Overview
With a rare combination of erudition and insight, the author investigates the major aspects of Yiddish language and culture, showing where Yiddish came from and what it has to offer, even as it ceases to be a living language. Reviews Harshav s book is a first-class study of Yiddish as both language and culture, rich with linguistic detail and historical insight, expert in its literary analysis and judgments. I recommend it enthusiastically. Irving Howe, Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York The Meaning of Yiddish is the most important contribution to the study of Yiddish language and literature in recent times. Chana Kronfeld, University of California, Berkeley The Meaning of Yiddish is explicitly intended for readers who bring to it no previous knowledge, only curiosity...My central question, Harshav writes in the preface, is: Yiddish: what was it? What kind of world was it? How can we read the intersections of meaning its texts seem to provide? How did it lead in and out of Jewish history, moving between the internal Jewish world and the cultures of Christian Europe and America? I know of no other single book in any language which could respond to these questions by conveying to the uninitiated ...such a richly textured profile of the nature and dynamics of both the Yiddish language and its literature. It is a remarkable feat of high popularization, written with great flair and without a hint of pedantry, its examples always to the point and often memorable in themselves...The book should be read by all who are interested in language, in literature, and in the modern Jewish experience. Times Literary Supplement
Full Product Details
Author: Benjamin Harshav
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Imprint: Stanford University Press
Edition: New edition
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 1.80cm
, Length: 15.20cm
Weight: 0.345kg
ISBN: 9780804735759
ISBN 10: 0804735751
Pages: 277
Publication Date: 01 August 1999
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
'I know of no other single book in any language which could respond to these questions by conveying to the uninitiated...such a richly textured profile of the nature and dynamics of both the Yiddish language and its literature. It is a remarkable feat of high popularization, written with great flair and without a hint of pedantry, its examples always to the point and often memorable in themselves...The book should be read by all who are interested in language, in literature, and in the modern Jewish experience.'Times Literary Supplement
Author Information
Benjamin Harshav is Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at Yale University. Among his many books is Language in Time of Revolution (Stanford paperback, 1999).
