Zhargon, "lingua feriale" o lingua perduta? Lo yiddish nelle riflessioni dell'intelligencja di lingua po-lacca tra Otto e Novecento.

The article tackles a little-known theme: how Polish and assimilated Jewish writers evaluated Yiddish, espe-cially during the interwar Period. Between the second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, not only Poles, but also assimilated intelligentsia generally considered Yiddish as a hybrid zhargon without an authentic iden-tity, and one of the principal causes of Shtetl's isolation. After the birth of the Independent Poland, wide groups of young intellectuals began to use Polish more and more often; the common opinion about Yiddish evolved, but, para-doxically, many assimilated Jewish writers kept on deprecating Yiddish. The article explores this phenomenon and offers a wide choice of declarations about Yiddish by Polish and Jewish members of the intelligentsia (Badouin de Courtenay, Irzykowski, Tuwim, Słonimski, Rudnicki, Stryjkowski and others).