The Languages of Jerusalem

ISBN-13: 9780198239086

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Opis

The Old City of Jerusalem, small and densely populated, is a complex microcosm of Israeli society. It is a multilingual community characterized by unequal power relations between the speakers of the two official languages of Israel--Arabs and Jews. The authors begin with a sociolinguistic sketch of the Old City in the present day. They then provide a historical background to their field study, discussing Jewish multilingualism from the period of the Second Temple until modern times, the sociolinguistics of revival and spread of Hebrew. They go on to develop a model of the rules of language choice which arises from their social context. The authors demonstrate that, because of the close association between language use and social structure, the study of language use in a multilingual society is at the same time both powerful and delicate method of studying the dynamics of group interactions.

Recenzje

This valuable sociolinguistic study of the "linguistic opulence" of contemporary Jerusalem, and of the historical background of languages used in Jerusalem throughout the ages, will be of interest not only to linguists but to scholars working in many other disciplines ... The book is written in a clear, concise, and jargon-free style ... a model of clarity and concision ... major work of thorough, subtle, and important scholarship ... Oxford University Press is to be congratulated for bringing out such a fine book ... The Languages of Jerusalem is sure to win a wide readership.