Solomon Birnbaum

Solomon Asher Birnbaum, also Salomo Birnbaum (December 24, 1891 in Vienna – December 28, 1989 in Toronto) was a Yiddish linguist and Hebrew paleographer.^[1][2]

Biography

Birnbaum (1891-1989), born in Vienna, was the oldest son of Nathan Birnbaum and Rosa Korngut.^[1] His father was an Austrian Jew of West Galician-Jewish descent.

Solomon Birnbaum served in World War I in the Austro-Hungarian Army, and then studied and attained a doctorate from the University of Würzburg,^[1] specializing in oriental languages.^[2] From 1922 to 1933, he filled the first worldwide Yiddish chair at the University of Hamburg.^[2] After the rise of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazis) in Germany, in 1933 Birnbaum emigrated to Great Britain with his wife, Irene Grünwald,^[3] and his children, in 1933.^[2]

From 1936 to 1957, Birnbaum was a lecturer on Hebrew paleography and epigraphy at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. He taught Yiddish at the same time at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies of the University of London, from 1939 to 1958.^[2] During World War II, Birnbaum worked in the postal censorship for the British authorities. In 1970, he immigrated to Toronto, Canada.^[2]

Solomon Birnbaum is the father of Jacob Birnbaum, who, after his emigration to New York in 1963, helped to found the United States movement on behalf of Soviet Jewry.^[2][3]

Publications

• Praktische Grammatik der jiddischen Sprache, Vienna and Leipzig, 1918; Grammatik der jiddischen Sprache, Hamburg: editions 1966, 1979, 1984, 1988
• Leben und Worte des Balschemm, 1920
• Das hebräische und aramäische Element in der jiddischen Sprache, 1921 (dissertation)
• "Die jiddische Sprache," in: Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift (1923)
• "Die Umschrift des Jiddischen," in: Teuthonista (1933)
• "The Age of the Yiddish Language," in: Transactions of the Philological Society, London (1939)
• "Jewish Languages," in: Essays in Honour of the Very Rev. Dr. J.H. Hertz, London, 1942
• Yiddish Phrase Book, published by The Linguaphone Institute for The Jewish Committee for Relief Abroad, London, 1945
• "The Cultural Structure of East Ashkenazic Jewry," in: The Slavonic and East European Review, London (1946)
• "The Verb in the Bukharic Language of Samarkand," in: Archivum Linguisticum, 2 (1950/51)
• "How Old are the Cave Manuscripts?" in: Vetus Testamentum (1951)
• The Hebrew Scripts, 2 vols., Leiden, 1954–57, 1971
• Die jiddische Sprache, Hamburg 1974, 1986, 1997
• Yiddish – A Survey and a Grammar, Toronto, 1979
• "Zur Geschichte der u-Laute im Jiddischen," in: Zeitschrift für Deutsche Philologie (1981)
• ″Yiddish, A Survey and a Grammar, 2nd edition, with additional essays etc by David Birnbaum, Eleazar Birnbaum, Kalman Weiser, Jean Baumgarten. Toronto, 2016.

References

• Erika Timm, Eleazar Birnbaum, David Birnbaum (eds) "Salomo/Solomon A. Birnbaum: Ein Leben fuer die Wissenschaft/A Lifetime of Achievement", Berlin/Boston, 2011. (2 vols). 62 articles over a range of over 60 years by Solomon A. Birnbaum on the linguistics of Yiddish (and other Jewish languages), and on Hebrew Palaeography. Contains a biography (in both German and English), and bibliography of books andarticles in English, German and Yiddish.

1. "Birnbaum, Salomo (Solomon Asher Birnbaum)" (2002). In: Handbuch österreichischer Autorinnen und Autoren jüdischer Herkunft, 18. bis 20. Jahrhundert. Ed. Österreichische Nationalbiblithek, Vienna. Vol. 1, A-I. Munich: Saur. p. 126.
2. "Birnbaum, Solomon Asher" (2007). Encyclopaedia Judaica. 2nd ed. Vol. 3. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA. p. 716.
3. "Birnbaum, Jakob" (2002). In: Handbuch österreichischer Autorinnen und Autoren jüdischer Herkunft, 18. bis 20. Jahrhundert. Ed. Österreichische Nationalbiblithek, Vienna. Vol. 1, A-I. Munich: Saur. p. 125.