Tales of a Lost Language. Methodological Challenges in the Investigation of Language Shift among Norwegian Jews.
Abstract
Documenting a historical language loss is a demanding endeavour, not least because relevant data from the past is typically sparse and fragmentary. This paper focuses on the investigation of a relatively recent language shift that occurred approximately 100 years ago. It exhibits significant methodological challenges, due to the limited empirical data available. The study centres on members of the Jewish minority in Norway, who predominantly spoke Yiddish when they immigrated from territories within the Russian Empire between the 1870s and the First World War. The overall trend suggests a relatively rapid shift into Norwegian as the dominant language over a couple of decades. By the end of the Second World War, Yiddish was basically moribund in Norway, largely due to the Holocaust, which devastatingly decimated the Jewish minority. However, more in-depth knowledge of these processes has so far been elusive, primarily because sources from the first two generations of immigrants are scarce. Moreover, this scarcity was intensified by the systematic seizure and disposal of Jewish families’ property during the Second World War. This paper seeks to address possible ways to remedy the extensive lack of concrete documentation from the early history of this minority group, limited to the 1880–1940 timeframe. Specifically, the focus is on utilising indirect reporting of linguistic practices and language choices found in sources such as biographies, memoirs, newspaper articles, local history, literature and other texts that comprise individuals’ life stories. The main assertion is that, when adeptly employed, these sources can provide valuable insights into historical language conditions, shedding light on the motivations behind language maintenance and shift, even in retrospect.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Introduction: Sociolinguistic perspectives on historical multilingualism in Europe
- Borrowing from French into Dutch (1500–1899): Testing the diffusion and graduality assumptions
- Language shifts in the domain of religion: Approaching a multi-layered process in Friedrichstadt
- Multilingual writing practices as code choices: Dutch alongside French in private family letters
- Tracing orthographic debates through history: sociolinguistic perspectives on nineteenth-century spelling proposals for Galician and Luxembourgish
- Tales of a Lost Language. Methodological Challenges in the Investigation of Language Shift among Norwegian Jews.
- The “natural history” of multilingual policy in Luxembourg: analysing strategic ambiguity and its implications for small language communities
- Miscellaneous
- An interview with Monica Heller
- An interview with Florian Coulmas
- Reviews
- Koch, Nikolas & Claudia Maria Riehl (with additional contributions by Johanna Holzer & Nicole Weidinger) (2024): Migrationslinguistik: Eine Einführung (Narr Studienbücher). Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto GmbH. 332 p.
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Introduction: Sociolinguistic perspectives on historical multilingualism in Europe
- Borrowing from French into Dutch (1500–1899): Testing the diffusion and graduality assumptions
- Language shifts in the domain of religion: Approaching a multi-layered process in Friedrichstadt
- Multilingual writing practices as code choices: Dutch alongside French in private family letters
- Tracing orthographic debates through history: sociolinguistic perspectives on nineteenth-century spelling proposals for Galician and Luxembourgish
- Tales of a Lost Language. Methodological Challenges in the Investigation of Language Shift among Norwegian Jews.
- The “natural history” of multilingual policy in Luxembourg: analysing strategic ambiguity and its implications for small language communities
- Miscellaneous
- An interview with Monica Heller
- An interview with Florian Coulmas
- Reviews
- Koch, Nikolas & Claudia Maria Riehl (with additional contributions by Johanna Holzer & Nicole Weidinger) (2024): Migrationslinguistik: Eine Einführung (Narr Studienbücher). Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto GmbH. 332 p.
