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Sto caricando le informazioni... The Language of Thieves: My Family's Obsession with a Secret Code the Nazis Tried to Eliminatedi Martin Puchner
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"Tracking an underground language from one family's obsession to the outcasts who spoke it in order to survive. Centuries ago in middle Europe, a coded language appeared, scrawled in graffiti and spoken only by people who were "wiz" (in the know)--vagrants and refugees, merchants and thieves. This hybrid language was rich in expressions for police, jail, or experiencing trouble, such as "being in a pickle." And beginning with Martin Luther, German Protestants who disliked its speakers wanted to stamp it out. The Nazis hated it most of all. As a boy, Martin Puchner learned this secret language through his father and uncle. Only as an adult did he discover, through a poisonous 1930s tract on Jewish names, that his own grandfather, an historian and archivist, had been a committed Nazi who hated everything his sons and grandsons loved about "the language of thieves." Interweaving family memoir with scholarship and an adventurous foray into the politics of language, Puchner crafts an entirely original journey narrative. In a language born of migration and hybridity, he discovers a witty and resourceful spirit of tolerance that remains essential today"-- Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
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Puchner’s family of academics and archivists had its own connections to Rotwelsch. His grandfather was a Nazi Party member who advocated stamping out the language and its speakers as a means of purifying Germany. His father and uncle shared a fascination with Rotwelsch as well, but their efforts were geared toward its preservation, rather than its destruction.
As he researches stories related to his family and Rotwelsch, Puchner uncovers long-buried secrets. This book is as much a family story as a story about a language. I liked the parts about the language more than the parts about the family members, none of whom really come alive as characters. Still, I recommend this book to those interested in sociolinguistics. ( )