Mapping of Knowledge Infrastructures in a Minoritized Language
Abstract
This article presents the first comprehensive quantitative mapping of Yiddish scientific and technical literature from its medieval beginnings to the early twenty-first century. Drawing on a corpus of 595 publications, it analyzes chronological, generic, disciplinary, and geographical distributions to reconstruct the dynamics of knowledge production in a non-dominant vernacular. The findings demonstrate that such literature constituted a structurally differentiated component of Yiddish print culture, closely connected with education, professional communication, and linguistic modernization. By shifting attention from individual texts to large-scale publication patterns, the study identifies phases of growth, diversification, and institutional concentration that challenge prevailing assumptions about the marginal or episodic character of Yiddish engagement with science and technology. This analysis reveals marked asymmetries across periods and regions, including interwar expansion, postwar contraction, and selective revival in recent decades. The article also outlines the principles of corpus construction, classification, and proportional analysis within the constraints of bibliographic availability.