Linguae Europaeae

by Sophia Ebel Sophia Ebel is a senior in Comparative Literature and Germanic Studies at the University of Illinois. Her future plans include applying to graduate programs abroad in language education and education policy. She wrote this blog post in 418 'Language and Minorities in Europe' in Fall 2021. It is not uncommon for tensions to exist between linguistic groups, but in few cases is the relationship as strained as between Yiddish and German. Yiddish is a Germanic language that was previously spoken by Ashkenazi Jewish communities throughout Europe. For sociopolitical reasons Yiddish was historically viewed as a lesser dialect or distorted form of German, despite its lengthy history and unique influences from Hebrew, Aramaic, and the Romance and Slavic language families. Still, prior to the Second World War there were approximately 13 million Yiddish speakers living in Europe (Walfish).  The Holocaust, however, more than decimated this population and many of the surviving...

by Ioana Pintescu Ioana Pintescu is a junior in MCB and French at the University of Illinois.  Ioana's future plans include attending medical school.  Ioana wrote this blog post in the 418 'Language and Minorities in Europe' course in Spring 2019. Transylvania: the land of vampires and Vlad the Impaler, right? Well not quite, though it is the land where a small dialect of German remains intact. The historical region of Transylvania is located within present-day Romania and is known for its German settlement and influence. Beginning in the 12th century, colonies of ethnic Germans, as well as Flemish and Walloons, resettled within this area at the request of King Geza II of Hungary for the original reason of defending the land from invaders coming from theEast [1]; the land was then ruled under the Kingdom of Hungary at the time. Colonists continued to resettle up to the 19th century. In 1920, the Treaty of Trianon was signed, ending World War I and consequently forcing ...