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90 SHOFAR Fall 1998 Vol. 17, No. 1 Jewish Linguistic Geography: Some Lessons for the Historian Paul Wexler TelAviv University Historians are invited here to explore novel hypotheses regarding the history of the Jews based exclusively on linguistic evidence. Linguists and historians would not deny that they can profit from mutual collaboration, yet rarely do they take the trouble to familiarize themselves with one another's achievements and research agendas. For example, the average historian's interest in linguistic data rarely extends beyond the examination of anthroponyms and the language of individual historical texts, while the linguist usually has only a superficial knowledge of the cultural, political, and intellectual history of the speech community he is studying. There are three major contributions that the linguist can make to the student of history: (1) When historical documents are no longer available, the linguist can extend the depth ofhistorical description through the tools ofreconstructive linguistics. (2) The linguist can offer additional confirmation for hypotheses proposed by the historian. (3) Most important, an examination of the geographical correlates of linguistic facts often enables the linguist to put forward new hypot..heses for the consideration ofthe historian. On many occasions, the hypotheses put forward by linguists contradict those advocated by historians. In such cases, the former should be regarded as the most attractive, since while the survival of historical documents or physical remains is a matter of chance, a language tends to retain traces ofearlier stages with a high degree of fidelity. It is also important to note that the hypotheses that emerge from an examination of linguistic maps need not be dependent on historical facts. There are several types of geographical study that are worthy of the joint attention of historians and linguists. First, we can study with profit the geography of linguistic facts in individual Jewish languages or sets ofJewish languages (which mayor may not be coterritorial or contiguous, or ofsirnilar genetic stock), and second, we can compare the latter with linguistic facts in the contiguous and coterritorial non-Jewish languages. Historical documentation, both Jewish and non-Jewish, and the material remains of Jewish settlement (e.g. cemeteries, ritual baths, synagogues) have in the past encouraged us to posit a picture of an early originally Romance Jewish migration from the southwest to the southeast German lands, beginning with the ninth century. Yet, a Jewish Linguistic Geography " 91 careful examination ofthe component structure ofYiddish and the Jewish imprint in the coterritorial Christian languages (Gennan and the Slavic languages) suggests that Yiddish must have begun in the (south)east Gennan lands-and not necessarily as a Gennanic language, but rather as a dialect of West Slavic (see also below).I Historians have long bemoaned the fact that while most contemporary Jews can trace their immediate ancestry to Slavic Europe, knowledge of the early settlement history ofthe Jews in Eastern Europe is extremely sparse.2 Some of these lacunae can be filled by linguistic data. For example, Arthur Koestler attempted to derive the bulk ofthe Ashkenazic Jewish population from Khazar (Turkic) antecedents on the basis of non-linguistic evidence; the attempt might have been more successful had the author taken linguistic facts into consideration.3 While the Turkic linguistic remains of the Khazars are sparse, there are Hebrew documents written by Khazars from the tenth century which attest to contact between Khazar and non-Khazar Jews in the East Slavic lands.4 Recognizing the existence ofSlavic-speaking Jewries in Eastern Europe before the arrival ofthe Ashkenazic Jews from Gennany which can be postulated on the basis of linguistic evidence from Yiddish and the Slavic languages might also have added substance to Koestler's otherwise weak argumentation. While the linguist is often not in a position to provide the historian with concrete 'answers, he can often posit new questions for future historical research. For example, suppose we wanted to know when the Jews migrated from the Italian to Gennan lands. Aside from the oft-quoted remark that a family of rabbis named Kalonymos, from Lucca, in northwest Italy, settled in Mainz around the year 1000, historians have precious little to say about the northward migrations of Italian Jews in the Middle IFor details, see my Yiddish...

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