Dr. Max Weinreich, one of the world’s leading Yiddish linguists, died at his home here today from a heart attack. He was 74 years old. Funeral services will be held here Friday. Dr. Weinreich had just completed a definitive five-volume history of the Yiddish language in his capacity of vice-chairman of the executive committee of YIVO, which he founded in Vilna in 1925 and which he continued to lead after he moved the Yiddish research organization to the United States in 1940. A YIVO spokesman said the organization planned to publish the first volume this year.
Born in Kuldiga, Latvia, Dr. Weinreich attended the University of St. Petersburg before entering the University of Berlin. He received his doctorate at the University of Marburg. When World War II broke out, Dr. Weinreich was in Stockholm attending a linguistics conference and went from there to the United States. He served as professor in charge of Yiddish studies at City College of New York from 1947 to 1964. He also served as a research fellow in social sciences at the Rockefeller Foundation, and was a member of an international seminar on culture and personality at Yale University. He was a member of the International Congress of Linguists, the Linguistic Society of America, the Yiddish Writers Union, and the Workmen’s Circle. He was the author of more than a dozen books in Yiddish and a translator of many major works into Yiddish, including Freud’s works in psychoanalysis.
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