From: ehlsmith
Message: 26776
Date: 2003-11-01
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tolgs001" <george.st@...> wrote:
...
[P]
> >Some of the Khazarian Jews did disperse in Eastern Europe
> >after the collapse of the Khazar state, but they did so
> >in small numbers and their contribution to the formation of
> >Yiddish was minimal at best.
>
[G]
> Most of them, not some of them. They merely replaced the ancient
> Turkish dialect, coz, in a way or another, in the relevant
> areas of central and Eastern Europe German was sort of
> lingua franca (moreover: "lingua franca" was as German as
> any other Mitteldeutsch and Oberdeutsch dialect; I leave
> out Niederdeutsch as less relevant here).
It may also be noted that up into the 20th century communities of the
Karaite branch of Judaism in Crimea, Ukraine and Lithuania spoke a
separate language, Karaim, of the Turkic family, generally accepted
as a descendant of Khazar.
Social barriers based on the religious antagonism between Karaite and
Talmudic Judaism may have contibuted to the paucity of Khazar
influence on Yiddish.
Ned Smith