Product Description

About a thousand years ago, European Jews began speaking a language that was quite different from the various tongues and dialects that swirled around them. It included Hebrew, a touch of the Romance and Slavic languages, and a large helping of German. In a world of earthly wandering, this pungent, witty, and infinitely nuanced speech, full of jokes, puns, and ironies, became the linguistic home of the Jews, the bond that held a people together.

Here is the remarkable story of how this humble language took vigorous root in Eastern European shtetls and in the Jewish quarters of cities across Europe; how it achieved a rich literary flowering between the wars in Europe and America; how it was rejected by emancipated Jews; and how it fell victim to the Holocaust. And how, in yet another twist of destiny, Yiddish today is becoming the darling of academia. Yiddish is a history as story, a tale of flesh-and-blood people with manic humor, visionary courage, brilliant causes, and glorious flaws. It will delight everyone who cares about language, literature, and culture.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #197686 in Books
• Published on: 2002-08-27
• Released on: 2002-08-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 8.50" h x .50" w x 5.50" l, .88 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780345447302
• Condition: New
• Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!

Amazon.com Review
"Positive, upbeat, practical, deeply rooted in Jewish history. That's our language. That's Yiddish." These words refer to the first recognizable Yiddish sentence extant, dated 1272, translated as "A good day will happen to the person who brings this mahzor [prayer book] to the synagogue." Yiddish: A Nation of Words is a popular history of this dying Jewish language, an amalgam of Hebrew and European languages, which dates to the early Middle Ages. Author Mariam Weinstein, a freelance journalist in Massachusetts who grew up in the Bronx when Yiddish could still be heard on almost any street corner, takes to her subject with enthusiasm. Her casual tone doesn't compromise her considerable intelligence, which shines especially in her discussion of the leading roles that women have played in the history of the language. (For centuries, women were not educated in Hebrew, so Yiddish became their particular idiom.) Another of the book's strengths is its account of the demise of Yiddish, which Weinstein attributes primarily to the trauma of the Holocaust and its aftermath of rapid assimilation. Perhaps the most pleasing and important thing about Weinstein's book, however, is that it does for Yiddish something like what, she argues, Yiddish did for Hebrew. "By letting words and phrases slip from the prayers of the older language into the younger, it kept the sacred tongue available to people who did not speak it every day." --Michael Joseph Gross

From Library Journal
Freelance journalist Weinstein here makes the story of the Yiddish language accessible to the general reader. Complete with two time lines, a glossary, and a bibliography, her work outlines the rise and decline of the language that united a dispersed people. Especially effective are biographical sketches of influential individuals such as playwright Sholem Aleichem and the Nobel Prize-winning writer Isaac Bashevis Singer. Weinstein presents these profiles as part of the language's development in various countries, including Poland, Russia, and the United States. Aspects of 20th-century history, such as the Holocaust, the revival of Hebrew, the popularity of klezmer (Yiddish) music, and the language's future, receive special attention. Complementing Weinstein's international view, Sol Steinmetz's Yiddish and English: The Story of Yiddish in America (Univ. of Alabama, 2001. 2d ed.) closely examines this language as spoken in the United States. Recommended for larger public libraries, academic libraries, and specialized collections. Marianne Orme, Des Plaines P.L., IL
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
“[A] charming and highly readable history of the language . . . Weinstein succeeds in her efforts to recreate the sound of a world that is gone forever.”
—The Washington Post


“[YIDDISH: A NATION OF WORDS] READS LIKE A FOLKTALE PEPPERED WITH PASSIONATE CHARACTERS.”
—The Boston Globe


“Almost everyone knows a little [Yiddish], a word or two, a joke perhaps, but what do they really know of the history, the tragedies, and bitter controversies that characterized a language now on the U.N.’s endangered list, but once spoken by eleven million people. . . . Part of the problem has been the lack of a serious, yet accessible book to fill the gap between glib entertainments. . . . Weinstein’s [book] aims to do that and her success . . . is substantial.”
—Los Angeles Times