Paul Wexler (linguist)

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 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 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.[5]

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 subcultural 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.[6] Wexler's theory argues 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.[7]

In his 1993 book he stated that Ashkenazi Jews could be considered ethnically Slavic.[8] He asserts that the Ashkenazi are not of Mediterranean origin.[8] Considering the logical outcome of his linguistic theories to be that Ashkenazi Jews are the decedents of Iranian, Turkic, and Slavic proselytes.[7]: 55[8][9] 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.[7]: 55[10]

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.[6]: 184 He prefers to describe languages Max Weinreich described as Eastern and Western Knaanic as, rather, Judeo-Slavic.[11] 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.[6]: 184[7]: 69

He separates Yiddish into Eastern Yiddish which he views as Slavic and Western Yiddish which he views as a largely unrelated Judeo-Germanic language.[7]: 69 Eastern Yiddish he theorizes is derived from the intersection of Sorbian Jews who spoke Yiddish and Slavic speaking descendants of the Khazars.[7]: 70 He theorizes this second relexification of Eastern Yiddish took place in the 15th century at which time the decedents of the Khazars no longer spoke a Turkic language but rather a mixed Slavo-Turkic.[7]: 55 Wexler considers it possible that the Slavicized decedents of the Khazars immigrated north and westward. Causing some Eastern Slavic terms for Jewish holidays to becoming part of Western Slavic.[7]: 528 Wexler states that his theory does not require Yiddish to contain a significant Turkic substratum.[7]: 524 Wexler rejects the theory that the differences between Eastern and Western Yiddish where caused by the formers greater exposer to Slavic. Instead viewing the two dialects as two largely separate languages.[7]: 69

Paul Wexler’ theories have been criticized sometimes harshly by other scholars. The majority of scholars have rejected his theories on Yiddish.[8] Simon Neuberg rejects the relexification theory saying that it “seems more of a marketing trick.” Steffen Krogh also disagrees with Wexler. Alexander Beider does likewise stating. “Sometimes I even wonder if he himself believes in what he writes. If he is not believing, but making a provocation, 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.”[9]

Controversy

In 1988, Wexler was suspected by some Yiddish scholars of having written,' under the 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.[9] After strong protests were raised at the putative fraud by one of the editors in particular, Dovid Katz, and evidence suggested the submission had been sent from the address of one of Wexler's relatives, in November 1988 the publishing journal printed a disclaimer of the review.[9][12]

Bibliography of works

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. ↑ Philologos, 'The Origins of Yiddish, Part Dray,' The Forward20 July 2014.
  6. 1 2 3 Bernard Spolsky, The Languages of the Jews: A Sociolinguistic History, Cambridge University Press 2014 p.184.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Paul Wexler, Two-tiered Relexification in Yiddish: Jews, Sorbs, Khazars, and the Kiev-Polessian, Walter de Gruyter 2002 pp.9,55-56.71.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Cherie Woodworth (2014). "Where Did Yiddish Come From?". Retrieved 15 June 2015.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Batya Ungar-Sargon,'The Mystery of the Origins of Yiddish Will Never Be Solved,' Tablet 23 June 2014.
  10. ↑ Paul Wexler, The Non-Jewish Origins of the Sephardic Jews, SUNY Press 2012.
  11. ↑ Paul Wexler, Explorations in Judeo-Slavic Linguistics, BRILL 1987 p.x.
  12. ↑ 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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