1. The archive of The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (LCAAJ)
The archive was founded and created by Uriel Weinreich. Beginning in 1959, a group of field workers, under his direction, interviewed emigrant informants in the USA and Israel, many of them survivors of the Holocaust, and all of them native to one of 603 selected cities and towns in Central and Eastern Europe. Some 6000 hours of tape recordings testify to the variety of language, folklore, life style, and cultural practices that characterized the Jewish communities prior to World War II. The resulting archive provides the basis for Yiddish and interlingual study and is a resource for anthropological, cultural and historical research. The inherent biographical information is a significant record of Holocaust history.

2. The documented Yiddish homeland
The archive documents European Yiddish on the eve of its destruction in World War II.
After Uriel Weinreich’s death his successor, Marvin Herzog, launched the study and publication of the Atlas materials.

3. The host of the resource (original records and recordings)
Since 1997, the LCAAJ archive is housed at the Rare Books and Manuscript division of the Columbia University Libraries, New York City.
Columbia University lends the digital archive copies temporarily to the Förderverein for processing towards its projected Internet presentation (EYDES).
Multilingual Access to Spoken Text (MAST): Creating a Digital Library of the Modern Yiddish Language. An effort to preserve and make accessible the archive of interviews assembled by the Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry.

4. Provider, developper, contributor
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Since 1992 the Förderverein ( has supported the publication of the archive materials in print.
From 1995 onward the FJSK has been realizing the EYDES project: creating an electronic LCAAJ archive in the Internet.
On the basis of the LCAAJ materials the FJSK carries out projects which demonstrate the cultural value of the collection ( .
Gefördert durch die Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung
Gefördert durch die Europäische Kommission, DG X
Jiddische Sprache und Kultur
zum Selbststudium im Internet
Europäische Kommission DG 22
Maßnahmen zur Förderung und zum Erhalt regionaler und weniger verbreiteter Sprachen

5. Transcription Workbench
EYDES Transcription
Transcription Workbench
EYDES has the purpose of opening the LCAAJ archive for the broadest possible, general and multi-facetted use. It is therefore important to create easy and efficient access to meaningful sound sequences. In achieving this, transcribing the interviews is one of the core tasks; on the basis of the emerging transcripts, indexes into the subject language are created.
The transcriptions are done in general Yiddish orthography and contain links to the original sound. They are carried out by applying the computer support of the EYDES Transcription Workbench.
The transcribers are typing the interviews using the Transcription Workbench

6. Reference
Background: Jewish cemetery, Worms