A Cultural Language for the Folk: The Creation of a “Popular” Kulturshprakh in Yidish far ale, 1938–39

This paper looks at the popular Yiddish language journal Yidish far ale, published by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, from 1938 to 1939. It treats the journal as part of YIVO’s attempt to combat Polish linguistic acculturation by edifying its audience in a standardized language, while simultaneously drawing linguistic material from readers as holders of the national language. By looking at the relationship between the journal’s editor, Noah Prylucki, and members of YIVO’s philological section, as well as readers of the journal, it argues that the journal was instrumental in defining a standardized form of Yiddish as a national language and reconciling it with the folksshprakh, or language of the people. Yidish far ale represents YIVO’s contradictory mandate as an institution that promoted scholarship in Yiddish and as representative of Polish Jewry, as well as its relationship with other Yiddishist institutions. The contradictory nature of a “popular” kulturshprakh was not lost on Prylucki and other contributors to the journal. Dialectical debates within the journal illuminate the tumultuous relationship between the Yiddishist intelligentsia and the Yiddish-speaking masses, as well as the very nature of a kulturshprakh. Yidish far ale represents an example of cultural continuity under a threat of linguistic acculturation into Polish society.