Re: Demotic/Koine/Prakit

And Rosta scripsit:

> What about the Yiddish of elsewhere in Eastern Europe? Had that died out
> too? If it survived in some countries, did it survive more in cities or
> in the countryside, and more in higher social strata or lower?
Standard Yiddish is a second-order koine of Eastern European Yiddish
dialects, something like Polish vowels and Lithuanian consonants, IIRC
(using these names in a purely geographical sense), or perhaps vice
versa.  Anyway, EEY survived when WEY did not because there were no
neighboring Germanic languages to merge into: EEY was a set of Germanic
islands in a Slavic ocean.

> Is the Yiddish spoken in America a survival from earlier immigration, or
> is it a language revival/resuscitation?
Depends on the generation.  Until ~ 10 years ago, purely a survival, and
not a very thriving one at all.  Now, young people are beginning to
learn Y. as a 2nd language.

> ObConlang: Part of my reason for asking is I'm wondering what the Jewish
> community in Livagia speak/spoke (immigrated in the 1930s; some migrated
> to Israel after the war, and the rest have assimilated, except for the
> very elderly).
If they came from Eastern Europe, then Yiddish.  If from Western Europe,
the local language (German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese) with
a few Hebrew-derived vocabulary items.

"In Western Europe, it was a sign of anti-Semitism to call a Jew
a Jew, whereas in the belt of mixed populations [Central/Eastern Europe]
the Jews were recognized by friend and foe alike as a distinct people."
        -- Hannah Arendt

--
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
       I am a member of a civilization. --David Brin