The Hidden Isaac Bashevis Singer

4. Sociolinguistic Views of Isaac Bashevis Singer

4 Sociolinguistic Views of Isaac Bashevis Singer Mark L. Louden In this essay I will analyze a numberof observations that I. B. Singer made in essays written from  to  on the sociolinguistic status of the Yiddish language; hence the intentional tsveytaytshikeyt (ambiguity) of the title. In his role, especially after receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature in , as arguably the most familiar speaker and writer of Yiddish to Jewish and non-Jewish audiences, Bashevis’s thoughts on various aspects of the language are of interest, regardless of whether or not they were consonant with the views of other Yiddish-speaking intellectuals (often they were not). I will begin by briefly describing what sociolinguistics is and then proceed to review some of the facts of the sociolinguistic history of Yiddish in America. Then we will explore Bashevis’s stand on a number of issues pertaining to Yiddish, including its status in America, its historical origins, its status in the Soviet Union, its relationship with Modern Hebrew, and finally, appropriately, its future. I will proceed chronologically, discussing his writings in order of their publication and situate them to some extent in the context of his life experience at the time. To contextualize Bashevis’s sociolinguistic views somewhat, I will also pay special attention to the views of two sociolinguists avant la lettre, Einar Haugen, a linguist whose particular research interests included the situation of European immigrant languages in North America, and Max Weinreich, the dean of Yiddish linguists, known especially for his classic work on the historical development of Yiddish. What Is Sociolinguistics? Let us begin by considering what is meant by the term sociolinguistics. Generally stated, sociolinguistics is that subfield of linguistic science which addresses questions pertaining to a language within the context of its speakers, either individually or as a social group. Given the fact that language is so fundamental to human  interaction, and one of the primary ways we define ourselves as individuals or as members of groups, one might find the term sociolinguistics somewhat redundant. Indeed, the most familiar sociolinguist in the North America today,William Labov of the University of Pennsylvania, has made just that point.1 The term is not redundant , however, due to the fact that one may with equal validity view language as a structured system independent of its actualization in the speech of its users. The grammar of a language, for instance, may be accurately described with no direct reference to the individuals who would draw on it to produce utterances. For example, the statement ‘‘For Yiddish and English, definite and indefinite articles precede rather than follow the nouns they modify’’ is correct and need not refer to any particular speaker of Yiddish or English using the language at any particular point in time. This language-internal perspective is often described as formalist linguistics and in the United States is most commonly associated with the work of Noam Chomsky at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Interestingly, the emergence of sociolinguistics as a distinct linguistic subfield has strong ties to Yiddish linguistics. William Labov’s dissertation, ‘‘The Social Stratification of English in New York City,’’ which is considered the first modern sociolinguistic study, was completed at Columbia University in  under the supervision of none other than Uriel Weinreich, Max’s equally brilliant son. Furthermore, an important contemporary of Weinreich and Labov was Joshua Fishman, recently retired from Yeshiva University and the acknowledged pioneer of the subfield of sociolinguistics known as the sociology of language, which examines , for example, demographic patterns of preservation and decline in the use of languages, especially minority and immigrant languages. An important received wisdom which has emerged within sociolinguistics has been that every speaker has very specific and strongly held notions about what language is and how it works, many of which, however, are at odds with the objective reality studied by scientists of language. The study of language attitudes, including stereotypes, nevertheless is important because, regardless of how ‘‘accurate ’’ or ‘‘inaccurate’’ they may be, they are part of the real life of language. And it goes without saying that the attitudes of those whose professional activity is centered around language, such as writers, are of singular interest. Before proceeding to consider Bashevis’s thoughts on Yiddish, in America and in general, we should consider a few facts about the history and sociolinguistic situation of Yiddish in America.  Mark L. Louden [18.221.41.214] Project MUSE (2024-04-25 18...