Research

Publications

2026 — Breslow, Emma. Diversity in a diasporic language: Sociolinguistic variation in minority Yiddish contexts. Doctoral dissertation, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. https://hdl.handle.net/10125/113493 (Open access), https://www.proquest.com/docview/3354054486 (ProQuest)

2026 — Breslow, Emma & Caroline Hendy. Was the Barmi a Shemozzle? A Comparative Study of Australian and American Familiarity with Jewish English Lexical Items. Journal of Jewish Languages, 14(1). 42–86. https://doi.org/10.1163/22134638-bja10063

2025 — Breslow, Emma. Shmooze and Chutzpah: A Lexical Analysis of Sociolinguistic Variation in Australia and the United States. U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics: Selected Papers from NWAV 52 31(2). 31–40.

https://repository.upenn.edu/entities/publication/7b0d2878-2d0c-4e1a-97bd-d77d10e21166

Yiddish Sociophonetics and Sociolinguistics

For my dissertation, I examined sociophonetic variation and language attitudes amongst members of the diasporic group I refer to as the minority-context Yiddish world—a broad community encompassing Yiddishists, people raised in the Haredi world, and other Yiddish speakers and learners for whom the language is not widely used in their neighborhoods or daily lives. From 30 primarily Yiddish-language interviews with speakers aged 23 to 94 in NYC, Boston, and Montreal, I divide my analysis into five chapters:

Breslow, Emma. Emic Perceptions of Language Endangerment in Yiddish. Paper presented at the 9th International Conference on Language Documentation and Conservation. Honolulu, March 6–9, 2025.

1. "Defining the community and Yiddish vitality," in which I discuss the meaning of "Yiddishism" according to my interviewees, my motivations for using the term "minority-context," and interviewees' perceptions of Yiddish's endangerment status.
2. "Authenticity, standardization, and 'good' Yiddish," in which I analyze interviewees' attitudes towards different ways of speaking Yiddish, including klal (standardized) Yiddish, various dialects, and code-switching.
3. "Yiddish dialectal vowels," in which I plot the distributions of interviewees' dialectally-relevant vowels (/ʊ/ or /ɪ/ as in gut גוט, /eɪ/ or /aɪ/ as in gey גײ, and /ɔ/ or /ʊ/ as in tog טאָג). I discuss group and individual dialectal patterns and relate these to speakers' language attitudes.
4. "Variation in the Yiddish rhotic: reysh," in which I analyze the distribution patterns of five main rhotic variants in my interviewees' Yiddish (alveolar tap, alveolar trill, alveolar approximant, uvular fricative, and uvular trill).
5. "/t/-Release in Yiddish," in which I examine the production of word-final /t/ in interviewees' Yiddish, and compare the distribution of released and unreleased tokens to how this sociophonetic variable has been documented patterning in English.

Jewish English Lexical Sociolinguistics

This project, in collaboration with Caroline Hendy, explores how Jewish and non-Jewish Australians and Americans use English that comes from Jewish languages, especially Yiddish and Hebrew. This work, based on an online survey of 611 participants, is published in the Journal of Jewish Languages.

Shown here is the portion of analysis focusing on two words with various possible meanings: shmooze and chutzpah. This portion of analysis is published in U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics, Volume 31.2: Selected Papers from NWAV 52.

Breslow, Emma. Shmooze and Chutzpah: A Comparative Analysis of Lexical Variation Across Ethnoreligious Identities. Paper presented at the 52nd New Ways of Analyzing Variation. Miami, November 7–9, 2024.

Woleaian Ethnobotany and Language Documentation

This project seeks to expand documentation of ethnobotanical knowledge in Woleaian, a Chuukic language spoken on the islands of Eauripik and Woleai in the Federated States of Micronesia. In particular, I analyze patterns in the naming and usage of roughly 110 plants. This project works with diasporic members of the Woleaian community located in Honolulu, and therefore develops methods for plant name documentation in diaspora.

Breslow, Emma. Botanical Naming Strategies in Woleaian: A Remote Methods Analysis. Paper presented at the Language Documentation and Archiving Conference 2024. Berlin (Attended Online), September 4–6, 2024.

Woleaian: chele

English: velvet soldierbush

Heliotropium arboreum

Woleaian: maai

English: breadfruit

Hawaiian: 'ulu

Artocarpus altilis

Woleaian: shishi rafange

English: monarch fern

Hawaiian: lauaʻe

Microsorum scolopendria

Woleaian: talingale pache

English: turkey tail mushroom

Trametes versicolor

Diasporic Language Maintenance

This project brings together five linguists who work in their own diasporic communities: Annika Topelian (Armenian), Mskwaankwad Rice (Anishinaabe), N. Haʻalilio Solomon (Hawaiian), Heather Souter (Michif), and myself (Yiddish). We encourage crosscultural dialogue between diasporic minoritized groups seeking to maintain their languages, and explore what these communities can learn from each other.

Topelian, Annika & Emma Breslow & N. Haʻalilio Solomon. Diasporas in Dialogue: Exploring What it Means to Live and Work in Diasporic Language Contexts. Paper presented at the 9th International Conference on Language Documentation and Conservation. Honolulu, March 6–9.

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