HUC-JIR Faculty Release Results of Survey of American Jewish Language and Identity November 5, 2009
Posted by qvashty in language.trackback
The survey results can be found at: http://huc.edu/survey/09/index.php
It was very interesting to read. The survey sought answers to the following questions:
How do American Jews speak English? Who uses Hebrew and Yiddish words and New York regional features? When using Hebrew words, who prefers Israeli pronunciations and who prefers Ashkenazic ones? Which Yiddish-origin features do some non-Jews use? Two researchers from Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion have begun to answer these questions. Linguist Sarah Bunin Benor and Sociologist Steven M. Cohen have released the results of a large-scale survey of Jews and non-Jews in the United States.
They included a range of observance from non-Jewish to black-hat. This is a good read but I have to warn you that they don’t even discuss the speech of OTDers, as if we don’t exist. I think this is because we have bucked the overall trends of American Judaism. The social trend is towards a greater feeling of specialness as Americans seek unique identities (what can be more unique than “Chosen People?”), BTs and Reconstructionist havurot growing in number, and the linguistic trend found in the study is that certain Hebrew, Aramaic and Yiddish words and phrases are increasing in usage among American Jews… I don’t know why they didn’t analyze those Jews who became less observant, but it could be because it messes up the neat trends.
You can still take the survey through the website.
When I took the survey I was sure I was throwing off their results. I have an extensive Hebrew/Yiddish vocabulary from my frum years, but did not grow up observant and am not observant now.
Thanks!