A NEW EUROPEAN LANGUAGE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 136, 30 May 1908, Page 4

A NEW EUROPEAN LANGUAGE

When the great international conference on Yiddish, the first silling of which will shortly lie held, tinishes its lalioniis, a new- European language wi'l ' Jlitherto Yiddish has been classed as a jareiuij rather than a language. It possesses lio grammar: and, although n Yiddish dictionary is extant, it is very imperfect. and largely obsolete. Originally Yiddish was a group of dialects spoken by .lews of (ierinan origin in Knssia, Austria, and lioiunanin, and it then dilVeri'd litlle. if anv. from the local dialects of the middle Kliine. But- by decrees numbciw of words from other languages and other dialects were imported into it, ami with these were mixed many purely llebrai" root words. Hie whole forming a linguistic hofch-|iotch. siich as never was before since the world began. The la-k the conference in about lu undertake is to reduce this verbal chaOs to something like order, and lo elevate it to a higher plane. This is well worth doing, since in Poland and Koumania alone Yiddish is spoken by *ix millions of people, the majority of whom know I no Other language, Yiddish, too, even now lias its own literature, and its own drama. Morris I'osenfeld. the Yiddish laureate, has been translated info most European languages, including, of course, Knglish. Nevertheless, tlui new language will be born with the seeds of death alreadv .well developed within it. For Yiddish is doomed. In America and in England it is alreadv in proces K of absorption; wlii e in Continental and other countries it will last only so long as tlic Jews are secluded ill"Ghettos and driven into l'ales.