Book description
From one of the world's foremost scholars of Yiddish, a sweeping history of the language, its culture, and its literature-with a provocative argument about its future as a living language. Words on Fire offers a rich, engaging account of the history and evolution of the Yiddish language. Drawing on almost…
Why read it?
1 author picked Words on Fire as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Many language stories have sad endings. I don’t like to over-personalize a language; it’s primarily the users that put the spice into a language or let it ‘die’. Or in the case of Yiddish, murdered in their millions.
Dovid Katz’s title evokes the extraordinary vitality of Yiddish – for centuries the language of Europe’s Jews and one of the major literary languages of the 20th century, until Nazism and Stalinism consumed all. Many survivors reached Israel, where Hebrew has taken its place. But Yiddish lives on. To me that matters.
For tens of thousands (and thriving) survivors’ descendants in…
From Lewis' list on The best books that tell the story of a language.
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