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What
the Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry is:
It is one of the biggest collections
of spoken language in the world – about 6000 hours of tape recordings -
we estimate that the archive contains more then 10.000.000 spoken words.
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The archive was initiated and
gathered by the eminent linguist and Yiddish scholar Uriel Weinreich. From
the late fifties through the sixties he and his team interviewed emigrant
informants, mostly in the US and in Israel. Most of the informants were
survivors of the Holocaust and all of them were native to one of 600 selected
cities and towns in Central Europe. The archive is an attempt at reconstructing
the historical Yiddish language and culture area after it was dislocated
and its home territory destroyed.
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The archive provides a basis
for Yiddish and interlingual study and is a resource for anthropological
cultural and historical research.
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At the heart of the inquiry,
and thus of each interview, was a questionnaire designed on structural
principles to cover the main topics of the linguistic and ethnological
variety in the former Yiddish home territory.
The work presented here under
methodological aspects is not primarily linguistically driven. Our work
in toto is embedded in a much more general, culture-political framework.
We think that there is a lack of knowledge in Europe about its most recent
cultural history. In working in Europe with the archive of the Language
and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry we want to contribute to closing
this gap.
Let us summarize our guidelines
in 3 sentences:
a) The very foundation
of a professional language archive is a large and varied collection of
data.
b) Knowledge gained through
the study of such a collection is an archive's stock-in-trade.
c) The sharing of knowledge
is the basis for all professional and public activities of a language archive.
What are the required components
of such an enterprise?
a) an extensive
reference library of documented artefacts with all data potentially available
for legimate study and research
b) a secure permanent repository
of the artefacts
c) a center for artefact
identification
d) a clearinghouse for professional
inquiries
e) an educational resource
f) a public gallery where
people can simply look, wonder, consider, appreciate and reminisce.
Literature:
M. Herzog, V. Baviskar,
U. Kiefer, R. Neumann, W. Putschke, A. Sunshine, and U. Weinreich (eds.).
The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry.
Volume 1(=LCAAJ I): M. Herzog,
U. Weinreich and V. Baviskar, (1992). Historical and Theoretical Foundations.
Tübingen.
Volume 2 (=LCAAJ II): A.
Sunshine, U. Weinreich, B. Weinreich, R. Neumann, (1995). Research Tools.
Tübingen.
Volume 3 (=LCAAJ III): M.
Herzog, (2000). The Eastern Yiddish-Western Yiddish Continuum. Tübingen
(in print). |
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