VEINGER, MORDECAI

VEINGER, MORDECAI (Mordkhe ; 1890–1929), Yiddish linguist. Born in Poltava and educated at the University of Warsaw, Veinger's first publications appeared before World War i, during which he served in the Russian army. In 1925 he became director of Yiddish linguistic research at the Institute for Jewish Culture of the Belorussian Academy of Sciences in Minsk. Veinger published studies that spanned syntax, historical phonology, ethnographic methodology, and dialectology, notably his Yidishe Dialektologye ("Yiddish Dialectology," 1929). He was the first Yiddish linguist to demonstrate variation in the realization of a phonological feature for a single speaker and for a given geographic location (Tsaytshrift, 2–3 (1928), 619–32). He was the proponent of a radical reform of Yiddish spelling, partly implemented in the official Soviet Yiddish orthography. His main achievement was the YidisherShprakhatlas fun Sovetn-Farband ("Yiddish Language Atlas of the Soviet Union," 1931), published after his suicide by Leyzer Vilenkin.

bibliography:

Rejzen, Leksikon, 1 (1926), 945–7; lnyl, 3 (1960), 356–8; M. Weinreich, in: yivo Bleter 1 (1931), 81–4; A. Zaretski, in: Di Yidishe Shprakh 14 (1929), 3–13, 35–8; 16 (1929), 48; 17–18 (1929), 72. add. bibliography: R. Peltz, in: I. Kreindler (ed.), Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Soviet National Languages (1985), 277–309; B. Kagan, Leksikon fun Yidish Shraybers (1986), 238.

[Menahem Schmelzer /

Rakhmiel Peltz (2^nd ed.)]