WILHELM CHRISTIAN JUSTUS CHRYSANDER

WILHELM CHRISTIAN JUSTUS CHRYSANDER (December 9, 1718-December 10, 1788)

            One of the most important Christian scholars to research the Yiddish language, he was born in Göddeckenrode near Halberstadt.  His two works on Yiddish appeared at almost the same time: Jüdisch-Teutsche Grammatick (Leipzig: Verlegts Johann Christoph Meisner, 1750); rpt. Krisanders yidishe gramatik fun 1750, ed. Max Weinreich (New York: YIVO, 1958), 12 pp.; and Unterricht vom Nutzen des Juden-Teutschen (Wolfenbüttel: Meißner, 1750), 54 pp.  The great importance of Chrysander’s works derives from his positioning himself outside the standard Christian depictions of Yiddish which were well established from Elias Schadeus (1592) and Johann Buxtorf (1609).  Chrysander’s grammar was constructed on the basis on his own original, linguistic observations.  “We have here,” noted Ber Borokhov, “a thoroughly serious and talented researcher.”  Chrysander “established,” according to Max Weinreich, “the fundamental conception of Yiddish grammar.”  (Weinreich, in Algemeyne entsiklopeye [General encyclopedia], “Yidn B,” p. 103.)  His grammar includes a numerous interesting phonetic, morphological, lexical, syntactical, and etymological remarks on Western Yiddish dialects.  In the latter text (Unterricht), Chrysander endeavored to formulate a philological definition of the Yiddish language, and he described with great accuracy the geographic spread of Yiddish in Europe.  In addition, this work includes a classified bibliography by subject of Yiddish books and descriptions of the language of Jewish businessmen.  He died in Kiel.

Sources: Eliezer Shulman, in Hashiloaḥ 4 (1898), p. 223; Ber Borokhov, “Di biblyotek fun dem yidishn filolog” (The library of the Yiddish philologist), Pinkes 20-21 (1913), ed. Shmuel Niger; Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon fun der yudisher literatur un prese (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish literature and the press) (Warsaw: Tsentral, 1914); F. C. B. Avé-Lallemant, Das deutsche Gaunerthum (German thievery), vol. 3 (Leipzig, 1862), pp. 199, 222-23; L. Sainéan, in Mémoires de la Société de Linguistique de Paris (1903), pp. 101-2.

Dovid Katz