Language change in a bilingual community: The preposition far in Israeli Haredi Yiddish

Language change in a bilingual community: The preposition far in Israeli Haredi Yiddish* Dalit Assouline 1. Introduction A salient grammatical feature of contemporary ultra-orthodox (Hebrew Haredi) Yiddish is the use of the preposition far ‘for’ to mark the indirect object. This use of far, originating in Central Yiddish dialects (Weinreich 1964), has spread to other dialects as well, and is currently widely used in all Haredi Yiddish speaking communities. The use of far has spread not only dialectally, but also grammatically, and in Israeli Haredi Yiddish far is now used to mark most nominal indirect objects and even some historically direct objects, as well as gradually replacing other prepositions. The increased use of far reflects a common process of grammati-calization, which occurs in many languages. A preposition, usually bene-factive or allative, gradually is used to mark the indirect object (IO), thus slowly losing its original meaning, and finally is transformed into the IO marker (Heine & Kuteva 2002: 37-38, 54). This process is usually accom-panied by morphological simplification, and these two processes comple-ment each other. The greater the erosion of the morphological case, the greater the need for other measures in order to mark the syntactical roles. Moreover, as the alternative system for marking grammatical functions spreads and becomes entrenched, the morphological declension is no longer necessary, thus accelerating its attrition. The morphological marking of the dative case is eroding in all dialects of Haredi Yiddish, so that this particu-lar process of grammaticalization might be described in terms of internal factors of language change. On the other hand, it is a change that has oc-curred within the context of extensive and intensive language contact, since all adult speakers of Haredi Yiddish are bilingual. Thus, external factors of language change also need to be considered in order to provide a fuller ac-count of the process. To this end, the present study describes the grammati-calization that the preposition far is undergoing in Israeli Haredi Yiddish in terms of the mechanisms underlying this process, including the possible impact of contact with Hebrew, as well as the nature of dialect contact in Israel that triggered this change.

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2. Sociolinguistic background Israeli Haredi Yiddish (IHY) is a minority language spoken by several Jew-ish ultra-orthodox communities in Israel (Isaacs 1999ab). These communi-ties maintain a unique way of life, which they perceive as the only true Jewish way of life. They keep to their secluded neighborhoods, sustain their own separate education system and public institutions, and strive to remain impervious to the impact of the modern world. The conservative nature of these communities is clearly apparent to the outside observer, manifested by their modest, old-fashioned East-European style of dress, as well as their maintenance of their traditional language – Yiddish. Yiddish is maintained within a triglossic setting: All adult speakers of IHY are bilingual, speaking Israeli Hebrew on a daily basis, while using what they refer to as loshn-kóydesh (LK) – literally, Holy Tongue – in spe-cific domains such as prayer and study.1 These two varieties of Hebrew (both LK and Israeli Hebrew) serve as the main medium of written lan-guage in the community. As a result, Hebrew is the functionally dominant language in the speech community, since it is used for reading and writing, as well as serving as a spoken language. IHY serves mainly as a spoken language at home and in intimate Haredi circles. Yiddish literacy is limited, since the language is not taught system-atically in schools, and almost all available Yiddish books are in fact chil-dren’s books. The lack of Yiddish literacy and of a standard variety of the language is one factor contributing to the widespread variation typical of IHY. The language exhibits vast variation in phonology, morphology, lexi-con and syntax, alongside considerable linguistic simplification. The inten-sive use of Hebrew has had a marked effect on spoken IHY, as is evident in its phonological system, which is practically identical to that of Israeli He-brew, while its lexicon contains numerous Hebrew borrowings. IHY consists of two main dialects, ‘Hasidic Yiddish’ and ‘Jerusalemite Yiddish’, deriving from geographically distinct European forerunners. Ha-sidic Yiddish (also called Ingerish / Ungerish ‘Hungarian’ Yiddish), proba-bly the most prevalent IHY dialect in Israel, developed mainly from Central Yiddish dialects, and is spoken in Hasidic sects such as Belz, Vizhnitz, Tzanz and Satmar.2 Most current speakers of Hasidic Yiddish are descen-dents of East-European Jews who settled in Israel either in the period be-tween the two World Wars or following World War II. Jerusalemite Yiddish (also called Litvish ‘Lithuanian’ Yiddish) is de-rived from North Eastern Yiddish, and its speakers include descendants of the Perushim, an ascetic group that left Lithuania at the beginning of the

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19th century to settle in the holy cities of Safed and Jerusalem. The speakers of Jerusalemite Yiddish, the ‘Jerusalemites’ (yershláymers, tshálmers), are a distinctive group within the Haredi community, and most of them belong to small, secluded groups considered kanóim ‘zealots’ because of their reli-gious and ideological radicalism. A third dialect, derived from South Eastern Yiddish, is also found in Haredi neighborhoods. It has few speakers compared with the other two dialects, and many of its speakers that belong to one Hasidic sect or another are gradually switching to the prevalent Hasidic dialect. Others associated with the Jerusalemite groups have adopted many features of Jerusalemite use into their dialect. Speakers of the different dialects live side by side in crowded urban neighborhoods, and the intensive contact between them has contributed to the expansion of the grammatical change discussed here. 3. The corpus The grammatical analysis provided here is based on a corpus of spoken IHY collected in the course of fieldwork carried out between 1999 and 2009 in Haredi neighborhoods in Israel. The corpus consists primarily of 300 recorded sermons (dróshes), delivered by over 100 men and women from different Haredi groups. The sermon-givers (Hebrew: darshaním) are considered the most fluent and skilled speakers in the community, and many fill prominent positions in the Haredi educational system. All were born in Israel in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Work on the recorded sermon cor-pus was supplemented by additional fieldwork, data collection and observa-tion in Haredi neighborhoods. Examples that were recorded during field-work are marked [FW]. 4. Morphological simplification in IHY The inflectional paradigms of IHY manifest considerable simplification and variation. Both nominal and pronominal declensions are eroding, with the grammatical gender particularly unstable. The best preserved nominal de-clension is that of animate nouns in Jerusalemite Yiddish (derived from North Eastern Yiddish). Only these nouns manifest stable grammatical gender, as can be seen in Table 1:

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Table 1. Animate nouns in Jerusalemite Yiddish: Declension of definite articles, adjectival suffixes and demonstrative pronouns.

Masculine (animate) Feminine (animate) Nominative der –er

der (demonstrative, stressed) di / de –e di

Accusative dem / der -n / -er dem, der

di / de –e di

Dative (preposition) + dem / der -n / -er (prep.) + dem, der

(prep.) + di / de –e (prep.) + di

As seen in table 1, the grammatical gender distinction is preserved throughout the declension, but the case distinctions are eroding: der guter mentsh ‘the good man’ can be used not only in the nominative case, but also in the accusative and dative, as in the following examples.3 Acc.: ikh ze der guter mentsh. ‘I see the good man’ Dat.: ikh red mit der guter mentsh. ‘I speak with the good man’ Grammatical gender of inanimate nouns in Jerusalemite Yiddish is unsta-ble, and their declension is highly unpredictable. The simplification of the nominal declension is particularly marked in Hasidic Yiddish, which is gradually shifting to a single definite article (de / di) one adjectival suffix (–e) and one demonstrative pronoun (dei), as in de gute mentsh ‘the good man’, de gute froy ‘the good woman’, de gute kind ‘the good child’ (in the nominative, accusative and dative). dei mentsh/froy/kind ‘this man/woman/child’.4 The trend to simplification is even stronger in American Hasidic Yiddish, in all likelihood as a result of contact with English, with its single invariant definite article. Morphological simplification has also occurred in the pronominal sys-tem of IHY, which still distinguishes between nominative and oblique, but not between accusative and dative. This distinction has disappeared almost completely in singular pronouns such as mikh (Acc.) vs. mir (Dat.), with the historical dative form now functioning as the oblique pronoun, as illus-trated in (1) – (3). This case merger, attested in North Eastern Yiddish (Wolf 1969: 142-149), appears in all IHY dialects.


(1) Afile ven yen-er ze-t mir nisht Even when DEM-M.SG see.PRS-3sg I.OBL not ‘Even when the other person doesn’t see me.’ (2) kim, ikh vil dir rateve-n come.IMP.2sg I want.PRS.1sg you.OBL save.INF ‘Come, I want to rescue you.’ (3) o-st ge-zey-n ir? have.PRS-2sg PTCP-see-PTCP she.OBL ‘Did you see her?’ As a result of this morphological simplification, speakers resort to an ana-lytic construction with the preposition far to mark the IO. In the sermon corpus evaluated in this research, far is used to mark about 75% of all nominal IOs, as analyzed below. 5. Use of far in IHY The use of far in order to mark the IO originates in Central Yiddish dia-lects. Uriel Weinreich noted this phenomenon as a trait shared by Central Yiddish and West Transcarpathian Yiddish, which he defined as “the in-ability of noun phrases to function as indirect objects without a preposition (er helft fər zai/zān kind)” (Weinreich 1964: 258). Weinreich’s description concerns the use of a preposition with noun phrases to mark an IO. How-ever, in IHY this grammatical pattern has spread and expanded, both in terms of users and uses. It is now used by speakers of all dialects, and is used to mark not only the IO, but may also mark the historical DO, and is used not only with nouns but also with pronouns. The pattern of change observed in the corpus is depicted in Table 2.

Table 2. IO marking in Standard Yiddish vs. IHY

Standard Yiddish IHY er helft dem kind ‘he helps the child’

er elft farn kind er elft far de / dem / der kind

moyshe rabéyne hot gegebn di yidn di tóyre ‘Moses gave the Jews the Torah’

moyshe rabéyne ot gegebn di tóyre far di yidn

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The use of far in moyshe rabéyne ot gegebn di toyre far di yidn causes a word order change, with the DO preceding the IO, in accordance with Be-haghel’s law of increasing members (Behaghel 1909: 139). This is the usual, unmarked word order of clauses with verbs of giving as seen throughout the corpus. Further examples of the use of far with several common verbs are given below (Section 5.1), followed by an analysis of variation in the use of far (5.2) and the mechanisms that support its expansion in IHY (Section 6). Note that in some of the examples this preposition is pronounced fa rather than far (see 6.1). 5.1 Examples for the use of far in the sermon corpus 5.1.1 Verbs of giving The preposition far marks about 90% of all nominal IOs that complement the verb gebn ‘to give’, in its role as an ordinary verb of giving, as illus-trated in (4). (4) der eybersht-er o-t ge-geb-n DEF.M.SG Most High-M.SG have.PRS-3sg PTCP-give-PTCP der tsent-er nisóyen far DEF.M.SG tenth-M.SG temptation for avróm ovínu. Abraham our_father ‘God gave the tenth trial to Abraham our forefather.’ The preposition far also occurs, though with less frequency, in the so-called “singulative aspect” with gebn (Birnbaum 1979: 272, e.g. a kush gebn): (5) er gi-t a patsh far a kind. he give.PRS-3sg INDF slap for INDF child ‘he slaps a child.’

Here are two more examples for the use of far with other verbs of giving: (6) der yid vos o-t a yatke DEF.M.SG Jew REL have.PRS-3sg INDF butcher_shop


farkoyf-t treyfene fleysh far yid-n. sell.PRS-3sg non_kosher meat for Jew-PL ‘The Jew who owns a butcher shop sells non-kosher meat to Jews.’

(7) yeóyrom ben ákhov o-t ge-lig-n Jehoram son Ahab have.PRS-3sg PTCP-lend-PTCP di gelt far ovádye. DEF money for Obadiah ‘Jehoram son of Ahab lent the money to Obadiah.’

5.1.2 Verbs of Saying Use of far is also very common with verbs of saying, especially in Direct Speech: (8) der oybersht-er o-t ge-zog-t DEF.M.SG Most High-M.SG have.PRS-3sg PTCP-say-PTCP fa avróm ovínu: LK "lekh le-khó" LK. for Abraham our_father go.IMP.M.SG to-you

‘God said to Abraham our forefather: get thee [out of thy country].’ (Genesis 12,1)

(9) a froy o-t ge-freg-t far INDF woman have.PRS-3sg PTCP-ask-PTCP for di kháver-te: “vu o-st-e DEF.F.SG friend-F where have.PRS-2sg-you ge-num-en dem IHkhalifáIH? azey sheyn!“ PTCP-take-PTCP DEF.OBL suit so pretty

‘A woman asked her friend: “Where did you get the suit? (It’s) so pretty!”’

(10) de ferd o-t kayn mul nisht ge-shrig-n DEF horse have.PRS-3sg not_a time not PTCP-shout-PTCP far de balegúle: “far vus shlug-st-e mir?” for DEF coachman for what hit.PRS-2sg-you I.OBL ‘The horse never yelled at the coachman: “Why do you hit me?”’

The preposition far is often used with verbs of saying, and appears in more than 80% of all nominal complements of the verb zogn ‘to say’ in the ser-

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mon corpus. In fact, it is used more frequently with verbs of saying than with other verbs. Consider example (11) with the verb moykhíyakh zayn ‘to reprove, scold’, showing that far is used only when this verb functions as a verb of saying: (11) er o-t kayn mul nisht moykhíyakh ge-ve-n he have.PRS-3sg not_a time not reprove PTCP-be-PTCP a kind bish’ás di takúle, (…) INDF child during DEF mishap er o-t ge-vart nukh a tug he have.PRS-3sg PTCP-wait another INDF day biz er o-t moykhíyakh ge-ve-n until he have.PRS-3sg reprove PTCP-be-PTCP far-n kind: “kik, di ávle vu’ (=vus)

for-DEF.OBL.M.SG child look.IMP.2sg DEF wrong REL di o-st ge-ti-n iz (…)” you have.PRS-2sg PTCP-do-PTCP be.PRS.3sg

‘He never reproved a child during the wrongdoing (…) he waited an-other day until he reproved the child: The wrong that you did is (…).’

5.1.3 Other verbs The preposition far is used with additional verbs in the sermon corpus (though in lesser frequency than in comparison to its usage with verbs of giving and verbs of saying), e.g.: (12) er flegt shter-n far di shvester tsi he used_to disturb-INF for DEF sister(s) to makh-n IHshiurímIH. make-INF homework ‘He used to disturb his sisters when they did their homework.’

(13) me darf elf-n far rusland IMPERS have_to.PRS.3sg help-INF for Russia in di milkhúme. in DEF war ‘One has to help Russia in the war.’


(14) akódesh-borekh-u o-t ge-eys-n fa nóyakh The Lord have.PRS-3sg PTCP-order-PTCP for Noah arayn-nem-en di kháye-s in téyvo. in-take-INF DEF animal-PL in Ark ‘The Lord ordered Noah to take the animals into the Ark.’

(15) vi azoy o-t ir ge-to-n tsóre-s how have.PRS-2pl you.PL PTCP-do-PTCP trouble-PL far ayer bruder yóysef? for your.PL brother Joseph ‘How could you cause trouble to your brother Joseph?’

(16) ikh ob shoyn ge-shoyr-n negl I have.PRS.1sg already PTCP-cut-PTCP fingernail.PL far mayn-e kind-er. for my-PL child-PL ‘I already cut my children’s fingernails.’ 5.2 Factors influencing the variation The extent to which far is used in the corpus depends on several factors. The main linguistic factors are the nature of the IO (noun or pronoun), word order, and certain lexical features of the verb. The most powerful fac-tor, however, is extra-linguistic: Dialectal affiliation, as described below, constitutes the single most important motivation underlying far variation. 5.2.1 Group membership (Dialect) The impact of the speakers’ dialectal affiliation on the extent of the usage of far with nominal IOs is described in table 3. Table 3. Use of far in two dialects of IHY

Far Jerusalemite Yiddish Hasidic Yiddish + 65% 90% - 35% 10%

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The use of far originated in the Central Yiddish dialects, the forerunners of Hasidic Yiddish, and this might explain the difference in far usage ob-served in table 3. Another factor that might explain the greater use of far in Hasidic than in Jerusalemite Yiddish is the advanced morphological simpli-fication in Hasidic Yiddish (see section 4), which might lead the speakers to seek for other measures for grammatical marking. 5.2.2 Nature of the IO – noun or pronoun? Not surprisingly, far is used far more with nouns than with pronouns. IHY pronouns maintain the distinction between Nominative and Oblique more than IHY nouns (as elaborated in section 4), and about 98% of all pronomi-nal IOs in the sermon corpus appear without far. In the following example, far precedes only the nominal IOs: (20) der sus o-t dokh gi-olf-n DEF.M.SG horse have.PRS-3sg as you know PTCP-help-PTCP far pároy tsu kum-en nokh-leyf-n for Pharaoh to come-INF after-run-INF am_yisroel, kedéy zey tsu khap-n. people of Israel in order to they.OBL to catch-INF eyb er elf-t em, iz er azey if he help.PRS-3sg he.OBL be.PRS.3sg he so vi em, un beméyle kum-t em as as he.OBL and therefore deserve.PRS-3sg he.OBL dertrunk-en tsu ver-n in yam, bidiúk drown-PTCP to become-INF in sea precisely azey vi si kum-t far pároy. as how it deserve.PRS-3sg for Pharaoh

‘The horse did help Pharaoh to come and pursuit the people of Israel, in order to catch them. If he helps him, than he is just like him, and therefore he deserves to drown in the sea, just like Pharaoh deserves it.’

On the other hand, however, among younger speakers recorded in my fieldwork, far is also quite common with pronouns. In (21), for example, the speaker is a 14-year-old girl:


(21) ikh ob shoyn ge-geb-n far em. [FW] I have.PRS.1sg already PTCP-give-PTCP for he.OBL ‘I already gave him.’ 5.2.3 Word order As expected, use of far increases when the IO does not follow the verb. Table 4. Word order and far use (nominal objects)

Far V+DO+IO V+IO+DO + 91% 70% - 9% 30%

As seen in table 4, when the DO appears between the verb and the IO, the IO is marked with far in the vast majority (91%) of occurrences, whereas when it follows the verb, far is used in only approximately two-thirds of the cases. 5.2.4 Lexical factors Two main lexical features of the verb that may influence the variation are discussed in this section. 5.2.4.1 The use of far is very common in prepositional verbs, in which case far can replace other prepositions. e.g.: pasirn / geshen mit -> pasirn / geshen far ‘to happen (to)’ (22) vos i (=iz) ge-she-n far what be.PRS.3sg PTCP-happen-PTCP for mayn kind in de kíte? my child in DEF class ‘What happened to my child in the classroom?’

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(23) se ken pasir-n far yed-n mashín. It can.PRS.3sg happen-INF for every-OBL.SG car ‘It can happen to any car.’

gehern tsu -> gehern far ‘to belong (to)’ (24) di gantse shtub geer-t far di balebóste. DEF whole house belong.PRS-3sg for DEF housewife ‘The whole house belongs to the housewife.’ 5.2.4.2. The use of far is more common in ditransitive verbs, in which the human IO is usually marked by far, e.g.: (25) zey lern-en oys far di kind-er míshne they teach.PRS-3pl out for DEF child-PL Mishnah ‘They teach the children the Mishnah.’ Accordingly, an IO of a ditransitive verb like oyslernen ‘to teach’, will be marked by far more often than an IO of a transitive verb like danken ‘to thank’ or helfn ‘to help’. A general process of grammatical simplification, typical of contact situations, is apparent here, too. In all the ditransitive verbs in the corpus, one object is marked as direct while the other, usually human, is marked as indirect. This includes verbs that in the past could be complemented by two DOs, such as fregn ‘to ask’, or lernen ‘to teach’. A unification of the sys-tem has resulted in a single complementation model for all ditransitive verbs: A "transparent", unequivocal model, which corresponds to the gen-eral tendency to simplification seen throughout the corpus. 6. Mechanisms of syntactic change The widespread use of far as an IO marker can be tied to several underlying mechanisms. Harris & Campbell (1995) note three possible mechanisms of syntactic change: reanalysis, extension and borrowing. In my analysis I fol-low Harris and Campbell’s definition of the two “internal” mechanisms - reanalysis and extension – while in the case of the “external” mechanism, I prefer the term “contact” rather than “borrowing”, as this structure is not a grammatical borrowing from Hebrew (Harris & Campbell 1995: 122). The dialectal origin of the structure with far is well-attested, and it began


spreading in IHY through dialect contact. Thus my focus is not on the ori-gin of this change, but rather on its spreading and acceptance, and the man-ners in which these three mechanisms enable this process. 6.1 Reanalysis Harris and Campbell define reanalysis as "a mechanism which changes the underlying structure of a syntactic pattern and which does not involve any modification of its surface manifestation" (Harris & Campbell 1995: 61). A process of reanalysis is evident within the corpus, as some of the docu-mented functions of the preposition far are gradually disappearing. If we consider a hypothetical example such as er hot gekoyft a matóne farn kind ‘he bought a present for the child’ – a possible reanalysis of the benefactive far in this context does not change the structure of the sentence. The sen-tence stays the same, but due to grammaticalization, far loses its benefac-tive meaning, and functions as an IO marker in the sense of ‘he bought the child a present’. The preposition far is still in use in differing contexts, for example, a vokh far peysekh ‘a week before Passover’, an oyg far an oyg ‘an eye for an eye’, groyser far mir ‘bigger than I’ etc. (Mark 1957). Of these different meanings, two are relevant to the grammatical change discussed here: the benefactive far and the locative far. The benefactive far (as in eyner far ale, ale far eynem ‘all for one, one for all’) is close to the basic meaning of the dative case, and appears, for example, with verbs of giving (brengen ‘to bring’, koyfn ‘to buy’), and with predicative adjectives, where a prepositional phrase with far or a simple dative is used to mark the experiencer (vikhtik ‘important’, shver ‘hard’ etc.). The locative far (as in shteyn far a shpigl ‘to stand in front of a mirror’, redn farn óylem ‘to speak in public’) is common among verbs of saying, such as dertseyln (far) ‘to tell’ or oyszogn (far) ‘to reveal’. In the process of reanalysis, far as a grammatical morpheme has become more grammatical, while its locative or benefactive meanings have eroded. This semantic bleaching is a gradual process, and remnants of the benefac-tive or locative far can still be found in the corpus, e.g.: (26) of der elter iz reb akíve ge-ve-n in_one’s_declining_years be.PRS.3sg rabbi Akiva PTCP-be-PTCP zayer raykh. a sakh mentsh-n ob-n

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very rich many man-PL have.PRS-3pl avek-ge-geb-n zayer raykhkayt far em in away-PTCP-give-PTCP their wealth for he.OBL and far zayn-e talmíd-im, in er o-t for his-PL disciple-PL and he have.PRS-3sg ge-makh-t far rukhl dei tákhshit. PTCP-make-PTCP for Rachel DEM ornament

‘At old age Rabbi Akiva was very rich. Many people gave their wealth to him and to his disciples, and he made this ornament for Ra-chel.’

In 26 we see the original benefactive function of far (gemakht far rukhl – for Rachel), and also a borderline case – (far em un far zayne talmidim) – where far could be benefactive or it could be a simple dative. Cases of pos-sible ambiguity and multiple analyses are common in processes of gram-maticalization (Harris & Campbell 1995: 81-89).

On the other hand, the benefactive meaning has completely disappeared in 27: (27) ant o-t a maydale ge-shlug-n today have.PRS-3sg INDF girl PTCP-hit-PTCP far a maydale in tender. for INDF girl in pickup_truck ‘Today a girl hit another girl in the pickup truck.’ The semantic bleaching is accompanied by morphological erosion (Bybee 2003: 146), and far is sometimes pronounced in the corpus fa (as in exam-ples 8, 14):5 (28) móyshe, vifl volt-st-u ge-tsol-t fa Moyshe how_much would.PRS-2sg-you PTCP-pay-PTCP for yen-em dokter vos o-t dir DEM-OBL.SG doctor REL have.PRS-3sg you.OBL oys-ge-eyl-t? out-PTCP-heal-PTCP

‘Moyshe, how much would you have paid that doctor who healed you?’


The gradual semantic bleaching of far triggers the rise of replacements for its original meanings, as in the following example, taken from written IHY – a kindergarten book: (29) yede kind ho-t dertseyl-t kegn alemen every child have.PRS-3sg tell-PTCP against all.OBL vos zi ho-t ge-toh-n what she have.PRS-3sg PTCP-do-PTCP ‘Every child told in front of everyone what she did.’ In (29) the preposition kegn ‘against’ replaces the locative far, ‘in front of’. The prepositions kegn, antkegn and tsvishn are used in the corpus to convey the locative function usually marked in the past by far. 6.2 Extension Extension is a mechanism that changes the surface structure of a sentence without an immediate concomitant change in grammatical structure (Harris & Campbell 1995: 3), as illustrated in the shift from ikh helf der mamen > ikh helf far di mame. When this change occurs in the verb helfn, as a result of dialect contact and analogy to other verbs, the underlying grammatical structure does not change (‘I help my mom’). The change is evident in the surface form: The morphological case is replaced by the periphrastic construction with far. Use of far in IHY has expanded gradually, both in frequency and lexi-cally, as use of far instead of morphological marking becomes more com-mon, as well as its use in verbs that were not formerly complemented by the dative case. This extension process manifests vast variation (Fischer 1992: 379-381), and its rate is affected by several factors. A range of lexical factors influence extension (Harris & Campbell 1995: 106-108). Thus, extension is relatively rapid among synonyms, which tend to adopt similar grammatical patterns. This might explain the speedy exten-sion of far among verbs of giving and of saying, while the frequency of these verbs most likely also contributes to the speed of grammaticalization. Functional considerations also influence the rate of extension, and this may explain the broader use of far as the distance between the IO and the verb grows (see 5.2.3, Fischer 1992: 380; de Stadler 1996: 255), and the rapid extension in ditransitive verbs, where the need arises to distinguish between the two objects. Extension is also accelerated in the case of verbs that might

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be analyzed as ditransitive, as in the case of periphrastic verbs such as lib hobn ‘to love’, or vey ton ‘to hurt’: (30) di mame o-t lib far giti. [FW] DEF mother have.PRS-3sg love for Giti ‘Mommy loves Giti.’

(31) se tu-t vey far zayn eylik-n zun. it do.PRS-3sg woe for his holy-OBL.SG son ‘His holy son aches.’ As the process of reanalysis advances, the extension advances as well, and the use of far in new contexts accelerates the rate of the lexical erosion. Hence, reanalysis and extension are complementary processes that support each other (Bybee 2003: 147). Following are examples from the sermon corpus and from fieldwork recordings, in which far is used to mark the historical DO (cf. Heine & Ku-teva 2005: 150-152).6

(32) di tóyre baglay-t far a mentsh. DEF Torah accompany.PRS-3sg for INDF man ‘The Torah accompanies the man.’

(33) er shtruf-t nisht far a mentsh stam. he punish.PRS-3sg not for INDF man without a good reason ‘He doesn’t punish a man without a good reason.’

(34) shtip nisht far yitskhok! [FW] push.IMP.2sg not for Yitskhok ‘Don’t push Yitskhok!’ (35) uri iz ge-gang-en zukh-n far nushi. [FW] Uri be.PRS.3sg PTCP-go-PTCP seek-INF for Nushi ‘Uri went looking for Nushi’ Utterances 34-35 are from young speakers– 34 – from a young man in his 20s, 35 - from a six-year-old child. In fact, amongst very young speakers, it is difficult to find an object not marked by far. The use of far with his-torical DOs is supported by the advanced morphological simplification in IHY, which blurred the differences between the dative and the accusative


nominal and pronominal declensions (as previously elaborated in section 4). Another outcome of the extension process is the use of far in place of other prepositions. For example, far instead of oyf in (36): (36) plitsling ob-n zay un-ge-oyb-n tsi suddenly have.PRS-3pl they begin-PTCP-begin-PTCP to varf-n shtayn-er far di in-dala-kh. throw-INF stone-PL for DEF hen-DIM-PL ‘Suddenly they began to throw stones at the chickens.’ 6.3 Contact Contact with Hebrew may support or accelerate the spreading of the use of far, both directly and indirectly. Indirectly, since language contact in gen-eral facilitates processes of morphological simplification, especially in situations of extensive and intensive bilingualism as in the case of IHY (see section 2)7 . That is to say, as an indirect effect of contact with Hebrew, there is a tendency on the part of IHY speakers to grammatical simplification and to greater transparency, represented in this case by use of a separate word far as simpler, more regular, or more transparent than morphological declen-sion. A single invariable independent form is preferred over complicated morphological declension, since the bilingual situation creates a need for communicative efficiency. Hebrew might also have a direct effect on this change. Hebrew, the sec-ond language of all IHY speakers, marks the IO with a preposition – l, which functions in both the dative and benefactive (or malefactive) senses of English ‘to’ as well as ‘for’. When languages are in intensive contact, and used by the same speakers on a daily basis, convergence is likely to occur. Usages tend to become more similar, and speakers may adapt gram-matical constructions from the second language. In the case at point here, the use of far to mark the IO does not take the form of such an adaptation. It is not a grammatical borrowing. Rather, it takes the shape of a construction that already existed, but was formerly used only very restrictedly. The impact of Hebrew in this case is quantita-tive, as the original use of far becoming more widespread under Hebrew influence, evolving from a pattern of minor to widespread use (Heine & Kuteva 2005: 44-61; Harris & Campbell 1995: 123). The relative rapidity

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of this change might also be attributed to direct influence from Hebrew, through the identification of the Yiddish far with the Hebrew preposition l. This identification is evident whenever speakers translate a Hebrew ex-pression that contains the preposition l, as in (37):

(37) LK“she-ím nósan ódom la-khavéyr-oy REL-if give.PRF.M.3sg man to-friend-POSS.M.3SG kol matón-oys tóyv-o-ys she-be-óylom”LK – eyb eyn-er all gift-PL good-F-PL REL-in-world if one zol geb-n far zayn fraynd al-e should.PRS.3sg give-INF for his friend all-PL gut-e best-e matóne-s fun di velt. good-PL best-PL gift-PL of DEF world

‘If a man gave his friend all the good gifts in the world – if someone should give his friend all the good, best gifts in the world.’

Here, the sermon-giver translated the Hebrew preposition l into the Yiddish far, rather than choosing the traditional preposition tsu ‘to’, formerly used as an equivalent for this Hebrew preposition, especially in the Taytsh tradi-tion (Noble 1943). Furthermore in different strata of LK, object nominals that take the form of a DO with the accusative marker et in Israeli Hebrew are marked with the preposition l with verbs such as those meaning see, ask, meet etc.8 As a result, speakers often encounter objects that in Hebrew are marked with the preposition l, and these are invariably rendered by far in IHY.

7. Conclusion Use of the preposition far as an IO marker has shifted from a limited dia-lectal phenomenon to a widespread pattern in contemporary IHY. This con-struction, initially introduced in a limited manner by speakers of ‘Hungar-ian’ Yiddish, has expanded over time due to inter-dialect contact combined with internal and external mechanisms of syntactic change. Dialect contact in Israel introduced this pattern to speakers of other Yiddish dialects, and turned it into one that is currently used by all speakers of IHY. This is a salient example of the distribution of ‘Hungarian’ traits in Haredi Yiddish. The dominance of Hasidic or ‘Hungarian’ Yiddish among Haredi commu-nities worldwide makes it a key factor in shaping contemporary Haredi Yiddish9.


Younger speakers use the periphrasis formulation with far more than older speakers, evidencing a widespread, sweeping process of gramma-ticalization, enabled by both linguistic and extra-linguistic factors. An ex-ternal factor that might facilitate the spreading of this change is the lack of Yiddish literacy and of a standard variety in IHY (Glinert & Shilhav 1991: 64). Adult IHY speakers read and write almost exclusively in Hebrew, and are not exposed to Yiddish literature or other Yiddish texts. Even children who read children’s books and are exposed to Yiddish texts at school (mostly girls, see Bogoch 1999), are usually given modern Haredi texts which reflect the grammatical simplification and the vast variation typical of IHY. Linguistic changes have a much greater chance of taking hold in a language if they attract no attention and no resistance from the speakers (Nadkarmi 1975: 681). Usually, speakers are not all that conscious of grammatical change, especially in comparison to their awareness of lexical changes. This relative unawareness is enhanced by the sociolinguistic set-ting of IHY. As most IHY speakers do not study or read Yiddish, and are not even aware of the concept of a standard language – they do not recog-nize their widespread use of far as a new phenomenon. Thus limited liter-acy and lack of a standard variety in the community, combined with the speakers’ relative linguistic tolerance, create a favorable situation for lan-guage change. Many factors facilitate the spreading of this change from its initial dia-lectal use. A foremost factor is the original use of the benefactive and loca-tive far with verbs of giving and saying. The quick expansion of far with the verbs gebn and zogn made this periphrasis a common phenomenon, thanks to the high frequency of these verbs, with most other verbs of giving and of saying conforming to this structure as well. Use of the periphrastic IO spread to other verbs, probably through a process of analogy, and in some cases it is even used to mark the historical DO. Hebrew’s clear and systematic marking of all IOs by the preposition l also supports the expan-sion of far, since IHY speakers always identify the Hebrew l with Yiddish far. Above all, the widespread use of far in IHY might demonstrate that this phenomenon answered an expressive need, the need for a simple, transparent grammatical marking as facilitative of communication in lan-guage contact situations. Use of far is just one demonstration of the ten-dency to simplification that is apparent in all levels of IHY. The effects of language contact on grammaticalization are complicated and hard to define. However, in the situation examined in this paper, it is highly likely that the constant contact with Hebrew and its resultant power-ful impact on speakers of IHY can be taken to underlie the gramma-

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ticalization of far. Consequently, the quick transition from a marginal dia-lectal phenomenon to a widespread pattern cannot be fully understood without taking into account the IHY–Hebrew situation of contact as a major mechanism motivating this change. Notes

* I am greatly indebted to Moshe Taube and Ruth Berman for their comments

on an earlier draft. The following abbreviations are used in this paper: (super-script) IH = Israeli Hebrew elements; (superscript) LK = Loshn-Koydesh ele-ments. Hebrew segments are enclosed with (superscript) IH or LK. Hebrew elements that are an integral part of Yiddish are not analyzed morphologically (see Weinreich’s distinction between “Whole Hebrew” and “Merged Hebrew”, Weinreich 1980: 351-353).

1. The term loshn-koydesh represents the Yiddishized pronunciation of Hebrew leshon ha-kodesh, literally ‘language-of the-sanctity = the holy tongue’. LK texts are articulated in the Ashkenazi pronunciation of European Jewry.

2. The exact number of IHY speakers is unknown (Isaacs 1998 gives an estima-tion of 15,000-20,000 speakers), and so is the number of speakers of each dia-lect. However, taking into account the approximate size of different groups of Haredi communities, it is safe to assume that Hasidic Yiddish has the most speakers.

3. The erosion of the feminine dative declension, documented in North Eastern Yiddish (Mark 1938, 237-238; Wolf 1969), forms a unified pattern of femi-nine definite article and adjectival suffix. This might be one of the factors sup-porting the parallel unification of the masculine declension.

4. The pronunciation of dei probably derives from "Hungarian" Yiddish, where diphtongization of long stressed vowels is a common phenomenon (Shpirn 1926, Weinreich 1964, 252). Another demonstrative pronoun used mainly in Hasidic Yiddish is deye, and a distinction between dei and deye is emerging among young speakers recorded during fieldwork: They usually use a clitic dei (as in dei velt ‘this world’), and an independent deye (nisht deye! ‘not this one!’). Due to dialect contact, the demonstrative pronoun dei can be also found in other IHY dialects.

5. It is important to note here that in the Israeli corpus an omission of the final “r” (cf. Mark 1938, 266) is a very rare phenomenon.

6. Note that far marks both animate and inanimate direct (and indirect) objects in IHY, unlike the Afrikaans preposition vir (Den Besten 2000, 949-950).

7. Simplification is one of the possible outcomes of language contact: “In lan-guage contact situations, bilinguals develop strategies aimed at lightening the cognitive load of having to remember and use two different linguistic systems. (…) these strategies include: simplification of grammatical categories and


lexical oppositions; overgeneralization of forms, frequently following a regu-larizing pattern; development of periphrastic constructions, either to achieve paradigmatic regularity or to replace less semantically transparent bound mor-phemes” (Silva-Corvalán 1994, 207).

8. This is a feature of Mishnaic Hebrew, derived from the Aramaic use of the preposition l to mark the DO.

9. The current situation of Haredi Yiddish provides direct attestation for Uriel Weinreich’s early insight to the effect that “In the United States and in Israel, the flourishing of extreme Hassidic orthodoxy is due to a very considerable extent to the efforts of emigrants from the Transcarpathian Unterland. In this movement the Yiddish language is reported to be entrenched more success-fully, and more thoroughly communicated to new generations, than in any other sector of Jewish society. Thus the dialect of the Unterland, whose re-cency and hybridity may previously have given it a low priority on the agenda of historical Yiddish dialectology, may yet turn out to outlive some other dia-lects which formed earlier and contributed more to the permanent treasury of Yiddish literary culture. It may thus be destined to an importance which it never enjoyed on its home grounds.” (Weinreich 1964, 264). Two other ‘Hun-garian’ features found in all dialects of IHY, besides the use of far, are the spread of the demonstrative dei (see endnote 4), and the spread of the verbal prefix tsam (Weinreich 1964, 259) that usually replaces the prefix tsuzamen.

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Language change in a bilingual community: The preposition far in Israeli Haredi Yiddish

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