Yiddish–Slavic language contact in multilingual songs: Describing deliberate code-switching

Abstract

Aims and objectives/purposes/research questions:

The aim of the article is to describe what language contact phenomena are present. The research questions are as follows: (a) what types of code-switching (CS) are at work; (b) is there any preference for any particular type of CS; and (c) what Jewish (seemingly) monolingual songs in Slavic languages can tell us about contact varieties of Slavic used by Jews.

Design/methodology/approach:

Collecting texts of Yiddish–Slavic and Jewish folk songs in Slavic languages; and qualitative analysis of CS and structural change.

Data and analysis:

Sixty-two Slavic–Yiddish texts were chosen from Jewish songs’ collections and CS instances analysed.

Findings/conclusions:

Both insertions and alternations are present but alternations are preferred. There is an asymmetry between Yiddish insertions into Slavic (nouns) and Slavic insertions into Yiddish (all parts of speech). Alternations may be just renditions of the same meaning in another language but most often they play the same role as in naturalistic speech described in the literature on multilingual communication (change of topic, addressee, etc.).

Originality:

Previous research on multilingual Jewish songs concentrated on the choice of languages and interpretation of the symbolic role that each language plays but not structural analysis of multilingual texts.

Significance/implications:

Now that some tendencies are identified, it remains to be seen whether naturalistic Yiddish–Slavic speech exhibits the same patterns of CS.