Max Weinreich

Max Weinreich
Weinreich in Vilna, 1929
Native name
מאַקס ווײַנרײַך
Born(1894-04-22)22 April 1894
Died29 January 1969(1969-01-29) (aged 74)
OccupationLinguist, sociolinguist
LanguageYiddish
Alma materUniversity of Marburg (1923)
Notable worksHistory of the Yiddish language, Hitler's Professors
Notable awardsGuggenheim Fellowship
Spouse
Regina Shabad
(m. 1923)
Children
RelativesZemach Shabad (father-in-law)

Max Weinreich (Yiddish: מאַקס ווײַנרײַך, Maks Vaynraych; Russian: Мейер Лазаревич Вайнрайх, Meyer Lazarevich Vaynraykh; 22 April 1894 – 29 January 1969) was a Russian-American-Jewish linguist, specializing in sociolinguistics and Yiddish, and the father of the linguist Uriel Weinreich.

He is known for increasing language awareness of Yiddish as a standardized language; he popularised the phrase "A language is a dialect with an army and navy".