2007/05/03 by Ayala Fader
Social Sciences · #Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies #Linguistic Variation and Morphology #Multilingual Education and Policy
paper · doi:10.1525/jlin.2007.17.1.1
openalex publication_date 2007/05/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/01
In this article I examine the relationship between linguistic boundaries and community boundaries, shaped by religious beliefs about gender and difference. I focus on gendered language shift and syncretic registers of Yiddish and English among Hasidic Jews in New York. Hasidic Jews, an example of a nonliberal (fundamentalist) urban religious community, claimed essentialized gender and ethno‐religious identities by using syncretic language practices. Syncretism was a resource which allowed believers to participate in secular modernity while rejecting any aspect which threatened their way of life. This has implications for those who study syncretic languages and simultaneities as well as social reproduction and change in nonliberal religious communities.