Laytish Mame-Loshn / Authentic Yiddish by Mordkhe Schaechter (paperback)

In Laytish Mame-Loshn, Mordkhe Schaechter, one of the greatest Yiddish linguists of the twentieth century, reveals to the reader the complex richness of the Yiddish language. This book is a collection of Dr. Schaechter's notes, comments and research dealing with issues of word choice, terminology, toponymy and principles of language standardization. The text is comprised both of articles previously published in various journals on several continents as well as many written specifically for this volume. A treasure-trove of information and scholarship, this book will be a valuable resource to a new generation of Yiddish speakers and readers.

This volume is not a new edition but rather a reprint. Nothing has been changed in the body of the text itself but certain other amendments have been made. 1) We have corrected errors that were found. This included preparing an errata list. In order to keep the errata list short, corrections were written in by hand, where possible. These cases generally fall into the categories of punctuation, diacritical marks such as Pasekh and Komets, lines over Fey or Veys and dots in letters such as Pey or Kof. 2) We have edited the Table of Contents at the beginning of each chapter so that it reflects the subchapter headings and page numbers exactly as they appear in the text. The main Table of Contents now includes not only the chapter headings but also the subchapter headings. We hope that these changes and additions will make the resources of the book more accessible to the reader.

The book is written in Yiddish - no English or transliteration.

Mordkhe Schaechter's writing is infused with conviction, with inventiveness and with knowledge. At a time when others have doubts about the future of the language, Schaechter's neologisms and newly invigorated existing words tell us that there is still hope for Yiddish...

-- From the preface by Dr. Joshua Fishman, Distinguished University Professor, Emeritus, Yeshiva University