Language and identity of the orthodox jewish community in Brooklyn

Abramac, Gabriela. (2014). Language and identity of the orthodox jewish community in Brooklyn. PhD Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of Linguistics. [mentor Rebić, Adalbert and Kalogjera, Damir].

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Abstract

The topic of this thesis is language and identity of the orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, New York. Community members are followers of Haredi and Hasidic Judaism which originated among the Ashkenazi Jews in Eastern Europe in the 18th century, spreading over Central Europe and Baltic later. At that time, in all those areas Jewish diaspora was using a triglossic language repertoire, i.e. Hebrew as the sacred language, Yiddish as the conversational language of a community and the language of a host country. The research of this thesis is focused on the continuity of the triglossic linguistic repertoire in the Jewish diaspora of Brooklyn in the beginning of the 21st century. Through sythesis of historical and contemporary data, the aim of this thesis is to contribute to a better understanding of the patterns which Jews have used to form their languages. It also seeks to explain how the identity of the community was formed under external influences. Up to now, this phenomenon has not been researched in this manner.

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