The Convergence of Northern Ukrainian Reflexes of E in Newly Closed Syllables and the ĭ from E in the Yiddish Dialects of the Area

• In Event: Linguistic Analysis in Eastern Europe

Abstract

In the area between North-Eastern (NEY) and South-Eastern (SEY) and a part of Central Yiddish (CY) there is a feature not characteristic of any of the dialect groups. The etymological e is reflected as ĭ in the stressed position, it is commonly called khirek-loshn (khirek speech), as khirek (Hebrew: ḥiriq) is the niqqud sign for i. The area encompasses most of Volynia, the Ukrainian part of West and Central Polissia and some areas to the South, reaching the border of Podillia. The area roughly corresponds to the Northern dialect group of Ukrainian (NU). Considering NU is receding from the North, the South , and Podlasie , and the ĭ is receding from Podlasie , the correspondence between the areas of ĭ and NU used to be even greater. NU developed unique reflexes of e and o in newly closed syllables after the fall of the yers, commonly called diphthongs .
The phonological behavior of the NU diphthongs and Yiddish ĭ is similar in several aspects. The two features share an area, where Ukrainian-Yiddish phonological conversion is attested. So, in the paper I suggest the convergence of the Yiddish ĭ from e and the NU diphthongs.

Author

• Sophia Korn, NaUKMA