Jewish Stereotypes in the Samogitian Dialect Worldview

Abstract

In the early through to mid-20th century (before the Second World War), the Jewish population in Samogitian towns was quite abundant; they were generally business owners, and therefore there could have been various relationships between the rural Samogitian farmers and the urban Jews. The paper analyses the material of dialectal texts (recorded in the 1980s through to 2010s) from the ethnolinguistic perspective to find out how the Samogitian attitude towards Jews is reflected in the Samogitian linguistic worldview. The study focuses mainly on the methodology of the Lublin Ethnolinguistic School, in particular in terms of the view that language is directly related to culture, identity, and remembrance. The research revealed that the Jewish ethnic stereotype in the Samogitian linguistic worldview was quite positive, while especially negative evaluation was related to the context of religion.