Das Ostjiddisch im Sprachkontakt. Deutsch im Spannungsfeld zwischen Semitisch und Slavisch. Von Steffen Krogh. Beihefte zum Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry, 3. Tübingen: Niemyer, 2001. Pp. x + 78. EUR 24.

This article-length booklet provides an excellent introduction to the essential issues involved in the phonological, morphological, and syntactic influence of Semitic (Hebrew and Aramaic) and Slavic (Polish, Belarussian, Russian, Ukrainian) on modern Eastern European Yiddish. While the extreme brevity of the exposition (the focal analysis comprises 40 pages) precludes any attempt at comprehensive analysis of the issues (see p. 21), the author effectively summarizes the basic problems in determining the origin of a variety of linguistic features of Yiddish. In doing so, the focus is held strictly on the Interferenzerscheinungen as manifested in key examples. Thus, although it is not possible for the author to advance any arguments of his own that are based on extensive analysis of evidence, he does not shy away from taking a stand on a number of vexing issues in the field. One of the results is then that it often seems that without presenting adequate counterargument he dismisses carefully constructed and extensive arguments advanced by his predecessors (e.g., Dovid Katz on the significance of Ashkenazic Aramaic for the phonology of the Semitic component of Yiddish [p. 14]; Paul Wexler's very problematic thesis of a supposed Slavic substrate in Yiddish [ p. 20]).

Jerold C. Frakes
University of Southern California