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The Balkan Substratum of Yiddish: a Reassessment of the Unique Romance and Greek Components. By Paul Wexler. Mediterranean Language and Culture Monograph Series, vol. 9. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1992. viii, 140 pp. Bibliography. Paper.

The present volume is another in Paul Wexler's attempt to demonstrate that Yiddish is relexified Sorbian and hence a (relexified) "fifteenth" Slavic language. Rejecting the traditional view that Yiddish developed among French and Italian Jews who settled in the Rhineland (he assumes that "the first indigenous Jewish language in the southwest [emphasis mine] German lands was a gallicized form of German and not Yiddish"), Wexler claims that the eventual speakers of eastern Yiddish "migrated north to the Germano-Sorb lands over a period of centuries from the Mediterranean littoral either through the Danube Valley or via Northern Italy . . ." In furthering this hypothesis, Wexler here tries to show that a significant number of the Romance elements (as well as some Greek, Latin and very few Slavic elements) in Yiddish are of Balkan or northern Italian origin. The bulk of the monograph is devoted to the discussion of these "unique Romanisms," their traditional origins (largely based on the works of Max Weinreich) and Wexler's attempts to posit a southern origin. Wexler's erudition and thoroughness and the breadth of his sources are most impressive. His proposed word histories are quite measured. He prefers "to motivate multiple, rather than single nonFrench etyma for many Yiddish Romanisms." This would normally be a most praiseworthy approach, except for the fact that Wexler's restraint in positing a single origin for many of the words studied does little to support his hypothesis of a Balkan substratum underlying his Judeo-Sorbian that ultimately develops into what we know as Yiddish. But without strong prior support for a Balkan substratum there is little reason to look to that area for the origin of Yiddish Romanisms. In other words, despite Wexler's protestations to the contrary, rather than supporting Wexler's "Sorbian hypothesis," acceptance of the word histories presented here is to a very great extent dependent on accepting the validity of his Judeo-Sorbian hypothesis. Particularly disturbing, especially for readers of this journal, is the paucity of "possible" Slavic elements entering Yiddish from what were putatively co-territorial Balkan Slavic languages. Wexler cites only koyletsh, "festive bread"; bobe, "grandmother"; kurve, "whore"; and treybern, "porge"; deyzhe, "kneading trough"; most of which he himself admits "could be derived smoothly from Sorbian" or other west Slavic languages; cf. Czech koldc, bdba, kurva, tribiti, diza. As a result of a presumed northward migration of Jews from the Balkans to "the Germano-Sorb lands," Wexler raises the possibility that the earliest Slavic elements in Yiddish are from the sixthcentury and of south Slavic origin. But again, there are no unambiguously south Slavic items cited so that the plausibility of a southern origin cannot be strengthened by the evidence brought forward here. Yet it must be noted that the main thrust of the present monograph is, as stated in its subtitle, Romance and Greek components of Yiddish and, consequently, I suspect that this work will be only of marginal interest to most Slavicists.