Contemporary Hasidic Yiddish

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The overarching aim of our research is to provide the first in-depth description of the grammatical features of the Yiddish used in Hasidic communities worldwide, to analyse their implications for linguistic theory, and to investigate the sociolinguistic context of Hasidic Yiddish using the Stamford Hill community as a case study. Yiddish was the everyday language of Eastern European Jews over the last millennium. In the interwar period, the Yiddish landscape comprised three traditional dialects and a standardised variety. The Holocaust and concomitant historical events contributed to a major decrease in the number of Yiddish speakers to the extent that it has become an endangered language. Today, Yiddish is overwhelmingly spoken by followers of Hasidism (a strictly Orthodox spiritual movement within Judaism). Yiddish-speaking Hasidic communities are dispersed globally with the largest centres in Jerusalem and the Tel Aviv area in Israel, the New York area in the US, Antwerp in Belgium, and London's Stamford Hill. Even amongst scholars there is little appreciation of the fact that Yiddish is used as a daily language in these Hasidic communities. Consequently, few studies exist on Hasidic Yiddish language use, and none offer detailed grammatical descriptions. Our project builds on a pilot study on the grammar of Stamford Hill Hasidic Yiddish, which revealed a number of characteristics that differ dramatically from the traditional dialects and Standard Yiddish, demonstrating that this is a distinct variety of Yiddish with its own rules. The first objective of our proposed project is to expand on these findings by conducting an in-depth examination of the spoken and written Yiddish used in six Hasidic communities worldwide (together comprising an overwhelming majority of Hasidic Yiddish speakers) to probe the question whether the language of these communities constitutes a cohesive linguistic system, Hasidic Yiddish. In our pilot study, we have uncovered an interconnected web of grammatical changes strongly suggesting an implicational relationship between them. The rate at which this grammatical shift occurred was so rapid (within the space of a single generation), and so pervasive (changing the typological character of the language) that it constitutes a remarkably rare phenomenon. Our second objective is to examine the significance of such rapid, pervasive and interconnected changes for linguistic theory. The third objective of our project is to determine the sociolinguistic context underpinning this linguistic development using the Stanford Hill community as a case study. We will investigate speakers' language attitudes, their proficiency, multilingualism, Yiddish language education, and speaker attitudes to the written language. Our research will be relevant to scholars including linguists specialising in Germanic languages; language change and contact; minority and endangered languages; as well as to Jewish Studies, Genocide Studies, and Religious Studies scholars. Our work will also have a direct impact on the lives of contemporary Hasidic Yiddish speakers: First, by putting the unique nature of Hasidic Yiddish centre stage, we will provide speakers with a framework to enable them for the first time to conceptualise and recognise the special value of their language and to gain a deeper understanding of its history and development. Second, we will raise awareness of Hasidic Yiddish among scholars and the general public. We will do this through continued personal contact with our speakers, and through a number of public events including a series of social evenings facilitating cultural and knowledge exchange between Hasidic and non-Hasidic people, and through collaboration with a Hasidic charity on a youth heritage project. We will also hold two festivals of Yiddish and an academic conference open to the public to celebrate this extraordinary language.