“Mazl Tov, We’re in America!” Reading American Yiddish Literature’s Heteroglossia through Translation

How to translate English words and phrases used in American Yiddish literature when English is the target language has been a persistent question for translators, resulting in a diversity of strategies still hotly debated today. The challenge is not unique to Yiddish, it is shared by a number of heteroglossic literatures, especially in relation to global English. This article explores the rich roles that multilingualism and heteroglossia play in literary Yiddish by comparing different strategies for translating multilingualism in the English translations of Sholem Aleichem’s classic novel Motl peyse dem khazns (Motl the Cantor’s Son). By reading multiple translations in comparison with each other and the Yiddish original we also gain a better understanding of what readers who engage only with English translations experience of Yiddish literature.