This is the first volume to focus on the role of media in processes of linguistic change, one of the most contested issues in contemporary sociolinguistics. Its 17 chapters and five section commentaries present cutting-edge research from variationist and interactional sociolinguistics, media linguistics, language ideology research, and minority language studies. The volume advances our understanding of linguistic change in a mediatized world in three ways. First, it introduces the notions of sociolinguistic change and mediatization to create a broader theoretical framing than the one offered by ‘the media’ and ‘language change’. Second, it takes the discussion beyond the notions of ‘influence’ and ‘effect’ and the binary distinction of ‘media’ vs. ‘community language’. Third, it examines the relation of sociolinguistic change and mediatization and from five complementary viewpoints: media influence on linguistic structure; media engagement in interaction; change in mass and new media language; language-ideological change; and the role of media for minority languages. Bringing these strands of sociolinguistic scholarship together, this volume examines their shared references and common lines of thinking.

This Handbook of Jewish Languages is an introduction to the many languages used by Jews throughout history, including Yiddish, Judezmo (Ladino) , and Jewish varieties of Amharic, Arabic, Aramaic, Berber, English, French, Georgian, Greek, Hungarian, Iranian, Italian, Latin American Spanish, Malayalam, Occitan (Provençal), Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Syriac, Turkic (Karaim and Krymchak), Turkish, and more. Chapters include historical and linguistic descriptions of each language, an overview of primary and secondary literature, and comprehensive bibliographies to aid further research. Many chapters also contain sample texts and images. This book is an unparalleled resource for anyone interested in Jewish languages, and will also be very useful for historical linguists, dialectologists, and scholars and students of minority or endangered languages. This paperback edition has been updated to include dozens of additional bibliographic references.

This book offers sociological and structural descriptions of language varieties used in over 2 dozen Jewish communities around the world, along with synthesizing and theoretical chapters. Language descriptions focus on historical development, contemporary use, regional and social variation, structural features, and Hebrew/Aramaic loanwords. The book covers commonly researched language varieties, like Yiddish, Judeo-Spanish, and Judeo-Arabic, as well as less commonly researched ones, like Judeo-Tat, Jewish Swedish, and Hebraized Amharic in Israel today.

Jewish Languages from A to Z provides an engaging and enjoyable overview of the rich variety of languages spoken and written by Jews over the past three thousand years. The book covers more than 50 different languages and language varieties. These include not only well-known Jewish languages like Hebrew, Yiddish, and Ladino, but also more exotic languages like Chinese, Esperanto, Malayalam, and Zulu, all of which have a fascinating Jewish story to be told. Each chapter presents the special features of the language variety in question, a discussion of the history of the associated Jewish community, and some examples of literature and other texts produced in it. The book thus takes readers on a stimulating voyage around the Jewish world, from ancient Babylonia to 21st-century New York, via such diverse locations as Tajikistan, South Africa, and the Caribbean. The chapters are accompanied by numerous full-colour photographs of the literary treasures produced by Jewish language-speaking communities, from ancient stone inscriptions to medieval illuminated manuscripts to contemporary novels and newspapers. This comprehensive survey of Jewish languages is designed to be accessible to all readers with an interest in languages or history, regardless of their background—no prior knowledge of linguistics or Jewish history is assumed.

The present volume brings together 34 articles that were published between 1964 and 2003 on Judaized forms of Arabic, Chinese, German, Greek, Persian, Portuguese, Slavic (including Modern Hebrew and Yiddish, two Slavic languages "relexified" to Hebrew and German, respectively), Spanish and Semitic Hebrew (including Ladino - the Ibero-Romance relexification of Biblical Hebrew) and Karaite. The motivations for reissuing these articles are the convenience of having thematically similar topics appear together in the same venue and the need to update the interpretations, many of which have radically changed over the years. As explained in a lengthy new preface and in notes added to the articles themselves, the impetus to create strikingly unique Jewish ethnolects comes not so much from the creativity of the Jews but rather from non- Jewish converts to Judaism, in search (often via relexification) of a unique linguistic analogue to their new ethnoreligious identity. The volume should be of interest to students of relexification, of the Judaization of non-Jewish languages, and of these specific languages.

Jewish Languages in Historical Perspective is devoted to the diverse array of spoken and written language varieties that have been employed by Jews in the Diaspora from antiquity until the twenty-first century. It focuses on the following five key themes: Jewish languages in dialogue with sacred Jewish texts, Jewish languages in contact with the co-territorial non-Jewish languages, Jewish vernacular traditions, the status of Jewish languages in the twenty-first century, and theoretical issues relating to Jewish language research. This volume includes case studies on a wide range of Jewish languages both historical and modern and devotes attention to lesser known varieties such as Jewish Berber, Judeo-Italian, and Karaim in addition to the more familiar Aramaic, Judeo-Arabic, Yiddish, and Ladino. "On top of Brill’s Journal of Jewish Languages and a number of recent publications providing systematic overviews of Jewish languages as well as related theoretical discussions, this volume is a valuable addition to the increasing interest in Jewish languages and linguistics." -Wout van Bekkum, Groningen, Bibliotheca Orientalis LXXVI 3-4 (2019)