An Overview of the Language History of the Hungarian Jewish Community in the Carpathian Basin and Diaspora with a Special Emphasis on Yiddish

• Main Author: Siarl Ferdinand
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University Library System, University of Pittsburgh 2020-07-01
• Series: Hungarian Cultural Studies
• Subjects: yiddish; hungarian jews; language vitality; jewish sociolinguistics; hungary
• Online Access: http://ahea.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/ahea/article/view/395

This paper presents a brief language history of the Hungarian Jewish community since their establishment in the Carpathian Basin to the present, with a special focus on Yiddish. Between the Middle Ages and the nineteenth century, Yiddish became the group’s majority language; after the 1850s, the Hungarian Jewry started a process of language substitution. By the 1930s, the use of Yiddish was mostly limited to the ultra-Orthodox communities of Eastern Hungary, while the rest mainly adopted Hungarian. In this research, a pilot study of the current situation of Yiddish has been mapped using several methods, including a questionnaire answered by a hundred and thirty individuals and unstructured interviews with linguists. Although this study’s results confirm the earlier research by Matras (2010) and Shandler (2006) in establishing that Yiddish is generally a post-vernacular language while Hungarian has acquired the role of an ethnic language, it was found that a considerable percentage of those living in the Carpathian Basin still preserve Yiddish. This paper aims to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the group dynamics in bilingual communities and, specifically, to provide a clearer view of the language situation among the Hungarian Jewry.