Silk Road Linguistics: The Birth of Yiddish and the Multiethnic Jewish Peoples on the Silk Roads, 9-13th Centuries. The Indispensable Role of the Arabs, Chinese, Germans, Iranians, Slavs and Turks

1421 Pages·2021·21.248 MB·Studies in Arabic Language and Literature

by  Paul Wexler

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© 2021, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden
ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11573-5 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39119-1
STUDIES IN ARABIC LANGUAGE
AND LITERATURE
Edited by
Sasson Somekh † and Alexander Borg
Volume 10
2021
.
Harrassowitz Verlag Wiesbaden
© 2021, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden
ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11573-5 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39119-1
Paul Wexler
Silk Road Linguistics
The birth of Yiddish
and the multiethnic Jewish peoples
on the Silk Roads, 9–13th centuries
The indispensable role of the Arabs, Chinese,
Germans, Iranians, Slavs and Turks
2021
.
Harrassowitz Verlag Wiesbaden
© 2021, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden
ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11573-5 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39119-1
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ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11573-5 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39119-1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART 1
EDITORIAL PREAMBLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
0 INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
0 .1 Dedication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
0 .2 Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
0 .3 Transliteration and abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
0.4 Symbols used with Yiddish examples identified as borrowed
from or modeled on Afro-Asian patterns of discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1 METHODOLOGY AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1 .1 Hebroid(ism); lessico franco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
1 .2 Germanoid(ism); Slavoid(ism) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
1 .3 Judaists, Judaeanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
1 .4 The role of the Iranians, Arabs, Khazars and Chinese in the maintenance
of the Irano-Arab Trade Roads; the role of the Iranians and Arabs in the
creation of the Old Judaic languages and Modern Hebroid; the role of
the Roma on the Irano-Arab Trade Roads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
1 .5 The Iranian Talmud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
1 .6 Judaists in Iran: Ashkenazim and Sephardim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
1.7 Ibn Khordādhbeh on the Radhanite merchants and their linguistic
competence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
1.8 Relexification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
1 .9 Professional, non-tribal confederations (with special attention to the
White Croats); conversion to Judaism; the rise of the Judaic peoples
and their relationship to the Palestinian Judaeans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
1 .10 The spread of (Judeo-)Iranians and their languages, cultures and
folklores; burial practices; šu‘ūbijjah; Sarmatianism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
1 .11 Afro-Eurasian Judaic toponyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
1 .12 Judeo-Iranian architectural and textual remains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
1 .13 Westward and eastward transmission of Iranian art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
© 2021, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden
ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11573-5 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39119-1
2 AFRO-EURASIAN ELEMENTS IN YIDDISH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
2 .1 The Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
PART 2
3 LOOKING AT THE OVERLOOKED: CONCLUSIONS AND
TOPICS FOR FUTURE STUDY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 991
3 .1 Postscript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 992
3.2 Definition of Yiddish as a relexified Slavic language; Iranianization of
Old Judaic languages; “Silk Road framework” for reconstructing
historical Afro-Eurasian isoglosses; Romani . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 996
3 .3 Yiddish as a tool for reconstructing the relative unity of Common Slavic
in c .1000 A .D . and for establishing the relative chronology of Iranian
and Turkic diachronic change; qualitative and quantitative aspects of
Iranianization of various target languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1005
3 .4 Etymological research; new Yiddish etymologies; the use of Yiddish to
reconstruct the history of the Irano-Arab Trade Roads; the neglect of
“Silk Road linguistics” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1010
3 .5 Using Yiddish to locate the position of Irano-Slavic and other
confederations in the Slavic and German lands; the White Croat state . . . . . . . .1017
3.6 Relexification in Old Judaic languages; lingua franca; lessico franco;
secretive languages and lexicons; African English Creoles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1018
3.7 The disadvantages of defining Yiddish as only a European language;
languages of peripatetic merchants; the implication of the terms
“Ashkenaz(ic)” (Scythians), “Sephard(ic)” (Sardes) and “Lotir”
(speakers of lotera’i); Radhanite history; the spread of Judaism and
Christianity from the Near East to Europe by merchants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1024
3 .8 The myth of a Judaean and Judaic “Palestinian diaspora” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1030
3 .9 The Judaization of non-Judaic religious customs, practices and
ethnography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1037
3 .10 The role of the Arabs, Iranians, Chinese, and Slavs in guaranteeing the
survival of “Hebrew”; the Arabicization of Hebrew; Judaists as carriers
of Iranian language and culture to Western Europe; the weak Arabicization
of Džudezmo in comparison to that of Yiddish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1037
3.11 The differential Iranianization of medieval Ashkenazic and Modern
Hebroid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1047
3 .12 The spread of Hebrew and Hebroid pronunciation norms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1047
3 .13 Irano-Arab Trade Road genetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1048
3 .14 The mutual importance of Yiddish, Rotwelsch and Romani studies . . . . . . . . . .1048
3 .15 “Silk Road linguistics” as a collaborative endeavor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1048
© 2021, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden
ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11573-5 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39119-1
3 .16 A window on Soghdian-Aramaic contacts and parallels with the Arabic
component in Judaic languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1052
3 .17 Punic as a factor in the development of North African Judaic languages . . . . . .1054
3 .18 Babylonian, Akkadian, Sumerian, Tokharian and Tibetan elements in
Old Judaic languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1055
3 .19 Judaic languages as “core” members of Afro-Eurasian isoglosses while
non-Judaic target languages are “peripheral” or “satellite” members of
Afro-Eurasian isoglosses; typology of trade languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1055
3 .20 The strong and the weak interpretations of the data in this study . . . . . . . . . . . .1062
3 .21 Four “cyclical laws” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1063
3 .22 The role of old and new converts to Judaism in creating the Old Judaic
languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1065
3 .23 Arabic as an international literary lingua franca . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1066
3 .24 Multilingualism among Judaic merchants; contacts among Old Judaic
languages; the significance of Persian as a Judaic language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1067
3 .25 Iranianization and Arabicization of Yiddish syntax and morphology . . . . . . . . .1070
3 .26 Moving forward; “Radhanite languages”, Sprachbünde . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1076
3 .27 New Persian and the Old Judaic languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1083
4 BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1097
5 GLOSSARIES AND INDICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1231
5 .1 Glossary of historical authors, sources, ethnic groups, geographical
locales and linguistic concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1231
5 .2 Index of glottonyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1283
5 .3 Index of examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1304
5 .4 Addenda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1410
© 2021, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden
ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11573-5 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39119-1
© 2021, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden
ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11573-5 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39119-1
PART 1
© 2021, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden
ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11573-5 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39119-1