Khazars and Karaites (was: Re: Brithenig)

On Thu, 6 Apr 2000 11:35:51 +0200 BP Jonsson <bpj@...> writes:
> >It seems that the Khazar language has its present-day descendants
> >in the two dialects of Karaim.
.

I guess "Karaim" is spoken by the Karaites?  (Qara'im)  Is that their own
name for the language?  I didn't think that there would be enough
Karaites left in order to preserve their language sufficiently.  From
what i've heard, the remaining Karaite communities are in Russia, Israel,
and New Jersey, although i've lived in the NYC area all my life and never
met any...but i guess "Karaite or Rabbinite?" isn't really a question
that people ask eachother when they meet anymore.

> Which has some weird features.  Apparently vowel harmony has been
> replaced by consonant palatalization harmony.
> Otherwise the differences between the various Turkic languages seem
> to be
> slight, with Karaite and Turkish of Turkey being the two most
> divergent.
.

Where did you get your information about Karaim?  The only place i've
ever seen it mentioned is on that website which tries to list every
language in the world with ethnographic stats about its speakers.
Consonant palatization harmony sounds like a cool feature, although i
don't know if i would be able to pronounce it properly :-) .


> Thought: may it have been the case that the orthodox majority of the
> Khazars indeed switched to Yiddish at some time, without being a
> majority
> among the Ashkenazim -- a large population can also be accounted for
> by a
> long period of undisturbed baby-making, you know! :-)
>          OTOH the historic sources seem to suggest that the Khazars
> never
> really abandoned the nomadic way of life: an unlikely lot to end up
> in a
> _shtetl_.  The more likely fate would be extermination on the
> battlefield, at the hands of Muslim Turks or Mongols.
.

I always thought that it was the growing Russian empire that conquered
Khazaria...

> Come to think of it, I don't know what the Karaite doctrine entails.
>  Steg?
> /BP
>
>  B.Philip Jonsson  <mailto:bpj@...>bpj@netg.se
> <mailto:melroch@...>melroch@my-deja.com
.

The Karaite sect in Judaism is somewhat parallel to Protestantism in
Christianity, from what i know of the latter.  They don't believe in the
authority of the Oral Law which is the basis of Rabbinic Judaism, so they
rejected all of the rabbinic interpretations and legal enactments.  As
far as i know, they never had any vernacularizing tendency, but they did
believe that each person has the authority to interpret the Hebrew Bible
(unlike the Sadducees who they resemble, the Karaites believe in the
entire Tanakh and not just the Torah).  However, over the years, many of
their founder (David ben Anan?)'s interpretations came to be considered
either authoritative or simply accepted, so they ended up having their
own form of Oral Law.
The most famous practical difference between Rabbinites and Karaites is
probably the use of fire on the Sabbath.  Rabbinites interpret the verse
in the Torah that says "you shall not burn a fire on the Sabbath" to mean
that you can't *ignite* or affect a fire, but leaving the stove or light
on from before the Sabbath starts is perfectly fine.  Karaites, however,
interpret it to mean that a fire can't *be burning* at all, so they would
"eat in the dark" as the stereotype goes.
During different periods of Jewish history the relationship between
Rabbinites and Karaites was more friendly than others.  I think it was
generally considered to be an antagonistic relationship until the
discovery of the Cairo Genizah which contains evidence that the different
communities there were very friendly and cooperated with eachother.


-Stephen (Steg)
 "ilu uhmzoi-tein kouk ta'ilmal-a oolii-elyeb, ka'uzoi-guvdhab..."