Language in Jewish society : towards a new understanding / John Myhill.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Myhill, John, 1956-

Series:

Multilingual matters (Series)

Multilingual Matters

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jews--Languages.

Jews.

Sociolinguistics.

Jews--Identity.

Hebrew language--History.

Hebrew language.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (249 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Clevedon, [England] ; Buffalo, NY : Multilingual Matters, 2004.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This book argues that the usage of language in Jewish societies can be understood as following from certain specific principles, particularly regarding the relationship between language and identity. Phenomena discussed include the revival of Hebrew, Hebrew in the Diaspora, the survival and ‘sanctification’ of Yiddish, the idea of ‘Jewish languages’, and the role of sociolinguistic phenomena in the Holocaust and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Contents:

Language and Jewish identity

Jewish language and identity in comparative and historical perspective

Language and Jewish identity in modern times

Hebrew as language of ancient Israel

The death of Hebrew as a spoken language

Hebrew as a sacred language

Diaspora Hebrew and the modern European ideology of language and identity

The revival of Hebrew

Diaspora Hebrew today

Aramaic

Judeo-Arabic

Judeo-Spanish

Yiddish

Are 'Jewish languages' a unique phenomenon?

Why are there no new 'Jewish languages'?

Flowering and death

Catastrophe and emotional attachment

Prestige of languages

Is Yiddish qualitatively different from other diaspora languages?

Conflicts with everyday-language-and-identity groups

Sociolinguistics in Israel today.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 223-235) and index.

ISBN:

9786610828432

9781853597624

9781280828430

1280828439

9781853597626

1853597627

OCLC:

567989221