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The sanctity of decoding: Reframing Hebrew literacy in the United States and Europe

Author(s): Badder, Anastasia; Avni, Sharon

Date: 2024

Topics: Hebrew, Jewish Education, Jewish Schools, Jewish Texts and Text Study, Teaching and Pedagogy, Language, Main Topic: Education

Abstract: Aims and Objectives: This article explores the challenges Jewish children face in educational programs teaching about Judaism and Jewish culture located in the United States and Europe. Students learn to decode Hebrew but not to read for comprehension, which conflicts with other types of literacy learning they encounter throughout their education in school and at home. Methodology: The study is based on long-term participant observation at two religious education programs, one in the United States and one in Luxembourg. Data and Analysis: A language socialization lens was applied to coded fieldnotes to bring findings into conversation with each other. Findings: Following initial frustrations stemming from a mismatch between American and European schooled literacy expectations and Hebrew decoding, students came to understand Hebrew as a distinctive sacred language. This allowed them to reconceptualize decoding as a successful and meaningful form of literacy and to see themselves as competent Hebrew users and members of a broader Jewish community. Originality: Existing studies primarily focus on sacred languages and literacies oriented around supporting connections with the divine. This study contributes to the existing body of work by illustrating religious literacy education aimed at cultivating communal and religious identification. Implications: This study provides evidence that decoding of sacred texts without comprehension of lexico-semantic content can be a meaningful form of literacy that enables religious members to affirm and do community without explicit reference to divine relations. It argues for a distinctive form of bilingualism in which the sacred language and talk about it work together to create meaningful religious learning.

Yiddish-Lithuanian bilingualism: Incomplete acquisition, change through contacts, or both

Author(s): Verschik, Anna

Date: 2020

Topics: Language, Main Topic: Other, Yiddish

Abstract: Aims and Objectives/Purposes/Research Questions:
Studies on incomplete first language(L1) acquisition emphasize restricted input, the low prestige of heritage/immigrant/minority lan-guages, and age of acquisition as significant factors contributing to changes in L1. However, it is notalways clear whether it is possible to distinguish results of incomplete acquisition and contact-induced language change. This article deals with two Yiddish–Lithuanian bilinguals who acquiredboth languages at home (recorded in 2010 and 2011). The focus of the article is the absence of theYiddish past tense auxiliary in both informants and the replacement of Yiddish discourse-pragmaticwords by their Lithuanian or English equivalents in the speech of the second informant.
Design/Methodology/Approach:
Qualitative analysis of the speech of two Yiddish–Lithuanianbilinguals.
Data and Analysis:
Two sets of recordings analyzed for the past tense use and other featuresmentioned in Yiddish attrition studies.
Findings/Conclusions:
Restricted input is to be considered as a factor inany case. However, it isargued that phenomena reported in the heritage language literature are often the same as in thecontact linguistic literature: impact on non-core morphosyntax, prosody, and word order areusually mentioned as primary candidates of contact-induced structural change. Based on purelylinguistic phenomena, it is not possible to distinguish between the results of acquisition under theconditions of limited input and in other contact situations where limited input is not necessarily thecase. Many features of the informants’ Yiddish are a result of Lithuanian impact.
Originality:
Yiddish–Lithuanian early bilingualism is extremely rare nowadays. The data andanalysis contribute to a general understanding of the interplay between contact-induced languagechange and limited input.
Significance/Implications:
Unlike what is often presumed, it is not always possible to makecomparisons to monolinguals or balanced bilinguals because monolingual speakers of Yiddish donot exist

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