- 15 Channel Islands French
- 16 South Asian Languages
- 17 Chinese
- 18 Yiddish
- 19 European Immigrant Languages
- 20 Sign Languages in Britain and Ireland
- Part IV Multilingualism: The Development of Urban Contact Varieties
- Part V Applied Sociolinguistic Issues
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter begins by outlining the history and development of Yiddish, the traditional vernacular of Ashkenazi Jews, and it discusses how Yiddish went from being a vibrant language spoken by millions to being an endangered minority language with only a fraction of its original speaker population – primarily as a result of the Holocaust. The chapter explains how Yiddish came to be spoken in Britain from the 1880s onwards, when large numbers of Ashkenazim fled there to escape poverty and pogroms, and it details the initial tensions and subsequent cooperation between different waves and generations of Yiddish-speaking newcomers (which entailed shifting attitudes towards the Yiddish language). The chapter then provides an overview of the past and current geographical distribution of Yiddish-speaking communities in Britain, with a focus on the main urban centres, and it explores especially London’s thriving Yiddish culture between the two World Wars. This is followed by a discussion of the linguistic consequences of contact between Yiddish and English speakers, and particularly borrowings from each language into the other. Throughout, differences are explained regarding the language use and intergenerational transmission patterns of Yiddish among Haredi as compared to secular communities.
Keywords
- Type
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- Information
- Language in Britain and Ireland , pp. 413 - 424Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024
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