A conference on Semitic languages was told here today by a leading Soviet language specialist that the development of Semitology, particularly deep study of Hebraistic disciplines, was a significant task for Soviet Semitologists.
The statement was made by Prof. Georgy Serduchenko to the more than 150 scientists from Moscow, Leningrad, Tashkent, Baku and Tbilisi at the Asia Peoples Institute of the Soviet Academy of Scientists. Other speakers were Prof. Iosif Vinnikov, who discussed urgent problems in Soviet Semitology, Prof. Benzion Grande, editor of the recently published Yiddish-Russian Dictionary, who discussed complex words in Semitic languages, Prof. Slavdia Starkova, who read a paper on the publication and studies of monuments of Jewish Arab literature in the USSR, and Mikhail Zand, who discussed modern spoken Yiddish.
Prof. Starkova noted in her report that the collections of Jewish manuscripts in Hebrew and Arabic of the Soviet Union were among the richest in the world. Moisei Ziblin discussed the eastern school of Jewish language grammarians in the tenth and thirteenth centuries and Abram Rubinstein, a Yiddish expert, discussed the paths of development of Yiddish lexicography.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
