Language Loyalty, Continuity and Change

This book provides a comprehensive and synoptic view of Joshua A. Fishman's contributions to sociolinguistics. Essays provide readers with the essential understandings of Fishmanian sociolinguistics and his contributions to Yiddish scholarship.It serves as a valuable summary of the sociology of language and the sociology of Yiddish.

This short volume provides a comprehensive and synoptic view of Joshua A. Fishman's contributions to international sociolinguistics from 1949 to the present. Readers will find in this volume the essential understandings of Fishmanian sociolinguistics in two short essays that integrate his life's work. The first essay by García and Schiffman identifies the major theoretical contributions and the development of Fishmanian sociolinguistics, often echoing Fishman's own words. The essay by Peltz then analyzes Fishman´s contributions to Yiddish scholarship, as well as the role of that scholarship in his general work. These essential understandings are then extended through Fishman's own concluding sentiments, as well as by the comprehensive and up-to-date bibliography of over 1,000 titles of Joshua A. Fishman's work, compiled by his wife, Gella Schweid Fishman. Together, the contributions in this volume pay tribute to the life work of one of the world's most prolific and original scholars in the field of sociolinguistics -- the founder of what we refer to in this volume as Fishmanian sociolinguistics.

Foreword by Florian Coulmas

Part 1: Integrative Essays

Fishmanian Sociolinguistics (1949 to the present) by Ofelia García and Harold Schiffman with the assistance of Zeena Zacharia

The History of Yiddish Studies: Take Notice! by Rakhmiel Peltz

Part 2: Concluding Sentiments

A Week in the Life of a Man from the Moon by Joshua A. Fishman

Part 3: Bibliographical Inventory

Joshua A. Fishman's Bibliographical Inventory Compiled by Gella Schweid Fishman

Index