Paul Wexler (linguist)

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Paul Wexler (born 1938) is an American-born Israeli linguist, and Professor Emeritus of linguistics at Tel Aviv University.[1] His research fields include historical linguistics, bilingualism, Slavic linguistics, creole linguistics, Romani (Gypsy) and Jewish languages.

Wexler is known for his controversial theory that Sorbian may be the genetic linguistic ancestor of Yiddish, and that the language was "re-lexified" with Germanic-derived words between the 9th and 13th centuries due to the contacts with neighbouring German populations.[2][3] According to Wexler, the Yiddish language structure provides "compelling evidence of an intimate Jewish contact with the Slavs in the German and Bohemian lands as early as the 9th century."[4] Wexler's hypothesis is contentious in the field of Yiddish linguistics. [5] The newspaper The Forward describes Wexler's theory as "rejected by every Yiddish linguist except for Wexler."[6]

Biography

Wexler grew up in the United States, earned his B.A. at Yale University in 1960, his M.A. at Columbia University in 1962 and his Ph.D. at Columbia University in 1967. He moved to Israel in 1969. He did his basic training in the IDF in 1974.[7]

Theories on the origins of Jewish languages

Wexler's theories are complex, involve numerous Jewish languages and introduce creolization as a factor in the formation of many of these languages. Other than linguistic analysis, he separates Jewish cultural areas into Judeo-Greek, Judeo-Romance, Judeo-Germanic, Judeo-Turkic, Judeo-Tat, Judaeo-Georgian, Judeo-Arabic and Judeo-Slavic. While he acknowledges that many Jewish languages have a Hebrew substratum,[8]

Wexler's theory holds that these languages were derived from various proselyte groups who retained the grammar of their old non-Jewish languages, while relexifying them through the extensive adoption of new vocabularies.[9] There are 3 distinct theories regarding the origin of Yiddish, and Wexler's approach differs radically with the two main theories positing a Western Rhineland origin or a Bavarian/Czech genesis, and does so by breaking the genetic link between the Slavic countries and those Jews who lived in medieval Germany.[10] Wexler argues that Yiddish began as two distinct languages: Judeo-French (Western Yiddish) and a Judeo-Sorbian dialect spoken in eastern Germany. The former died out while the latter formed the basis for the later Yiddish language.[9]: 69[11][12] Eastern Yiddish, he theorizes, is derived from the intersection of Sorbian Jews who spoke Yiddish and Slavic speaking descendants of the Khazars.[9]: 70 He theorizes this second relexification of Eastern Yiddish took place in the 15th century, at which time the descendants of the Khazars no longer spoke a Turkic language but rather a mixed Slavo-Turkic.[9]: 55

Wexler considers it possible that the Slavicized descendants of the Khazars immigrated north and westward. Causing some Eastern Slavic terms for Jewish holidays to becoming part of Western Slavic.[9]: 528 Wexler states that his theory does not require Yiddish to contain a significant Turkic substratum.[9]: 524 Wexler rejects the theory that the differences between Eastern and Western Yiddish where caused by the former's greater exposure to Slavic, instead viewing the two dialects as two largely separate languages.[9]: 69

In his 1993 book he stated that Ashkenazi Jews could be considered ethnically Slavic.[13] He asserts that the Ashkenazi are not of Mediterranean origin.[13] Considering the logical outcome of his linguistic theories to be that Ashkenazi Jews are the descendants of Iranian, Turkic, and Slavic proselytes.[9]: 55[13][14] He has also applied his linguistic theories to Sephardic Jews suggesting similarly that they are in fact also of non-Jewish origin, originating from Berber proselytes rather than from Spain.[9]: 55[15]

Herbert Paper in his 1995 paper on two of Wexler book’s rejects two of Wexler’s theories: first, that Yiddish is derived from an undiscovered Judeo-Sorbian language and secondly that Modern Hebrew is in fact a Slavic language.[8]: 184 He prefers to describe languages Max Weinreich described as Eastern and Western Knaanic as, rather, Judeo-Slavic.[16] In more recent work, Wexler has proposed three origins of Yiddish, by breaking it down to two distinct languages: he regards Western Yiddish as a Judaized German; Eastern Yiddish is interpreted as developing from Judeo-Slavic relexified to High German and then to again to Yiddish. He has also argued however that that eastern Yiddish is a relexification of Judeo-Turkic and linked to the Khazars and Karaites.[8]: 184[9]: 69

Paul Wexler's theories on both Yiddish and the Turkic-Iranian-Khazar origins have been criticized harshly by many other specialists in the field, the majority of whom reject them.[13] Simon Neuberg rebuffs the relexification theory saying that it "seems more of a marketing trick." Steffen Krogh also disagrees with Wexler. Alexander Beider likewise states: "Sometimes I even wonder if he himself believes in what he writes. If he does not believe, but merely wants to provoke, his writings of the last 20 years are oriented just to prove that Jews are not Jews. In this case, there is nothing to discuss."[14]

Controversy

In 1988, Wexler was suspected by some Yiddish scholars of having written,' under the Ukrainian pseudonym Pavlo Slobodjans’kyj, a harshly worded review of their work contained in the volume "Origins of the Yiddish Language". While criticizing others, the writer excluded Wexler's work, contained in the same volume, from criticism.[14] After strong protests were raised at the putative fraud by one of the editors in particular, Dovid Katz, and evidence suggested that the review had all the hallmarks of Wexler's polemical style, and that the submission had been sent from the address of one of Wexler's relatives, in November 1988 the publishing journal retracted the review.[14][17]

Bibliography of works

  • Purism and language. A study in modern Belorussian and Ukrainian nationalism (1840-1967), Bloomington: Indiana University. 1967.
  • A historical phonology of the Belorussian language, Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag. 1977.
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  • Three heirs to a Judeo-Latin legacy: Judeo-Ibero-Romance, Yiddish and Rotwelsch, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. 1988.
  • Judeo-Romance linguistics. A bibliography (Latin, Italo-, Gallo-, Ibero- and Rhaeto- Romance, (except Castilian), New York-London: Garland. 1989.
  • Studies in Yiddish linguistics. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. 1990.
  • The schizoid nature of Modern Hebrew. A Slavic language in search of a Semitic past. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
  • Yiddish—the fifteenth Slavic language. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 91. 1991.
  • The Balkan substratum of Yiddish. A reassessment of the unique Romance and Greek components. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. 1992.
  • The Ashkenazic Jews. A Slavo-Turkic people in search of a Jewish identity. Columbus: Slavica. 1993.
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  • (with J. Horvath), eds., Relexification in Creole and Non-Creole Languages. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. 1997.
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See also

References

  1. ↑ George Johnson, Scholars Debate Roots of Yiddish, Migration of Jews New York Times 29 October 1996.
  2. ↑ Paul Wexler, 'On the Schizoid Nature of Modern Hebrew,' in Russell A. Stone, Walter P. Zenner (eds.),Critical Essays on Israeli Social Issues and Scholarship, SUNY Press, vol.3 1994 pp.63-87.
  3. ↑ Paul Wexler, "Yiddish—the fifteenth Slavic language. A study of partial language shift from Judeo-Sorbian to German," International journal of the sociology of language, 1991
  4. ↑ Paul Wexler (1992), "From Serb Lands to Sorb Lands," in The Balkan Substratum of Yiddish: A Reassessment of the Unique Romance and Greek Components, Harrassowitz Verlag, 1992, p. 111
  5. ↑ Rose Kaplan, [1] Tablet (magazine)26 April 2016.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Philologos, 'The Origins of Yiddish, Part Dray,' The Forward20 July 2014.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Bernard Spolsky, The Languages of the Jews: A Sociolinguistic History, Cambridge University Press 2014 p.184.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6 9.7 9.8 9.9 Paul Wexler, Two-tiered Relexification in Yiddish: Jews, Sorbs, Khazars, and the Kiev-Polessian, Walter de Gruyter 2002 pp.9,55-56.71.
  10. ↑ Alexander Beider, Origins of Yiddish Dialects, Oxford University Press, 2015 p.526.
  11. ↑ Deborah Hertz, 'Contacts and Relations in the Pre-Emancipation Period: A Comment,' in R. Po-Chia Hsia, Hartmut Lehmann, (eds.) In and Out of the Ghetto: Jewish-Gentile Relations in Late Medieval and Early Modern Germany, Cambridge University Press, 2002 pp.151-160 p.155.
  12. ↑ Paul Wexler,'Languages in Contact: The Case of Rotwelsch and the Two Yiddishes,' R. Po-Chia Hsia, Hartmut Lehmann, (eds.) In and Out of the Ghetto: Jewish-Gentile Relations in Late Medieval and Early Modern Germany,] Cambridge University Press, 2002 pp.109-12.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 Batya Ungar-Sargon,'The Mystery of the Origins of Yiddish Will Never Be Solved,' Tablet 23 June 2014.
  15. ↑ Paul Wexler, The Non-Jewish Origins of the Sephardic Jews, SUNY Press 2012.
  16. ↑ Paul Wexler, Explorations in Judeo-Slavic Linguistics, BRILL 1987 p.x.
  17. ↑ Dov-Ber Kerler, History of Yiddish Studies: Papers from the Third Annual Oxford Winter Symposium in Yiddish Language and Literature, 13-15 December 1987 , Taylor & Francis, 1991 pp = 149-152.
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