Max Weinreich

Max Weinreich
Born 22 April 1894
Kuldīga, Russian Empire (now Latvia)
Died 29 January 1969(1969-01-29) (aged 74)
New York City, New York, United States
Occupation linguist, sociolinguist
Language Yiddish
Alma mater University of Marburg (1923)
Notable works History of the Yiddish language, Hitler's Professors
Notable awards Guggenheim Fellowship for Humanities
Spouse Regina Shabad
Children Uriel Weinreich, Gabriel Weinreich
Relatives Zemach Shabad

Max Weinreich (22 April 1894 in Kuldīga, Russian Empire, now Latvia – 29 January 1969 in New York City, United States) was a Latvian linguist, specializing in sociolinguistics[1] and Yiddish, and the father of the linguist Uriel Weinreich, who edited the Modern Yiddish-English English-Yiddish Dictionary.[2]

Biography

Max Weinreich (Russian: Мейер Лазаревич Вайнрайх, Meyer Lazarevich Vaynraykh) began his studies in a German school in Kuldiga, transferring to a Russian gymnasium in Liepāja after four years. He then lived in Daugavpils and Łódź. Between 1909 and 1912 he resided in Saint Petersburg, where he attended I. G. Eizenbet's private Jewish gymnasium for boys.[3] He was raised in a German-speaking family but became fascinated with Yiddish.

In the early 1920s, Weinreich lived in Germany and pursued studies in linguistics at the universities of Berlin and Marburg. In 1923, under the direction of German linguist Ferdinand Wrede in Marburg,[4] he completed his dissertation, entitled “Studien zur Geschichte und dialektischen Gliederung der jiddischen Sprache” (Studies in the history and dialect distribution of the Yiddish language).[5] The dissertation was published in 1993 under the title Geschichte der jiddischen Sprachforschung (History of Yiddish linguistics).

In 1925, Weinreich was the co-founder, along with Nochum Shtif, Elias Tcherikower, and Zalman Reisen, of YIVO (originally called the Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut — Yiddish Scientific Institute).[6] Although the institute was officially founded during a conference in Berlin, in August 1925, the center of its activities was in Wilno (today Vilnius, Lithuania), which eventually became its official headquarters as well. YIVO's first office in Wilno was in a room in Weinreich's apartment.[5] Remembered as the guiding force of the institute, Weinreich directed its linguistic, or philological section in the period before the Second World War.[5][6]

Max Weinreich was in Denmark with his wife, Regina Shabad Weinreich (the daughter of a notable doctor and Jewish leader in Vilna Zemach Shabad), and older son, Uriel, when World War II broke out in 1939. Regina returned to Vilnius, but Max and Uriel stayed abroad, moving to New York City in March 1940. His wife and younger son Gabriel joined them there during the brief period when Vilnius was in independent Lithuania. Weinreich became a professor of Yiddish at City College of New York and re-established YIVO in New York.

Publications

Weinreich translated Sigmund Freud and Ernst Toller into Yiddish.

Weinreich is often cited as the author of a facetious quip[7][8][9] distinguishing between languages and dialects: "A language is a dialect with an army and navy" ("אַ שפראַך איז אַ דיאַלעקט מיט אַן אַרמײ און פֿלאָט", "a shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot"), but he was explicitly quoting an auditor at one of his lectures.

Publications in English:

In Yiddish and German:

Festschrift

References

  1. ↑ Murray, Stephen O. (1998). American Sociolinguistics: Theorists and Theory Groups. John Benjamins Publishing. p. passim. ISBN 90-272-2178-2.
  2. ↑ Weinreich, Uriel (1968). ‏מאדערן ענגליש־יידיש, יידיש־ענגליש ווערטערבוך. Schocken. ISBN 978-0-8052-0575-6.
  3. ↑ Анатолий Хаеш, Генеалогические сведения в документах санкт-петербургской гимназии Эйзенбета
  4. ↑ Koerner, E. F. K. (2003). Toward a History of American Linguistics. Routledge. p. 261. ISBN 978-1-134-49508-5.
  5. 1 2 3 Paul Glasser, ""Weinreich, Max," The Yivo Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, ed. Gershon David Hundert [New York, N.Y.]: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research (website based on the print edition published by Yale University Press in 2008).
  6. 1 2 Mordkhe Schaechter, and Jean Baumgarten (2nd ed.), "Weinreich, Max," Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd ed. (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007), vol. 20, p. 723-724.
  7. ↑ Victor H. Mair, The Columbia History of Chinese Literature, p. 24 full text: "It has often been facetiously remarked... the falsity of this quip can be demonstrated..."
  8. ↑ Henry Hitchings, The Language Wars: A History of Proper English, p. 20 full text: "There's an old joke that..."
  9. ↑ S. Mchombo, "Nyanja" in Keith Brown, Sarah Ogilvie, eds., Concise encyclopedia of languages of the world, p. 793 full text: "A recurrent joke in linguistics courses ... is the quip that ..."
  10. ↑ http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300108873

Sources

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