book by Dalit Assouline
This book explores the role and impact of ideology in language contact situations. The community ... more This book explores the role and impact of ideology in language contact situations. The community researched consists of radical ultra-Orthodox groups in Israel who maintain Yiddish as a minority language while voicing ideological opposition to the majority language, Israeli Hebrew. However, this community's declared linguistic ideology is at odds with the reality of language contact in Israel, since speakers are bilinguals whose Yiddish is heavily impacted by Israeli Hebrew. The book examines how speakers cope with this situation by analyzing their patterns of lexical borrowing and code-switching, focusing on their efforts to downplay the impact of Israeli Hebrew on their Yiddish. An additional focus concerns the effect of strict gender boundaries on language use, which in this highly conservative community results in marked and distinct gender-determined code-switching patterns. This book provides an important contribution to the fields of contact linguistics and Yiddish studies, and is also relevant to scholars (sociolinguists and anthropological linguists) interested in linguistic ideologies, language and gender and maintenance of minority languages.
Papers by Dalit Assouline
Journal of Jewish Languages 10, 200-223, 2022
The article presents the first evidence of the emergence of a new animacy-based verbal agreement ... more The article presents the first evidence of the emergence of a new animacy-based verbal agreement pattern in Israeli Haredi Yiddish. A study of recordings from the years 2017-2020 reveals that plural verbal agreement is always maintained with animate plural nominal subjects, but it is usually lost with inanimate plural nominal subjects. It is suggested that this linguistic change may be supported by the sociolinguistic setting of Israeli Haredi Yiddish speakers.
Journal of Germanic Linguistics, 34(2), 110-138. , 2022
This paper discusses the hitherto undocumented wh-ever constructions in contemporary American Has... more This paper discusses the hitherto undocumented wh-ever constructions in contemporary American Hasidic Yiddish. Employment of these Germanic constructions in both written and spoken American Hasidic Yiddish raises the question of their origin and the possibility that several Germanic varieties have influenced this seemingly new pattern. Specifically, these constructions might have originated from Germanized Yiddish varieties and past contact with Judeo-German, and then gradually become entrenched in American Hasidic Yiddish through contact with English. The paper uses this particular construction to offer some more general reflections on the possibility of historical impact of German on American Hasidic Yiddish during the formation of Hasidic Yiddish varieties in Williamsburg (New York) in the 1950s.
Benjamin Harry & Sarah Bunin Benor (Eds.), Languages in Jewish communities, past and present. De Gruyter Mouton, 2018
This article discusses why and how English was able to turn into a contemporary Jewish language a... more This article discusses why and how English was able to turn into a contemporary Jewish language among Yiddish-speaking American Hasidic Jews, in marked contrast to Israeli Hebrew (IH), which has not been similarly adjusted. One reason is that communal attitudes towards English are not as ideologically charged as compared to the " zealous " opposition to IH. Another reason is that English is able to undergo phonological and lexical modifications that enable Hasidic English to function as an ethnolect used within the community. This process, however, is linguistically more complex for IH, which thus remains an outsider language among Israeli Yiddish-speaking Haredim. The outsider status of IH versus the insider status of Hasidic English is reflected in the code-switching patterns attested among Yiddish public speakers, resulting in a common and effortless pattern of Yiddish-English switching among American speakers, as opposed to rare and marked instances of switches to IH among Israeli speakers.
Introduction to a thematic issue of the Journal of Jewish Languages (2018)
For the abstract see the article itself.
There is a mistake in the current pdf file with regard ... more For the abstract see the article itself.
There is a mistake in the current pdf file with regard to excerpt 1. This is the correct version of excerpt 1:
1) Snow in Siberia
1. IR: vus gedenkt ir vegn sibir, ir kent inz zugn.
what do you remember about Siberia can you tell us.
2. a tug in sibir, viazoy es ot oysgezen?
a day in Siberia what did it look like?
3. IE: nu ya, dos iz geven fil shney, shtark, kalt,
so yes, there was a lot of snow, strong, cold,
4. ober me iz geven ongeton in peltsalakh, si geven gut.
but we were wearing furs, it was ok.
5. fregt mir
ask me
6. IR: der shnay ober in rusland iz shener geven?
the snow however in Russia was more beautiful?
7. IE: ya, dortn iz geven a greserer shnay.
Yes there [in Russia] there was more snow.
"Language change in a bilingual community: The preposition far in Israeli Haredi Yiddish", M. Aptroot & B. Hansen (eds.), Yiddish Language Structures (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology), Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 39-61, 2014
Journal of Germanic Linguistics, 2010
"Veiling knowledge: Hebrew sources in the Yiddish sermons of Ultra-Orthodox women", International Journal of the Sociology of Language 226, 163-188., 2014
This article discusses a gender-based aspect of contemporary language contact among Israeli Yiddi... more This article discusses a gender-based aspect of contemporary language contact among Israeli Yiddish-speaking Haredi Jews. The speakers are all bilingual, and their command of Israeli Hebrew undermines the traditional linguistic disparity between men's and women's access to sacred Jewish texts. These texts are studied solely by men, with the result that, throughout the generations, men's command of "the holy tongue" (Hebrew and Aramaic) was much higher than that of the women. Today, in contrast, the familiarity of Israeli Haredi women with Israeli Hebrew facilitates their understanding of such materials. This is a new phenomenon, giving women access to sacred texts which had formerly been available only to men. Consequently, in quoting from sacred texts, when they speak in public (for example, in giving sermons to other women in their community), Israeli Haredi women employ various strategies in order to camouflage their true linguistic competence, so as not to display knowledge of the holy tongue on a level higher than that perceived as socially legitimate for women. Linguistic and discourse-based analyses of these strategies -in marked contrast to those of their American Yiddish-speaking counterparts -illustrate a facet of the continuing Haredi efforts to preserve a traditional way of life in a changing world.
This article examines the impact of affiliation to a Hasidic sect on the Yiddish dialect used by ... more This article examines the impact of affiliation to a Hasidic sect on the Yiddish dialect used by its members. Focus is on the community of Skver Hasidim, residing in New Square, New York, where historical circumstances caused a clash between two pronunciation systems. A corpus of Yiddish recordings is analyzed to track one vowel shift occurring in the speech of community members, testifying to their distinct identity within the Hasidic world.
"Hebrew among Yiddish speaking ultra-orthodox (Haredi) Jews in Israel", Geoffrey Khan (ed.), Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics. Leiden: Brill, 878-879. , 2013
Assouline Dalit. "Arabic Elements in Palestinian Yiddish." Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World. Executive Editor Norman A. Stillman. Brill Online, 2014. , 2014
היישוב הישן הספרדי בארץ ישראל (סדרת קהילות ישראל במזרח במאות התשע-עשרה והעשרים, יד בן צבי), 2023
Yiddish in contact with Arabic and Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) in the Old Yishuv
בלשנות עברית 73, עמ' 29-44, 2019
The Yiddish Component in Hebrew Yeshivish Jargon (זו הגירסה המתוקנת של המאמר. בגירסה שנדפסה ב"בל... more The Yiddish Component in Hebrew Yeshivish Jargon (זו הגירסה המתוקנת של המאמר. בגירסה שנדפסה ב"בלשנות עברית" נפלו כמה שיבושים)
The Hebrew component in Israeli and American Haredi Yiddish (Massorot 2019, 19-20: 15-38)
This pa... more The Hebrew component in Israeli and American Haredi Yiddish (Massorot 2019, 19-20: 15-38)
This paper studies the lexical impact of Israeli Hebrew on the documented Hebrew component in Israeli Haredi Yiddish, based on data from a corpus of lessons, sermons and radio interviews in Haredi Yiddish, recorded between 2005-2015. The impact of Israeli Hebrew is gradually changing this component, supporting the maintenance of Hebrew elements that are common is Israeli Hebrew. At the same time, the use of established, documented Hebrew elements, that are not common in Israeli Hebrew, is diminishing. These processes become evident when comparing the Hebrew component in Israeli Haredi Yiddish with its counterpart in American Haredi Yiddish. The differences between the Hebrew component in Israel and the same component in the US derive from the nature of contact with Hebrew: a diglossic setting in the US, where contact with Hebrew is mainly through texts, versus a bilingual setting in Israel, where all adult Haredi Yiddish speakers also speak Israeli Hebrew. The comparison demonstrates that the Hebrew component in American Haredi Yiddish is largely similar to the documented (i.e. East-European) Hebrew component, while the Hebrew component in Israeli Haredi Yiddish is gradually converging with the lexicon of Israeli Hebrew.
The opposition of ultra-orthodox ‘zealots’ to Modern Hebrew in contemporary Israel
‘Zealous’ Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox doctrine makes an unequivocal distinction between Hebrew as “... more ‘Zealous’ Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox doctrine makes an unequivocal distinction between Hebrew as “the Holy Tongue” (Loshn-kóydesh) and Israeli Hebrew (Ivrít). The two languages are perceived as totally unrelated, diametrically opposed entities; Loshn-kóydesh, articulated with the Ashkenazi pronunciation, is literally a sacred tongue, the language of God in which the world was created, while Ivrít is profane, a sacrilegious and even demonic entity. However, this clear ideological distinction is challenged by the intricate sociolinguistic setting in Israel, mainly by the fact that non-Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox communities use Hebrew both as a daily spoken language as well as a language of ritual and study, generally with no significant phonological distinctions in the different domains of use. This paper examines what happens to the ideological distinction between the two Hebrews in public domains, when it is faced with Israeli reality and especially with the existence of other Haredi linguistic models.
"Codeswitching in Israeli Haredi Yiddish sermons", Massorot 15, 1-24. (In Hebrew) , 2010
"The Haredi distinction between Ivrit and Loshn-Koydesh", In: Y. Benziman (ed.): Language as Culture: New Perspectives on Hebrew, Jerusalem: Van Leer, 145-163. (In Hebrew) , 2013
""They had not changed their language" – Haredi Yiddish in Israel", In: K. Caplan & N. Stadler (eds.), From Survival to Consolidation: Changes in Israeli Haredi Society and its Scholarly Study, Jerusalem: Van Leer, 101-115. (in Hebrew) , 2012
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book by Dalit Assouline
Papers by Dalit Assouline
There is a mistake in the current pdf file with regard to excerpt 1. This is the correct version of excerpt 1:
1) Snow in Siberia
1. IR: vus gedenkt ir vegn sibir, ir kent inz zugn.
what do you remember about Siberia can you tell us.
2. a tug in sibir, viazoy es ot oysgezen?
a day in Siberia what did it look like?
3. IE: nu ya, dos iz geven fil shney, shtark, kalt,
so yes, there was a lot of snow, strong, cold,
4. ober me iz geven ongeton in peltsalakh, si geven gut.
but we were wearing furs, it was ok.
5. fregt mir
ask me
6. IR: der shnay ober in rusland iz shener geven?
the snow however in Russia was more beautiful?
7. IE: ya, dortn iz geven a greserer shnay.
Yes there [in Russia] there was more snow.
This paper studies the lexical impact of Israeli Hebrew on the documented Hebrew component in Israeli Haredi Yiddish, based on data from a corpus of lessons, sermons and radio interviews in Haredi Yiddish, recorded between 2005-2015. The impact of Israeli Hebrew is gradually changing this component, supporting the maintenance of Hebrew elements that are common is Israeli Hebrew. At the same time, the use of established, documented Hebrew elements, that are not common in Israeli Hebrew, is diminishing. These processes become evident when comparing the Hebrew component in Israeli Haredi Yiddish with its counterpart in American Haredi Yiddish. The differences between the Hebrew component in Israel and the same component in the US derive from the nature of contact with Hebrew: a diglossic setting in the US, where contact with Hebrew is mainly through texts, versus a bilingual setting in Israel, where all adult Haredi Yiddish speakers also speak Israeli Hebrew. The comparison demonstrates that the Hebrew component in American Haredi Yiddish is largely similar to the documented (i.e. East-European) Hebrew component, while the Hebrew component in Israeli Haredi Yiddish is gradually converging with the lexicon of Israeli Hebrew.
There is a mistake in the current pdf file with regard to excerpt 1. This is the correct version of excerpt 1:
1) Snow in Siberia
1. IR: vus gedenkt ir vegn sibir, ir kent inz zugn.
what do you remember about Siberia can you tell us.
2. a tug in sibir, viazoy es ot oysgezen?
a day in Siberia what did it look like?
3. IE: nu ya, dos iz geven fil shney, shtark, kalt,
so yes, there was a lot of snow, strong, cold,
4. ober me iz geven ongeton in peltsalakh, si geven gut.
but we were wearing furs, it was ok.
5. fregt mir
ask me
6. IR: der shnay ober in rusland iz shener geven?
the snow however in Russia was more beautiful?
7. IE: ya, dortn iz geven a greserer shnay.
Yes there [in Russia] there was more snow.
This paper studies the lexical impact of Israeli Hebrew on the documented Hebrew component in Israeli Haredi Yiddish, based on data from a corpus of lessons, sermons and radio interviews in Haredi Yiddish, recorded between 2005-2015. The impact of Israeli Hebrew is gradually changing this component, supporting the maintenance of Hebrew elements that are common is Israeli Hebrew. At the same time, the use of established, documented Hebrew elements, that are not common in Israeli Hebrew, is diminishing. These processes become evident when comparing the Hebrew component in Israeli Haredi Yiddish with its counterpart in American Haredi Yiddish. The differences between the Hebrew component in Israel and the same component in the US derive from the nature of contact with Hebrew: a diglossic setting in the US, where contact with Hebrew is mainly through texts, versus a bilingual setting in Israel, where all adult Haredi Yiddish speakers also speak Israeli Hebrew. The comparison demonstrates that the Hebrew component in American Haredi Yiddish is largely similar to the documented (i.e. East-European) Hebrew component, while the Hebrew component in Israeli Haredi Yiddish is gradually converging with the lexicon of Israeli Hebrew.