Die Beziehung der Sprache des Bovo-bukh zum modernen Jiddischen

The Bovo-bukh written by Elia Levita is one of the most famous epics in the history of the Jewish literature. Levita was born in 1469 in Germany. When he was still young, he moved to Italy to work there as a Hebrew philologist and wrote some popular works in his native language. The Bovo-bukh is one of them. Nobody would deny that the Bovo-bukh is a masterpiece that was brought to European culture by the Jewish People in the Middle Ages. But it is still in dispute whether the language of the Bovo-bukh is Middle German or Middle Yiddish, and whether it has any relation to Modern Yiddish which was spoken in the East Europe or in Russia. It is generally agreed among German philologists that the language corresponds in many ways with a Middle High German dialect which is regarded as Levita's mother tongue only written in Hebrew script. In the latest studies, however, it is manifested that in the Bovo-bukh there are many features that are common with various German dialects and that are never likely to appear in any German literary language. It suggests that the Bovo-bukh was written in the literary language which was used only among the German Jews in the Middle Ages. Now arises one question: What relation does it have to Modern Yiddish? In this paper the language of the Bovo-bukh will be compared with its modern Yiddish translation. This comparison will demonstrate that the two languages have some similar characteristics. Although Modern Yiddish is not a direct offspring of the language of the Bovo-bukh, Yiddish was influenced by the language of this work in a certain stage of its development. In consequence the language of the Bovo-bukh could be considered as a Jewish dialect which has the closest relationship to Modern Yiddish.

公開日:2010年1月24日で登録したコンテンツは、国立情報学研究所において電子化したものです。