Paul Wexler (linguist)

Professor Paul Wexler
Native name	פאול וקסלר
Born	November 6, 1938
Nationality	Israel
Academic background
Alma mater	Columbia University
Academic work
Institutions	Tel Aviv University

Paul Wexler (born November 6, 1938, Hebrew: פאול וקסלר‎‎) is an American-born Israeli linguist, and Professor Emeritus of linguistics at Tel Aviv University. His research fields include historical linguistics, bilingualism, Slavic linguistics, creole linguistics, Romani (Gypsy) and Jewish languages.

Wexler is known in Yiddish linguistics mainly for his theory that Yiddish is ultimately derived from Judaeo-Slavic from a genetic-linguistic perspective, a theory that has been widely rejected by other Yiddish linguists.

Wexler notes that the Yiddish language structure provides evidence that Jews had "intimate contact" with early Slavs in the German and Bohemian lands as early as the 9th century.

Wexler grew up in the United States, earned his B.A. at Yale University in 1960, his M.A. at Columbia University in 1962 and his Ph.D. at Columbia University in 1967. He moved to Israel in 1969. He did his basic training in the IDF in 1974.

Wexler's theories are based on analyses of numerous Jewish languages and introduce creolization as a factor in the formation of many of them. Other than linguistic analysis, he separates Jewish cultural areas into Judeo-Greek, Judeo-Romance, Judeo-Germanic, Judeo-Turkic, Judeo-Tat, Judaeo-Georgian, Judeo-Arabic and Judeo-Slavic. While he acknowledges that many Jewish languages have a Hebrew substratum,

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