Judaeo-Spanish
Encyclopedia
Judaeo-Spanish in Israel commonly referred to as Ladino, and known locally as Judezmo, Djudeo-Espanyol, Djudezmo, Djudeo-Kasteyano, Spaniolit and other names, is a Romance language
derived from Old Spanish. As a Jewish language, it is influenced heavily by Hebrew
and Aramaic, but also Arabic
, Turkish
and to a lesser extent Greek
and other languages where Sephardic
exiles
settled around the world, primarily throughout the Ottoman Empire
.
Judaeo-Spanish has kept the postalveolar
phonemes /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ of Old Castilian, which both changed to the velar
/x/ in modern Spanish. It also has an /x/ phoneme taken over from Hebrew. In some places certain characteristic words were retained, such as the use of the possessive muestro instead of the Spanish nuestro to signify our. Its grammatical structure is close to that of Spanish, with the addition of many terms from Hebrew, Portuguese
, French, Turkish, Greek, Bulgarian
, Bosnian
and Serbo-Croatian
depending on the geographic origin of the speaker.
Like many other Jewish languages, Judaeo-Spanish is in danger of language extinction. Most native speakers are elderly, many of them having emigrated to Israel
where the language was not transmitted to their children or grandchildren. However, it is experiencing a minor revival among Sephardic communities, especially in music. In some expatriate communities in Latin America and elsewhere, there is a threat of dialect levelling
resulting in extinction by assimilation into modern Spanish.
(from the Arabic ħaka حكى, "tell") refers to the dialect of North Africa, especially Morocco
. The dialect of the Oran area of Algeria was called Tetuani
, after the Moroccan town Tétouan
, since many Orani Jews came from this city. In Hebrew, the language is called Spanyolit.
According to the Ethnologue
:
The derivation of the name "Ladino" is complicated. In pre-Expulsion times in the area known today as Spain the word meant literary Castilian as opposed to other dialects, or Romance in general as distinct from Arabic. (The first European language grammar and dictionary, of Castilian, refers to it as ladino or ladina. In the Middle Ages, the word "Latin" was frequently used to mean simply "language", and in particular the language one understands: a "latiner" or "latimer" meant a translator.) Following the expulsion, Jews spoke of "the Ladino" to mean the traditional oral translation of the Bible into archaic Castilian. By extension it came to mean that style of Castilian generally, in the same way that (among Kurdish Jews) Targum
has come to mean Judaeo-Aramaic
and (in Arab countries) sharħ has come to mean Judaeo-Arabic
.
Informally, and especially in modern Israel, many speakers use "Ladino" to mean Judaeo-Spanish as a whole: for example, the language is regulated by a body called the Autoridad Nasionala del Ladino
. More strictly, however, the term is confined to the style used in translation. According to the website of the Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki, "Ladino is not spoken, rather, it is the product of a word-for-word translation of Hebrew or Aramaic biblical or liturgical texts made by rabbis in the Jewish schools of Spain. In these, translations, a specific Hebrew or Aramaic word always corresponded to the same Spanish word, as long as no exegetical considerations prevented this. In short, Ladino is only Hebrew clothed in Spanish, or Spanish with Hebrew syntax. The famous Ladino translation of the Bible, the Biblia de Ferrara
(1553), provided inspiration for the translation of numerous Spanish Christian Bibles."
Nowadays "ladino" is a Spanish adjective that means "sly" or "cunning", far away from its historical meaning.
Following the expulsion, the process of dialect mixing continued, though Castilian remained by far the largest contributor. The daily language was increasingly influenced both by the language of study and by the local non-Jewish vernaculars such as Greek and Turkish, and came to be known as Judezmo: in this respect the development is parallel to that of Yiddish
. However, many speakers, especially among the community leaders, also had command of a more formal style nearer to the Spanish of the expulsion, referred to as Castellano.
: eya [ˈeja] (Djudaeo-Spanish) and ella [ˈeʝa] (modern Spanish).
Archaic features retained by Judaeo-Spanish are as follows:
Regular conjugation in the present:
Regular conjugation in the preterite:
) would therefore closely fit the pronunciation of Judaeo-Spanish.
Some old spellings could be restored for the sake of historical interest, rather than to reflect Judaeo-Spanish phonology:
The supporters of this orthography argue that classical and Golden Age Castilian literature might gain renewed interest, better appreciation and understanding should its orthography be used again.
It remains uncertain how to treat sounds that Old Castilian spelling failed to render phonetically.
Until recent times, the language was widely spoken throughout the Balkans, Turkey, the Middle East, and North Africa, having been brought there by Jewish refugees fleeing the area today known as Spain following the expulsion of the Jews
in 1492.
The contact among Jews of different regions and languages, including Catalan, Leonese
and Portuguese
developed a unified dialect differing in some aspects from the Castilian norm that was forming simultaneously in the area known today as Spain, though some of this mixing may have occurred in exile rather than in the peninsula itself. The language was known as Yahudice (Jewish language) in the Ottoman Empire
. In late 18th century, Enderunlu Fazıl (Fazyl bin Tahir Enderuni) wrote in his Zenanname: "Castilians speak the Jewish language but they are not Jews."
The closeness and mutual comprehensibility between Judaeo-Spanish and Castilian favoured trade among Sephardim (often relatives) ranging from the Ottoman Empire to the Netherlands and the converso
s of the Iberian Peninsula.
After the expulsion of the Jews, who were of mostly Portuguese descent, from Dutch Brazil
in 1654, Ladino-speaking Jews were one of the influences on the African-Romance creole Papiamento
of the Caribbean islands Aruba
, Bonaire and Curaçao
.
Over time, a corpus of literature, both liturgical and secular, developed. Early Ladino literature was limited to translations from Hebrew. At the end of the 17th century, Hebrew was disappearing as the vehicle for Rabbinic instruction. Thus a literature in the popular tongue (Ladino) appeared in the 18th century, such as Me'am Lo'ez
and poetry collections. By the end of the 19th century, Sephardim in the Ottoman Empire studied in schools of the Alliance Israélite Universelle
. French became the language for foreign relations (as it did for Maronites), and Judaeo-Spanish drew from French for neologisms. New secular genres appeared: more than 300 journals, history, theatre, biographies. Interaction with French also gave way to the creation of a new language named judeo-franzyol.
Given the relative isolation of many communities, a number of regional dialects of Judaeo-Spanish appeared, many with only limited mutual comprehensibility. This is due largely to the adoption of large numbers of loanword
s from the surrounding populations, including, depending on the location of the community, from Greek, Turkish, Arabic, and in the Balkans
, Slavic languages
, especially Bosnian
, Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian. The borrowing in many dialects is so heavy that up to 30% of Judaeo-Spanish is of non-Spanish origin. Some words also passed from Judaeo-Spanish to neighbouring languages: the word palavra "word" (Vulgar Latin
= "parabola"; Greek = "parabole") for example passed into Turkish, Greek, and Romanian with the meaning "bunk, hokum, humbug, bullshit" in Turkish and Romanian and "big talk, boastful talk" in Greek.
Judaeo-Spanish was the common language of Salonika during the period of Ottoman
rule. The city became part of the modern Greek Republic in 1912 and subsequently renamed to Thessaloniki. Despite a major fire, economic oppression by Greek authorities, and mass settlement of Christian refugees, the language remained widely spoken in Salonika until the deportation and murder of 50,000 Salonikan Jews in the Holocaust during the Second World War. According to the 1928 census there were 62,999 native speakers of Ladino in Greece. This figure drops down to 53,094 native speakers in 1940 but 21,094 citizens also cited speaking Ladino "usually".
Ladino was also a language used in Donmeh
rites (Dönme in Turkish meaning convert and referring to adepts of Sabbatai Tsevi
converted to the Moslem religion in the Ottoman empire). An example is the recite Sabbatai Tsevi esperamos a ti. Today, the religious practices and ritual use of Ladino seems confined to elderly generations.
The Castilian colonization of Northern Africa favoured the role of polyglot Sephardim who bridged between Castilian colonizers and Arab and Berber speakers.
From the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, Judaeo-Spanish was the predominant Jewish language in the Holy Land, though the dialect was different in some respects from that spoken in Greece and Turkey. Some Sephardi families have lived in Jerusalem for centuries, and preserve Judeo-Spanish for cultural and folklore purposes, though they now use Hebrew in everyday life.
An often told Sephardic anecdote from Bosnia-Herzegovina has it that, as a Spanish consulate was opened in Sarajevo
between the two world wars, two Sephardic women were passing by and, upon hearing a Catholic priest speaking Spanish, thought that given his language he was in fact Jewish!
In the twentieth century, the number of speakers declined sharply: entire communities were murdered in the Holocaust, while the remaining speakers, many of whom emigrated to Israel, adopted Hebrew. The governments of the new nation-state
s encouraged instruction in the official languages. At the same time, it aroused the interest of philologists, since it conserved language and literature existed prior to the standardisation of Castilian.
Judeo-Spanish is in serious danger of extinction because many native speakers today are elderly olim
(immigrants to Israel), who have not transmitted the language to their children or grandchildren. Nevertheless, it is experiencing a minor revival among Sephardic communities, especially in music. In addition, Sephardic communities in several Latin American countries still use Judeo-Spanish. In these countries, there is an added danger of extinction by assimilation to modern Castilian Spanish.
Kol Yisrael
and Radio Nacional de España
hold regular radio broadcasts in Judeo-Spanish. Law & Order: Criminal Intent
showed an episode, titled "A Murderer Among Us
", with references to the language. Films partially or totally in Judeo-Spanish include Mexican film Novia que te vea (directed by Guita Schyfter), The House on Chelouche Street
, and Every Time We Say Goodbye
.
Efforts have been made to gather and publish modern Ladino fables and folktales. In 2001, the Jewish Publication Society published the first English translation of Ladino folk tales, collected by Matilda Koén-Sarano, Folktales of Joha, Jewish Trickster: The Misadventures of the Guileful Sephardic Prankster.
The late Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan
translated some scholarly religious Ladino texts into Hebrew &/or English.
, it is not surprising that more institutions offer Yiddish language courses than Ladino language courses. Today, the University of Pennsylvania
and Tufts University
offer Ladino language courses among colleges in the United States. Outside of the United States, Hebrew University also offers Ladino language courses.
Spanish
Catalan
Asturian
Galician
Portuguese
English
looks like this in Judeo-Spanish:
Other songs relate to secular themes such as love.
Adio, kerida
Tu madre kuando te pario
Y te kito al mundo,
Korason ella no te dio
Para amar segundo.
Korason ella no te dió
Para amar segundo.
Adio,
Adio Querida,
No kero la vida,
Me l'amargates tu.
Adio,
Adio kerida,
No kero la vida,
Me l'amargates tu.
Va, bushkate otro amor,
Aharva otras puertas,
Aspera otro ardor,
Ke para mi sos muerta.
Aspera otro ardor,
Ke para mi sos muerta.
Adio,
Adio kerida,
No kero la vida,
Me l'amargates tu.
Adio,
Adio kerida,
No kero la vida,
Me l'amargates tú.
Anachronistically, Abraham – who in the Bible is the very first Jew and the ancestor of all who followed, hence his appellation "Avinu" (Our Father) – is in the Judeo-Spanish song born already in the "djudería" (modern Spanish: judería), the Jewish quarter. This makes Terach and his wife into Jews, as are the parents of other babies killed by Nimrod. In essence, unlike its Biblical model, the song is about a Jewish community persecuted by a cruel king and witnessing the birth of a miraculous saviour – a subject of obvious interest and attraction to the Jewish people who composed and sang it in Medieval Spain.
The song attributes to Abraham elements from the story of Moses
's birth (the cruel king killing innocent babies, with the midwives ordered to kill them, the 'holy light' in the Jewish area) and from the careers of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego who emerged unscathed from the fiery furnace
. Nimrod is thus made to conflate the role and attributes of two archetypal cruel and persecuting kings – Nebuchadnezzar
and Pharaoh
. For more information, see Nimrod
.
Jennifer Charles
and Oren Bloedow
from the New York-based band Elysian Fields
released a CD in 2001 called La Mar Enfortuna, which featured modern versions of traditional Sephardic songs, many sung by Charles in Judeo-Spanish. The American singer, Tanja Solnik, has released several award-winning albums that feature songs sung in Ladino: From Generation to Generation: A Legacy of Lullabies and Lullabies and Love Songs. There are a number of groups in Turkey that sing in Judeo-Spanish, notably Janet – Jak Esim Ensemble, Sefarad, Los Pasharos Sefaradis, and the children's chorus Las Estreyikas d'Estambol. There is a Brazilian-born singer of Sephardic origins called Fortuna
who researches and plays Judaeo-Spanish music.
The Jewish Bosnian-American musician Flory Jagoda
recorded two CDs of music taught to her by her grandmother, a Sephardic folk singer, among a larger discography.
The cantor Dr. Ramón Tasat, who learned Judaeo-Spanish at his grandmother's knee in Buenos Aires, has recorded many songs in the language, with three of his CDs focusing primarily on that music.
The Israeli singer Yasmin Levy
has also brought a new interpretation to the traditional songs by incorporating more "modern" sounds of Andalusian Flamenco
. Her work revitalising Sephardi music has earned Levy the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation Award
for promoting cross-cultural dialogue between musicians from three cultures. In Yasmin Levy's own words:
Notable music groups performing in Judaeo-Spanish include Voice of the Turtle
, Oren Bloedow
and Jennifer Charles
' "La Mar Enfortuna" and Vanya Green, who was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship for her research and performance of this music. She was recently selected as one of the top ten world music artists by the We are Listening International World of Music Awards for her interpretations of the music.
Robin Greenstein, a New York based musician, received a federal CETA grant in the 1980s to collect and perform Sephardic Ladino Music under the guidance of the American Jewish Congress. Her mentor was Joe Elias, noted Sephardic singer from Brooklyn. She recorded residents of the Sephardic Home for the Aged, a nursing home in Coney Island, NY singing songs from their childhood. Amongst the voices recorded was Victoria Hazan, a well known Sephardic singer who recorded many 78's in Ladino and Turkish from the 1930s and 40's. Two Ladino songs can be found on her "Songs of the Season" holiday CD released in 2010 on Windy Records.
The Portland Oregon based Pink Martini released a Ladino Hanukkah song, "Ocho Kandelikas
," on their 2010 album "Joy to the World"
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
derived from Old Spanish. As a Jewish language, it is influenced heavily by Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
and Aramaic, but also Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
and to a lesser extent Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
and other languages where Sephardic
Sephardi Jews
Sephardi Jews is a general term referring to the descendants of the Jews who lived in the Iberian Peninsula before their expulsion in the Spanish Inquisition. It can also refer to those who use a Sephardic style of liturgy or would otherwise define themselves in terms of the Jewish customs and...
exiles
Alhambra decree
The Alhambra Decree was an edict issued on 31 March 1492 by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain ordering the expulsion of Jews from the Kingdom of Spain and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year.The edict was formally revoked on 16 December 1968, following the Second...
settled around the world, primarily throughout the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
.
Judaeo-Spanish has kept the postalveolar
Postalveolar consonant
Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate...
phonemes /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ of Old Castilian, which both changed to the velar
Velar consonant
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....
/x/ in modern Spanish. It also has an /x/ phoneme taken over from Hebrew. In some places certain characteristic words were retained, such as the use of the possessive muestro instead of the Spanish nuestro to signify our. Its grammatical structure is close to that of Spanish, with the addition of many terms from Hebrew, Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, French, Turkish, Greek, Bulgarian
Bulgarian language
Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
, Bosnian
Bosnian language
Bosnian is a South Slavic language, spoken by Bosniaks. As a standardized form of the Shtokavian dialect, it is one of the three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina....
and Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...
depending on the geographic origin of the speaker.
Like many other Jewish languages, Judaeo-Spanish is in danger of language extinction. Most native speakers are elderly, many of them having emigrated to Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
where the language was not transmitted to their children or grandchildren. However, it is experiencing a minor revival among Sephardic communities, especially in music. In some expatriate communities in Latin America and elsewhere, there is a threat of dialect levelling
Dialect levelling
Dialect levelling is the means by which dialect differences decrease. For example, in rural areas of Britain, although English is widely spoken, the pronunciation and grammar have historically varied. During the 20th century people have been moving into towns and cities, standardizing the English...
resulting in extinction by assimilation into modern Spanish.
Name
In Israel particularly, the language is commonly called Ladino (לאדינו) (a variant of "Latin"), though many consider this use incorrect. The language is also called Judeo-Spanish, judeo-espagnol, judeo-español, Sefardi, Djudio, Dzhudezmo, Judezmo, and Spanyol or Español sefardita; HaquitíaHaketia
Haketia is an endangered Jewish-Moroccan Romance language, also known as Djudeo Spañol or Ladino Occidental , that was spoken and spread throughout the North of Morocco such as in Tetuan, Tangiers and the Spanish towns of Ceuta and Melilla, in the latter of which it has achieved partial...
(from the Arabic ħaka حكى, "tell") refers to the dialect of North Africa, especially Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
. The dialect of the Oran area of Algeria was called Tetuani
Tetuani
Tetuani is a dialect of Judaeo-Spanish, a Jewish Romance language spoken in the Algerian city of Oran. The probable origin of the name is the city of Tetouan in Morocco, from where some of the Jewish residents came from....
, after the Moroccan town Tétouan
Tétouan
Tetouan is a city in northern Morocco. The Berber name means literally "the eyes" and figuratively "the water springs". Tetouan is one of the two major ports of Morocco on the Mediterranean Sea. It lies a few miles south of the Strait of Gibraltar, and about 40 mi E.S.E. of Tangier...
, since many Orani Jews came from this city. In Hebrew, the language is called Spanyolit.
According to the Ethnologue
Ethnologue
Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International , a Christian linguistic service organization, which studies lesser-known languages, to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language and support their efforts in language development.The Ethnologue...
:
- The name 'Judezmo' is used by Jewish linguists and Turkish Jews and American Jews; 'Judaeo-Spanish' by Romance philologists; 'Ladino' by laymen, especially in Israel; 'Hakitia' by Moroccan Jews; 'Spanyol' by some others.
The derivation of the name "Ladino" is complicated. In pre-Expulsion times in the area known today as Spain the word meant literary Castilian as opposed to other dialects, or Romance in general as distinct from Arabic. (The first European language grammar and dictionary, of Castilian, refers to it as ladino or ladina. In the Middle Ages, the word "Latin" was frequently used to mean simply "language", and in particular the language one understands: a "latiner" or "latimer" meant a translator.) Following the expulsion, Jews spoke of "the Ladino" to mean the traditional oral translation of the Bible into archaic Castilian. By extension it came to mean that style of Castilian generally, in the same way that (among Kurdish Jews) Targum
Targum (Aramaic dialect)
Targum is used by the Jews of northern Iraq and Kurdistan to refer to a variety of Aramaic dialects spoken by them till recent times. For details of these dialects, see Judeo-Aramaic language. The word "targum" simply means "translation" in Hebrew, and the primary reference of the term is the...
has come to mean Judaeo-Aramaic
Judeo-Aramaic language
Judæo-Aramaic is a collective term used to describe several Hebrew-influenced Aramaic and Neo-Aramaic languages.-Early use:Aramaic, like Hebrew, is a Northwest Semitic language, and the two share many features. From the 7th century BCE, Aramaic became the lingua franca of the Middle East...
and (in Arab countries) sharħ has come to mean Judaeo-Arabic
Judeo-Arabic languages
The Judeo-Arabic languages , are a continuum of Arabic dialects spoken by Jews living or formerly living in the Arab world; the term also refers more or less to Classical Arabic written in the Hebrew script, particularly in the Middle Ages. Just as with the rest of the Arab world, Arab Jews had...
.
Informally, and especially in modern Israel, many speakers use "Ladino" to mean Judaeo-Spanish as a whole: for example, the language is regulated by a body called the Autoridad Nasionala del Ladino
Autoridad Nasionala del Ladino
Autoridad Nasionala del Ladino is a national Israeli organization created in 1997 with the goal of preserving and safeguarding Judeo-Spanish, commonly known as Ladino....
. More strictly, however, the term is confined to the style used in translation. According to the website of the Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki, "Ladino is not spoken, rather, it is the product of a word-for-word translation of Hebrew or Aramaic biblical or liturgical texts made by rabbis in the Jewish schools of Spain. In these, translations, a specific Hebrew or Aramaic word always corresponded to the same Spanish word, as long as no exegetical considerations prevented this. In short, Ladino is only Hebrew clothed in Spanish, or Spanish with Hebrew syntax. The famous Ladino translation of the Bible, the Biblia de Ferrara
Ferrara Bible
The Ferrara Bible was a 1553 publication of the Ladino version of the Tanach used by Sephardi Jews. It was paid for and made by Yom-Tob ben Levi Athias and Abraham ben Salomon Usque , and was dedicated to Ercole II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara...
(1553), provided inspiration for the translation of numerous Spanish Christian Bibles."
Nowadays "ladino" is a Spanish adjective that means "sly" or "cunning", far away from its historical meaning.
Variants
At the time of the expulsion from Spain, the day to day language of the Jews of different regions of the peninsula was little if at all different from that of their Christian neighbors, though there may have been some dialect mixing to form a sort of Jewish lingua franca. There was however a special style of Castilian used for purposes of study or translation, featuring a more archaic dialect, a large number of Hebrew and Aramaic loan-words and a tendency to render Hebrew word order literally (ha-laylah ha-zeh, meaning "this night", was rendered la noche la esta instead of the normal Spanish esta noche). As mentioned above, some authorities would confine the term "Ladino" to this style.Following the expulsion, the process of dialect mixing continued, though Castilian remained by far the largest contributor. The daily language was increasingly influenced both by the language of study and by the local non-Jewish vernaculars such as Greek and Turkish, and came to be known as Judezmo: in this respect the development is parallel to that of Yiddish
Yiddish language
Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...
. However, many speakers, especially among the community leaders, also had command of a more formal style nearer to the Spanish of the expulsion, referred to as Castellano.
Phonology
The grammar of Judaeo-Spanish, and its core vocabulary (approx. 60% of its total vocabulary), are basically Castilian. However, the phonology of the consonants and part of the lexicon are in some respects closer to Galician-Portuguese or Catalan than to modern Castilian, which is because they retained characteristics of medieval Ibero-Romance that Castilian later lost. Compare for example Judaeo-Spanish aninda ("still") with Portuguese ainda (Galician aínda, Asturian aína or enaína) and Castilian aún, or the initial consonants in Judaeo-Spanish fija, favla ("daughter", "speech"), Portuguese filha, fala (Galician filla, fala, Asturian fía, fala, Aragonese filla, fabla, Catalan filla), Castilian hija, habla. This sometimes varied with dialect: in Judaeo-Spanish popular songs both fijo and hijo are found. The Judaeo-Spanish pronunciation of s as "sh" before a "k" sound or at the end of certain words (such as seis, pronounced [seʃ], for six) is also shared with Portuguese spoken in Portugal but not with Spanish. Despite this, there are also similarities with contemporanean Spanish like yeísmoYeísmo
Yeísmo is a distinctive feature of many dialects of the Spanish language, which consists of the loss of the traditional palatal lateral approximant phoneme and its merger into the phoneme , usually realized as a palatal fricative or affricate. In other words, ‹ll› and ‹y› represent the same sound...
: eya [ˈeja] (Djudaeo-Spanish) and ella [ˈeʝa] (modern Spanish).
Archaic features retained by Judaeo-Spanish are as follows:
- Modern Spanish z (c before e or i), pronounced as "s" or [θ] (as the English "th" in "think"), according to dialect, corresponds to two different phonemes in Old Castilian: ç (c before e or i), pronounced "ts", and z (in all positions), pronounced "dz". This distinction has been retained in Judaeo-Spanish, where the two phonemes are pronounced "s" and "z" respectively: korason/coraçon, "heart" (modern Spanish corazón) versus dezir, "to say" (modern Spanish decir). (The cedillaCedillaA cedilla , also known as cedilha or cédille, is a hook added under certain letters as a diacritical mark to modify their pronunciation.-Origin:...
in the character çÇis a Latin script letter, used in the Albanian, Azerbaijani, Ligurian, Tatar, Turkish, Turkmen, Kurdish and Zazaki alphabets. This letter also appears in Catalan, French, Friulian, Occitan and Portuguese as a variant of the letter “c”...
was invented in Spanish to represent the former of the two phonemes, though it is not used in modern Spanish). - Modern Spanish j, pronounced [x], corresponds to two different phonemes in Old Castilian: x, pronounced [ʃ] (English "sh"), and j, pronounced [ʒ] ("zh"). Again the distinction has been retained: basho/baxo, "low" or "down" (modern Spanish bajo) versus mujer/muger, "woman" or "wife".
- In modern Spanish, the use of the letters b and v is determined partially on the basis of earlier forms of the language and partially on the basis of Latin etymology: both letters are pronounced as the same bilabialBilabial consonantIn phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...
phoneme, realized either as [b] or as [β] according to position. In Old Castilian and in Judaeo-Spanish the choice is made phonetically: bivir [biˈviɾ], "to live" (modern Spanish vivir). In Judaeo-Spanish v is a labiodentalLabiodental consonantIn phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.-Labiodental consonant in IPA:The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...
"v" (as in English) rather than a bilabial.
Morphology
Judaeo-Spanish is distinguished from other Spanish dialects by the presence of the following features:- With regard to pronounPronounIn linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...
s, Judaeo-Spanish maintains the second-person pronouns as tú (informal singular), vos (formal singular), and vosotros (plural); usted and ustedes do not exist - In verbs, the preteritePreteriteThe preterite is the grammatical tense expressing actions that took place or were completed in the past...
indicates that an action taken once in the past was also completed at some point in the past. This is as opposed to the imperfect, which refers to any continuous, habitual, unfinished or repetitive past action. Thus, "I ate falafel yesterday" would use the first-person preterite form of eat, komí, whereas "When I lived in Izmir, I ran five miles every evening" would use the first-person imperfect form, koría. Though some of the morphology has changed, usage is just as in normative Castilian.
Regular conjugation in the present:
| -ar verbs (avlar "to speak") | -er verbs (komer "to eat") and -ir verbs (bivir "to live") | |
| yo | -o (avlo) | -o (komo) (bivo) |
| tu | -as (avlas) | -es (komes) (bives) |
| el, eya | -a (avla) | -e (kome) (bive) |
| mozotros | -amos (avlamos) | -emos (komemos), -imos (bivimos) |
| vozotros | -ásh (avlásh) | -ésh (komésh),-ísh (bivísh) |
| eyos, eyas | -an (avlan) | -en (komen) (biven) |
Regular conjugation in the preterite:
| -ar verbs (avlar) | -er verbs (komer) and -ir verbs (bivir) | |
| yo | -í (avlí) | -í (komí) (biví) |
| tu | -ates (avlates) | -ites (komites) (bivites) |
| el, eya | -ó (avló) | -yó (komyó) (bivyó) |
| mozotros | -imos (avlimos) | -imos (komimos) (bivimos) |
| vozotros | -atesh (avlatesh) | -itesh (komitesh) (bivitesh) |
| eyos, eyas | -aron (avlaron) | -yeron (komyeron) (bivyeron) |
Orthography
The following systems of writing Judaeo-Spanish have been used or proposed.- Traditionally, especially in Ladino religious texts, Judaeo-Spanish was printed in the Hebrew alphabetHebrew alphabetThe Hebrew alphabet , known variously by scholars as the Jewish script, square script, block script, or more historically, the Assyrian script, is used in the writing of the Hebrew language, as well as other Jewish languages, most notably Yiddish, Ladino, and Judeo-Arabic. There have been two...
(especially in Rashi scriptRashi scriptRashi script is a semi-cursive typeface for the Hebrew alphabet. It is named for the author of the most famous rabbinic commentary on the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud, Rashi, and is customarily used for printing his commentaries. The typeface is based on 15th century Sephardic semi-cursive...
), a practice that was very common, possibly almost universal, until the 19th century (and called aljamiadoAljamiadoAljamiado or Aljamía texts are manuscripts which use the Arabic script for transcribing Romance languages such as Mozarabic, Berber Spanish or Ladino.According to Anwar G...
, by analogy with the equivalent use of the Arabic abjadAbjadAn abjad is a type of writing system in which each symbol always or usually stands for a consonant; the reader must supply the appropriate vowel....
). This occasionally persists today, especially in religious use. Everyday written records of the language used SolitreoSolitreoSolitreo is the cursive form of the Ladino language, which is usually written with the Rashi form of the Hebrew alphabet.-External links:**...
, a semi-cursive script similar to Rashi script, shifting to square letter for Hebrew/Aramaic words. Solitreo is clearly different from the Ashkenazi Cursive Hebrew used today in Israel, though that is also related to Rashi script. (A comparative table is provided in that article.) - The Greek alphabetGreek alphabetThe Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...
and the Cyrillic alphabetCyrillic alphabetThe Cyrillic script or azbuka is an alphabetic writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...
have been employed in the past, but this is rare or nonexistent now days. - In Turkey, Judaeo-Spanish is most commonly written in the Turkish variantTurkish alphabetThe Turkish alphabet is a Latin alphabet used for writing the Turkish language, consisting of 29 letters, seven of which have been modified from their Latin originals for the phonetic requirements of the language. This alphabet represents modern Turkish pronunciation with a high degree of accuracy...
of the Latin alphabetLatin alphabetThe Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
. This may be the most widespread system in use today, as following the decimation of Sephardic communities throughout much of Europe (particularly in Greece and the BalkansBalkansThe Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
) during the Holocaust the greatest proportion of speakers remaining were Turkish Jews. However, the Judaeo-Spanish page of the Turkish Jewish newspaper ŞalomSalomŞalom is a Jewish weekly newspaper published in Turkey. Its name is the Turkish spelling of the Hebrew word שלום . It was established on 29 October 1947 by the Turkish Jewish journalist Avram Leyon. It is printed in Istanbul and is published every Wednesday. Apart from one Ladino page, it is...
now uses the Israeli system. - The Israeli Autoridad Nasionala del LadinoAutoridad Nasionala del LadinoAutoridad Nasionala del Ladino is a national Israeli organization created in 1997 with the goal of preserving and safeguarding Judeo-Spanish, commonly known as Ladino....
promotes a phonetic transcriptionPhonetic transcriptionPhonetic transcription is the visual representation of speech sounds . The most common type of phonetic transcription uses a phonetic alphabet, e.g., the International Phonetic Alphabet....
into the Latin alphabet from the traditional Hebrew script, making no concessions to Spanish orthography, and uses it in its publication Aki YerushalayimAki YerushalayimAki Yerushalayim is a magazine in Ladino language published 2-3 times a year from Israel.It is currently the main newspaper published in this language, together with the newspaper Şalom, published in Turkey. The aim of Aki Yerushalayim is to ensure the preservation and diffusion of the Ladino...
. The songs Non komo muestro Dio and Por una ninya, below, and the text in the sample paragraph, below, are written using this system. - Works published in Spain usually adopt the standard orthography of modern Castilian, to make them easier for modern Spaniards to read. These editions often use diacritics to show where the Judaeo-Spanish pronunciation differs from modern Spanish.
- Perhaps more conservative and less popular, others including Pablo Carvajal Valdés suggest that Judaeo-Spanish should adopt the orthography used during the time of the Jewish expulsion of 1492 from Spain. This system is used below in the transcription of the song Adio querida. (Quando el melekh Nimrod is in a mixture of this and the Israeli system.)
Arguments for and against the 1492 orthography
The Castilian orthography of that time has been standardized and eventually changed by a series of orthographic reforms, the last of which occurred in the 18th century, to become the spelling of modern Spanish. Judaeo-Spanish has retained some of the pronunciation that at the time of reforms had become archaic in standard Castilian. Adopting 15th century Castilian orthography (similar to modern Portuguese orthographyPortuguese orthography
The Portuguese orthography is based on the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes...
) would therefore closely fit the pronunciation of Judaeo-Spanish.
- The old spelling would reflect
- the /s/ (originally /ts/) – c (before e and i) and ç (cedillaCedillaA cedilla , also known as cedilha or cédille, is a hook added under certain letters as a diacritical mark to modify their pronunciation.-Origin:...
), as in caça, - the /s/ – ss, as in passo, and
- the /ʃ/ – x, as in dixo.
- the /s/ (originally /ts/) – c (before e and i) and ç (cedilla
- The letter j would be retained, but only in instances, such as mujer, where the pronunciation is /ʒ/ in Judaeo-Spanish.
- The spelling of /z/ (originally /dz/) as z would be restored in words like fazer and dezir.
- The difference between b and v would be made phonetically, as in Old Castilian, rather than in accordance with the Latin etymologyEtymologyEtymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
as in modern Spanish. For example Latin DEBET > post-1800 Castilian debe, would return to its Old Castilian spelling deve.
Some old spellings could be restored for the sake of historical interest, rather than to reflect Judaeo-Spanish phonology:
- The old digraphsDigraph (orthography)A digraph or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined...
ch, ph and th (today c/qu – /k/, f – /f/ and t – /t/ in standard Castilian respectively), formally abolished in 1803, would be used in words like orthographía, theología. - Latin/Old Castilian q before words like quando, quanto and qual (modern Spanish cuando, cuanto and cual) would also be used.
The supporters of this orthography argue that classical and Golden Age Castilian literature might gain renewed interest, better appreciation and understanding should its orthography be used again.
It remains uncertain how to treat sounds that Old Castilian spelling failed to render phonetically.
- The s between vowels, as in casa, was probably pronounced /z/ in Old Castilian and is certainly so pronounced in Judaeo-Spanish. The same is true of s before m, d and other voiced consonants, as in mesmo or desde. Supporters of Carvajal's proposal are unsure about whether this should be written s as in Old Castilian or z in accordance with pronunciation.
- The distinctive Judaeo-Spanish pronunciation of s as /ʃ/ before a /k/ sound, as in buscar, cosquillas, mascar and pescar, or in is endings as in séis, favláis and sois, is probably derived from Portuguese: it is uncertain whether it occurred in Old Castilian. It is debated whether this should be written s as in Old Castilian or x in accordance with the sound.
- There is some dispute about the Spanish ll combination, which in Judaeo-Spanish (as in most areas of Spain) is pronounced like a y. Following Old Castilian orthography this should be written ll, but it is frequently written y in Ladino to avoid ambiguity and reflect the Hebrew spelling. The conservative option is to follow the etymology: caballero, but Mayorca.
- On this system, it is uncertain how loanwords from Hebrew and other languages should be rendered.
History
During the Middle Ages, Jews were instrumental in the development of Castilian into a prestige language. Erudite Jews translated Arabic and Hebrew works – often translated earlier from Greek – into Castilian and Christians translated again into Latin for transmission to Europe.Until recent times, the language was widely spoken throughout the Balkans, Turkey, the Middle East, and North Africa, having been brought there by Jewish refugees fleeing the area today known as Spain following the expulsion of the Jews
Alhambra decree
The Alhambra Decree was an edict issued on 31 March 1492 by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain ordering the expulsion of Jews from the Kingdom of Spain and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year.The edict was formally revoked on 16 December 1968, following the Second...
in 1492.
The contact among Jews of different regions and languages, including Catalan, Leonese
Leonese language
The Leonese language is the endonym term used to refer to all vernacular Romance dialects of the Astur-Leonese linguistic group in the Spanish provinces of León and Zamora; Astur-Leonese also includes the dialects...
and Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
developed a unified dialect differing in some aspects from the Castilian norm that was forming simultaneously in the area known today as Spain, though some of this mixing may have occurred in exile rather than in the peninsula itself. The language was known as Yahudice (Jewish language) in the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
. In late 18th century, Enderunlu Fazıl (Fazyl bin Tahir Enderuni) wrote in his Zenanname: "Castilians speak the Jewish language but they are not Jews."
The closeness and mutual comprehensibility between Judaeo-Spanish and Castilian favoured trade among Sephardim (often relatives) ranging from the Ottoman Empire to the Netherlands and the converso
Converso
A converso and its feminine form conversa was a Jew or Muslim—or a descendant of Jews or Muslims—who converted to Catholicism in Spain or Portugal, particularly during the 14th and 15th centuries. Mass conversions once took place under significant government pressure...
s of the Iberian Peninsula.
After the expulsion of the Jews, who were of mostly Portuguese descent, from Dutch Brazil
Dutch Brazil
Dutch Brazil, also known as New Holland, was the northern portion of Brazil, ruled by the Dutch during the Dutch colonization of the Americas between 1630 and 1654...
in 1654, Ladino-speaking Jews were one of the influences on the African-Romance creole Papiamento
Papiamento
Papiamento is the most widely spoken language on the Caribbean ABC islands, having the official status on the islands of Aruba and Curaçao. The language is also recognized on Bonaire by the Dutch government....
of the Caribbean islands Aruba
Aruba
Aruba is a 33 km-long island of the Lesser Antilles in the southern Caribbean Sea, located 27 km north of the coast of Venezuela and 130 km east of Guajira Peninsula...
, Bonaire and Curaçao
Curaçao
Curaçao is an island in the southern Caribbean Sea, off the Venezuelan coast. The Country of Curaçao , which includes the main island plus the small, uninhabited island of Klein Curaçao , is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands...
.
Over time, a corpus of literature, both liturgical and secular, developed. Early Ladino literature was limited to translations from Hebrew. At the end of the 17th century, Hebrew was disappearing as the vehicle for Rabbinic instruction. Thus a literature in the popular tongue (Ladino) appeared in the 18th century, such as Me'am Lo'ez
Me'am Lo'ez
Me'am Lo'ez , initiated by Rabbi Yaakov Culi in 1730, is a widely studied commentary on the Tanakh written in Ladino - it is perhaps the best known publication in that language.-Content:...
and poetry collections. By the end of the 19th century, Sephardim in the Ottoman Empire studied in schools of the Alliance Israélite Universelle
Alliance Israélite Universelle
The Alliance Israélite Universelle is a Paris-based international Jewish organization founded in 1860 by the French statesman Adolphe Crémieux to safeguard the human rights of Jews around the world...
. French became the language for foreign relations (as it did for Maronites), and Judaeo-Spanish drew from French for neologisms. New secular genres appeared: more than 300 journals, history, theatre, biographies. Interaction with French also gave way to the creation of a new language named judeo-franzyol.
Given the relative isolation of many communities, a number of regional dialects of Judaeo-Spanish appeared, many with only limited mutual comprehensibility. This is due largely to the adoption of large numbers of loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s from the surrounding populations, including, depending on the location of the community, from Greek, Turkish, Arabic, and in the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
, Slavic languages
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
, especially Bosnian
Bosnian language
Bosnian is a South Slavic language, spoken by Bosniaks. As a standardized form of the Shtokavian dialect, it is one of the three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina....
, Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian. The borrowing in many dialects is so heavy that up to 30% of Judaeo-Spanish is of non-Spanish origin. Some words also passed from Judaeo-Spanish to neighbouring languages: the word palavra "word" (Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin vocabulary
- Historical overview :Like all languages, Latin possessed numerous synonyms that were associated with different speech registers. Some of these words were in the everyday language from the time of Old Latin, while others were borrowed late into Latin from other languages: Germanic, Gaulish, the...
= "parabola"; Greek = "parabole") for example passed into Turkish, Greek, and Romanian with the meaning "bunk, hokum, humbug, bullshit" in Turkish and Romanian and "big talk, boastful talk" in Greek.
Judaeo-Spanish was the common language of Salonika during the period of Ottoman
Ottoman Greece
Most of Greece gradually became part of the Ottoman Empire from the 15th century until its declaration of independence in 1821, a historical period also known as Tourkokratia ....
rule. The city became part of the modern Greek Republic in 1912 and subsequently renamed to Thessaloniki. Despite a major fire, economic oppression by Greek authorities, and mass settlement of Christian refugees, the language remained widely spoken in Salonika until the deportation and murder of 50,000 Salonikan Jews in the Holocaust during the Second World War. According to the 1928 census there were 62,999 native speakers of Ladino in Greece. This figure drops down to 53,094 native speakers in 1940 but 21,094 citizens also cited speaking Ladino "usually".
Ladino was also a language used in Donmeh
Donmeh
Note: Most Sabbateans during and after Sabbatai Zevi were Jews and practiced only Judaism, whereas the Dönmeh officially practice/d Islam and are not regarded as Jews....
rites (Dönme in Turkish meaning convert and referring to adepts of Sabbatai Tsevi
Sabbatai Zevi
Sabbatai Zevi, , was a Sephardic Rabbi and kabbalist who claimed to be the long-awaited Jewish Messiah. He was the founder of the Jewish Sabbatean movement...
converted to the Moslem religion in the Ottoman empire). An example is the recite Sabbatai Tsevi esperamos a ti. Today, the religious practices and ritual use of Ladino seems confined to elderly generations.
The Castilian colonization of Northern Africa favoured the role of polyglot Sephardim who bridged between Castilian colonizers and Arab and Berber speakers.
From the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, Judaeo-Spanish was the predominant Jewish language in the Holy Land, though the dialect was different in some respects from that spoken in Greece and Turkey. Some Sephardi families have lived in Jerusalem for centuries, and preserve Judeo-Spanish for cultural and folklore purposes, though they now use Hebrew in everyday life.
An often told Sephardic anecdote from Bosnia-Herzegovina has it that, as a Spanish consulate was opened in Sarajevo
Sarajevo
Sarajevo |Bosnia]], surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans....
between the two world wars, two Sephardic women were passing by and, upon hearing a Catholic priest speaking Spanish, thought that given his language he was in fact Jewish!
In the twentieth century, the number of speakers declined sharply: entire communities were murdered in the Holocaust, while the remaining speakers, many of whom emigrated to Israel, adopted Hebrew. The governments of the new nation-state
Nation-state
The nation state is a state that self-identifies as deriving its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a nation as a sovereign territorial unit. The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity...
s encouraged instruction in the official languages. At the same time, it aroused the interest of philologists, since it conserved language and literature existed prior to the standardisation of Castilian.
Judeo-Spanish is in serious danger of extinction because many native speakers today are elderly olim
Aliyah
Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...
(immigrants to Israel), who have not transmitted the language to their children or grandchildren. Nevertheless, it is experiencing a minor revival among Sephardic communities, especially in music. In addition, Sephardic communities in several Latin American countries still use Judeo-Spanish. In these countries, there is an added danger of extinction by assimilation to modern Castilian Spanish.
Kol Yisrael
Kol Yisrael
Kol Yisrael is Israel's public domestic and international radio service, operated as a division of the Israel Broadcasting Authority.-History:...
and Radio Nacional de España
Radio Nacional de España
is Spain's national public radio service. Since 1973 it has formed, together with , a part of , the corporation responsible for managing national public-service broadcasting in Spain.-Origins of RNE:...
hold regular radio broadcasts in Judeo-Spanish. Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Law & Order: Criminal Intent is an American police procedural television drama series set in New York City, where it was also primarily produced. Created and produced by Dick Wolf and René Balcer, the series premiered on September 30, 2001, as the second spin-off of Wolf's successful crime drama...
showed an episode, titled "A Murderer Among Us
A Murderer Among Us
"A Murderer Among Us" is a third season episode of the television series Law & Order: Criminal Intent.-Plot summary:In this episode, Detectives Goren and Bishop investigate the death of a woman, Lena Brody, who is found in the family bathroom with bruises, knife wounds, and signs of...
", with references to the language. Films partially or totally in Judeo-Spanish include Mexican film Novia que te vea (directed by Guita Schyfter), The House on Chelouche Street
The House on Chelouche Street
The House on Chelouche Street is a 1973 film by veteran Israeli director Moshe Mizrahi, filmed in Hebrew, Egyptian Arabic, and Judeo-Spanish...
, and Every Time We Say Goodbye
Every Time We Say Goodbye (film)
Every Time We Say Goodbye is a 1986 film starring Tom Hanks and Cristina Marsillach. Hanks plays a gentile American in the Royal Air Force, stationed in Jerusalem, who falls in love with a girl from a Sephardic Jewish family....
.
Efforts have been made to gather and publish modern Ladino fables and folktales. In 2001, the Jewish Publication Society published the first English translation of Ladino folk tales, collected by Matilda Koén-Sarano, Folktales of Joha, Jewish Trickster: The Misadventures of the Guileful Sephardic Prankster.
Religious use
The Jewish community of Bosnia-Herzegovina in Sarajevo and the Jewish community of Belgrade still chant part of the Sabbath Prayers (Mizmor David) in Ladino. The Sephardic Synagogue Ezra Bessaroth in Seattle, Washington (US) was formed by Jews from Turkey and the Island of Rhodes, and they use Ladino in some portions of their Shabbat services. The Siddur is called Zehut Yosef and was written by Hazzan Isaac Azose.The late Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan
Aryeh Kaplan
Aryeh Moshe Eliyahu Kaplan was a noted American Orthodox rabbi and author known for his "intimate knowledge of both physics and kabbalah." He was lauded as an original thinker and prolific writer, from studies of the Torah, Talmud and mysticism to introductory pamphlets on Jewish beliefs and...
translated some scholarly religious Ladino texts into Hebrew &/or English.
Modern education
As with Yiddish the Ladino language is seeing a minor resurgence in educational interest in colleges across the United States and in Israel. Still, given the ethnic demographics among American JewsAmerican Jews
American Jews, also known as Jewish Americans, are American citizens of the Jewish faith or Jewish ethnicity. The Jewish community in the United States is composed predominantly of Ashkenazi Jews who emigrated from Central and Eastern Europe, and their U.S.-born descendants...
, it is not surprising that more institutions offer Yiddish language courses than Ladino language courses. Today, the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
and Tufts University
Tufts University
Tufts University is a private research university located in Medford/Somerville, near Boston, Massachusetts. It is organized into ten schools, including two undergraduate programs and eight graduate divisions, on four campuses in Massachusetts and on the eastern border of France...
offer Ladino language courses among colleges in the United States. Outside of the United States, Hebrew University also offers Ladino language courses.
Comparison with other languages
Judeo-SpanishEl djudeo-espanyol, djudio, djudezmo o ladino es la lingua favlada por los sefardim, djudios ekspulsados de la Espanya enel 1492. Es una lingua derivada del espanyol i favlada por 150.000 personas en komunitas en Israel, la Turkia, antika Yugoslavia, la Gresia, el Maruekos, Mayorka, las Amerikas, entre munchos otros.
Spanish
El judeo-español, djudio, djudezmo o ladino es la lengua hablada por los sefardíes, judíos expulsados de España en 1492. Es una lengua derivada del español y hablada por 150.000 personas en comunidades en Israel, Turquía, la antigua Yugoslavia, Grecia, Marruecos, Mallorca, las Américas, entre muchos otros.
Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
El judeocastellà, djudiu, djudezmo o ladino és la llengua parlada pels sefardites, jueus expulsats d'Espanya al 1492. És una llengua derivada de l'espanyol i parlada per 150.000 persones en comunitats a Israel, Turquia, antiga Iugoslàvia, Grècia, el Marroc, Mallorca, les Amèriques, entre moltes altres.
Asturian
Asturian language
Asturian is a Romance language of the West Iberian group, Astur-Leonese Subgroup, spoken in the Spanish Region of Asturias by the Asturian people...
El xudeoespañol, djudio, djudezmo o ladino ye la llingua falada polos sefardinos, xudíos expulsados d'España en 1492. Ye una llingua derivada del español y falada por 150.000 persones en comunidaes n'Israel, Turquía, na antigua Yugoslavia, Grecia, Marruecos, Mayorca, nes Amériques, entre munchos otros.
Galician
Galician language
Galician is a language of the Western Ibero-Romance branch, spoken in Galicia, an autonomous community located in northwestern Spain, where it is co-official with Castilian Spanish, as well as in border zones of the neighbouring territories of Asturias and Castile and León.Modern Galician and...
O xudeo-español, djudio, djudezmo ou ladino é a lingua falada polos sefardís, xudeos expulsados de España en 1492. É unha lingua derivada do español e falada por 150.000 persoas en comunidades en Israel, en Turquía, na antiga Iugoslavia, Grecia, Marrocos, Maiorca, nas Américas, entre moitos outros.
Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
O judeo-espanhol, djudio, djudezmo ou ladino é a língua falada pelos sefarditas, judeus expulsos da Espanha em 1492. É uma língua derivada do espanhol e falada por 150.000 pessoas em comunidades em Israel, na Turquia, na antiga Iugoslávia, Grécia, Marrocos, Maiorca, nas Américas, entre muitos outros.
English
Judeo-Spanish, Djudio, Judezmo, or Ladino is a language spoken by the Sephardi Jews expelled from Spain in 1492. It is a language derived from Spanish and spoken by 150,000 people in communities in Israel, Turkey, the former Yugoslavia, Greece, Morocco, Majorca, the Americas, among many others.
Songs
Folklorists have been collecting romances and other folk songs, some dating from before the expulsion. Many religious songs in Judeo-Spanish are translations of the Hebrew, usually with a different tune. For example, Ein KeloheinuEin Keloheinu
Ein Keloheinu is a well known Jewish hymn. Orthodox Jews pronounce it as Ein Kelokeinu when referring to it outside of prayer, in order to avoid taking the name of God in vain or otherwise violating the sanctity of reverence to the Almighty.Ein Keloheinu is sometimes chanted at the end of the...
looks like this in Judeo-Spanish:
- Non komo muestro Dio,
- Non komo muestro Sinyor,
- Non komo muestro Rey,
- Non komo muestro Salvador.
- etc.
Other songs relate to secular themes such as love.
Adio, kerida
Tu madre kuando te pario
Y te kito al mundo,
Korason ella no te dio
Para amar segundo.
Korason ella no te dió
Para amar segundo.
Adio,
Adio Querida,
No kero la vida,
Me l'amargates tu.
Adio,
Adio kerida,
No kero la vida,
Me l'amargates tu.
Va, bushkate otro amor,
Aharva otras puertas,
Aspera otro ardor,
Ke para mi sos muerta.
Aspera otro ardor,
Ke para mi sos muerta.
Adio,
Adio kerida,
No kero la vida,
Me l'amargates tu.
Adio,
Adio kerida,
No kero la vida,
Me l'amargates tú.
| Por una Ninya | Per una Ninya (Old Spanish) | For a Girl (translation) |
| Por una ninya tan fermoza l'alma yo la vo a dar un kuchilyo de dos kortes en el korason entro. |
Per una ninya tan fermoça l'aima io la voi a dare un cuiçilo de duos cortes in il coraçon intro. |
For a girl so beautiful I will give my soul a double-edged knife pierced my heart. |
| No me mires ke'stó kantando es lyorar ke kero yo los mis males son muy grandes no los puedo somportar. |
No mi mirares que istoi catando is lorar que quero io les mies males soni muelt grandes no los puoso soportar. |
Don't look at me; I am singing, it is crying that I want, my sorrows are so great I can't bear them. |
| No te lo kontengas tu, fijika, ke sos blanka komo'l simit, ay morenas en el mundo ke kemaron Selanik. |
No te lo contengas tu, filia que sos blanca come'l pane, ay morenaças in el mondo que quemaron Selanizia. |
Don't hold your sorrows, young girl, for you are white like bread, there are brunette girls in the world who set fire to Thessaloniki Thessaloniki Thessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace... . |
| Quando el Rey Nimrod Quando el Rey Nimrod Quando el Rey Nimrod is a Sephardic folk song. It is sung in Judaeo-Spanish, the Jewish-Spanish language, and tells the story of the birth of Abraham, the biblical prophet.- Lyrics :Quando el Rey Nimrod... (Adaptation) |
When King Nimrod (translation) | |
| Quando el Rey Nimrod al campo salía mirava en el cielo y en la estrellería vido una luz santa en la djudería Jewish quarter (diaspora) In the Jewish Diaspora, a Jewish quarter is the area of a city traditionally inhabited by Jews. Jewish quarters, like the Jewish ghettos in Europe, were often the outgrowths of segregated ghettos instituted by the surrounding Christian authorities. A Yiddish term for a Jewish quarter or... que havía de nascer Avraham Avinu. |
When King Nimrod Nimrod (king) Nimrod is, according to the Book of Genesis and Books of Chronicles, the son of Cush and great-grandson of Noah and the king of Shinar. He is depicted in the Tanakh as a man of power in the earth, and a mighty hunter. Extra-Biblical traditions associating him with the Tower of Babel led to his... was going out to the fields He was looking at heaven and at the stars He saw a holy light in the Jewish quarter [A sign] that Abraham Abraham Abraham , whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam... , our father, must have been born. |
|
| Avraham Avinu, Padre querido, Padre bendicho, luz de Yisrael. |
Abraham Avinu [our Father], dear father Blessed Father, light of Israel. |
|
| Luego a las comadres encomendava que toda mujer que prenyada quedara si no pariera al punto, la matara que havía de nascer Abraham Avinu. |
Then he was telling all the midwives That every pregnant woman Who did not give birth at once was going to be killed because Abraham our father was going to born. |
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| Avraham Avinu, Padre querido, Padre bendicho, luz de Yisrael. |
Abraham Avinu, dear father Blessed Father, light of Israel. |
|
| La mujer de Terach quedó prenyada y de día en día le preguntava ¿De qué teneix la cara tan demudada? ella ya sabía el bien que tenía. |
Terach's wife was pregnant and each day he would ask her Why do you look so distraught? She already knew very well what she had. |
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| Avraham Avinu, Padre querido, Padre bendicho, luz de Yisrael. |
Abraham Avinu, dear father Blessed Father, light of Israel. |
|
| En fin de nueve meses parir quería iva caminando por campos y vinyas, a su marido tal ni le descubría topó una meara, allí lo pariría |
After nine months she wanted to give birth She was walking through the fields and vineyards Such would not even reach her husband She found a manger; there, she would give birth. |
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| Avraham Avinu, Padre querido, Padre bendicho, luz de Yisrael. |
Abraham Avinu, dear father Blessed Father, light of Israel. |
|
| En aquella hora el nascido avlava "Andavos mi madre, de la meara yo ya topó quen me alexara mandará del cielo quen me accompanyará porque so criado del Dio bendicho." |
In that hour the newborn was speaking 'Get away of the manger, my mother I will somebody to take me out He will send from the heaven the one that will go with me Because I am a servant of the blessed God.' |
|
| Avraham Avinu, Padre querido, Padre bendicho, luz de Yisrael |
Abraham Avinu, dear father Blessed Father, light of Israel. |
Anachronistically, Abraham – who in the Bible is the very first Jew and the ancestor of all who followed, hence his appellation "Avinu" (Our Father) – is in the Judeo-Spanish song born already in the "djudería" (modern Spanish: judería), the Jewish quarter. This makes Terach and his wife into Jews, as are the parents of other babies killed by Nimrod. In essence, unlike its Biblical model, the song is about a Jewish community persecuted by a cruel king and witnessing the birth of a miraculous saviour – a subject of obvious interest and attraction to the Jewish people who composed and sang it in Medieval Spain.
The song attributes to Abraham elements from the story of Moses
Moses
Moses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...
's birth (the cruel king killing innocent babies, with the midwives ordered to kill them, the 'holy light' in the Jewish area) and from the careers of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego who emerged unscathed from the fiery furnace
Fiery furnace
Fiery furnace may refer to:* The fiery furnace in which Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into in Daniel 3* Fiery Furnace , a region of Utah's Arches National Park* The Fiery Furnaces, a rock band...
. Nimrod is thus made to conflate the role and attributes of two archetypal cruel and persecuting kings – Nebuchadnezzar
Nebuchadnezzar
Nebuchadnezzar was the name of several kings of Babylonia.* Nebuchadnezzar I, who ruled the Babylonian Empire in the 12th century BC* Nebuchadnezzar II , the Babylonian ruler mentioned in the biblical Book of Daniel...
and Pharaoh
Pharaoh
Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. The title originates in the term "pr-aa" which means "great house" and describes the royal palace...
. For more information, see Nimrod
Nimrod (king)
Nimrod is, according to the Book of Genesis and Books of Chronicles, the son of Cush and great-grandson of Noah and the king of Shinar. He is depicted in the Tanakh as a man of power in the earth, and a mighty hunter. Extra-Biblical traditions associating him with the Tower of Babel led to his...
.
Jennifer Charles
Jennifer Charles
Jennifer Charles is an American singer, musician, composer, and poet. Along with Oren Bloedow, she co-founded the New York band Elysian Fields.-Biography:...
and Oren Bloedow
Oren Bloedow
Oren Bloedow is an American singer, guitarist, and composer. He founded the band Elysian Fields in 1995 with Jennifer Charles.His father, Jerry Bloedow, b...
from the New York-based band Elysian Fields
Elysian Fields (band)
Elysian Fields is a Brooklyn, New York based band founded in 1995 by co-composers Jennifer Charles and Oren Bloedow . Their music has been sometimes described as "noir rock", due to its sultry, dark and mysterious inflections, be it sonically or lyrically...
released a CD in 2001 called La Mar Enfortuna, which featured modern versions of traditional Sephardic songs, many sung by Charles in Judeo-Spanish. The American singer, Tanja Solnik, has released several award-winning albums that feature songs sung in Ladino: From Generation to Generation: A Legacy of Lullabies and Lullabies and Love Songs. There are a number of groups in Turkey that sing in Judeo-Spanish, notably Janet – Jak Esim Ensemble, Sefarad, Los Pasharos Sefaradis, and the children's chorus Las Estreyikas d'Estambol. There is a Brazilian-born singer of Sephardic origins called Fortuna
Fortuna (Brazilian singer)
Fortuna is a Brazilian female singer-songwriter of Jewish background, and a researcher of the Sephardic tradition since 1992.-External links:*...
who researches and plays Judaeo-Spanish music.
The Jewish Bosnian-American musician Flory Jagoda
Flory Jagoda
Flory Jagoda is a Jewish American and Bosnian guitarist, composer and singer. She is known for her interpretation of Ladino songs.-Biography:...
recorded two CDs of music taught to her by her grandmother, a Sephardic folk singer, among a larger discography.
The cantor Dr. Ramón Tasat, who learned Judaeo-Spanish at his grandmother's knee in Buenos Aires, has recorded many songs in the language, with three of his CDs focusing primarily on that music.
The Israeli singer Yasmin Levy
Yasmin Levy
Yasmin Levy , born on December 23, 1975 in Jerusalem, is an Israeli singer-songwriter of Judaeo-Spanish music.-Career:Her late father, Isaac Levy, was a composer and cantor, pioneer researcher into the long and rich history of the Ladino music and culture of Spanish Jewry and its diaspora, being...
has also brought a new interpretation to the traditional songs by incorporating more "modern" sounds of Andalusian Flamenco
Flamenco
Flamenco is a genre of music and dance which has its foundation in Andalusian music and dance and in whose evolution Andalusian Gypsies played an important part....
. Her work revitalising Sephardi music has earned Levy the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation Award
Anna Lindh Memorial Fund
The Anna Lindh Memorial Fund is a memorial fund started to commemorate the Swedish politician Anna Lindh, who was assassinated in 2003...
for promoting cross-cultural dialogue between musicians from three cultures. In Yasmin Levy's own words:
I am proud to combine the two cultures of Ladino and flamenco, while mixing in Middle Eastern influences. I am embarking on a 500 years old musical journey, taking Ladino to Andalusia and mixing it with flamenco, the style that still bears the musical memories of the old Moorish and Jewish-Spanish world with the sound of the Arab world. In a way it is a ‘musical reconciliation’ of history.
Notable music groups performing in Judaeo-Spanish include Voice of the Turtle
Voice of the Turtle
Voice of the Turtle is a musical group specializing in Sephardic music. VotT is unique in its emphasis on doing original historical research before making recordings. The band members travel the world looking for documents of Sephardic songs, and also interview community members who may remember...
, Oren Bloedow
Oren Bloedow
Oren Bloedow is an American singer, guitarist, and composer. He founded the band Elysian Fields in 1995 with Jennifer Charles.His father, Jerry Bloedow, b...
and Jennifer Charles
Jennifer Charles
Jennifer Charles is an American singer, musician, composer, and poet. Along with Oren Bloedow, she co-founded the New York band Elysian Fields.-Biography:...
' "La Mar Enfortuna" and Vanya Green, who was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship for her research and performance of this music. She was recently selected as one of the top ten world music artists by the We are Listening International World of Music Awards for her interpretations of the music.
Robin Greenstein, a New York based musician, received a federal CETA grant in the 1980s to collect and perform Sephardic Ladino Music under the guidance of the American Jewish Congress. Her mentor was Joe Elias, noted Sephardic singer from Brooklyn. She recorded residents of the Sephardic Home for the Aged, a nursing home in Coney Island, NY singing songs from their childhood. Amongst the voices recorded was Victoria Hazan, a well known Sephardic singer who recorded many 78's in Ladino and Turkish from the 1930s and 40's. Two Ladino songs can be found on her "Songs of the Season" holiday CD released in 2010 on Windy Records.
The Portland Oregon based Pink Martini released a Ladino Hanukkah song, "Ocho Kandelikas
Ocho Kandelikas
"Ocho Kandelikas" is a Jewish song celebrating the holiday of Hanukkah. The song is sung in Ladino, a Spanish-derived language traditionally associated with the Sephardic Jewish community, whose ancestors lived in Spain before the 15th century CE. The song is often performed in an Argentine...
," on their 2010 album "Joy to the World"
See also
- HaketiaHaketiaHaketia is an endangered Jewish-Moroccan Romance language, also known as Djudeo Spañol or Ladino Occidental , that was spoken and spread throughout the North of Morocco such as in Tetuan, Tangiers and the Spanish towns of Ceuta and Melilla, in the latter of which it has achieved partial...
- Jewish languagesJewish languagesJewish languages are the various languages and dialects that developed in Jewish communities around the world.Although Hebrew was the daily speech of the Jewish people for centuries, by the fifth century BCE, the closely related Aramaic joined Hebrew as the spoken language in Judea and by the third...
- Judaism
- Judeo-PortugueseJudeo-PortugueseJudaeo-Portuguese, Lusitanic, or "Lusitanico" in Judaeo-Portuguese is the generally extinct Jewish language of the Jews of Portugal.-Description:...
- Judeo-Romance languagesJudeo-Romance languagesJudaeo-Romance languages are Jewish languages derived from Romance languages, spoken by various Jewish communities originating in regions where Romance languages predominate, and altered to such an extent to gain recognition as languages in their own right.-Judaeo-Catalan or Catalanic:Catalanic,...
- Mozarabic
- ŞalomSalomŞalom is a Jewish weekly newspaper published in Turkey. Its name is the Turkish spelling of the Hebrew word שלום . It was established on 29 October 1947 by the Turkish Jewish journalist Avram Leyon. It is printed in Istanbul and is published every Wednesday. Apart from one Ladino page, it is...
, a Turkish newspaper with a Judeo-Spanish page - Sephardic Jews
- TetuaniTetuaniTetuani is a dialect of Judaeo-Spanish, a Jewish Romance language spoken in the Algerian city of Oran. The probable origin of the name is the city of Tetouan in Morocco, from where some of the Jewish residents came from....
- Yiddish languageYiddish languageYiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...
Further reading
Lleal, Coloma (1992) "A propósito de una denominación: el judeoespañol", available at Centro Virtual Cervantes, http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/FichaObra.html?Ref=19944- Saporta y Beja, Enrique, comp. (1978) Refranes de los judíos sefardíes y otras locuciones típicas de Salónica y otros sitios de Oriente. Barcelona: Ameller
External links
- Autoridad Nasionala del Ladino
- Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki
- Ladino Center
- Ethnologue report for Ladino
- Ladinokomunita, an email list in Ladino
- La pajina djudeo-espanyola de Aki Yerushalayim
- The Ladino Alphabet
- Diksionario de Ladinokomunita
- Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) at Orbis Latinus
- http://www.primary-music.com Ladino music by SuZySuZySuZy is a Turkish-Israeli singer in ladino.Suzy immigrated to Israel in 1979. After attending high school in Jaffa, Suzy completed her post secondary education at the University of Tel Aviv, where she studied English and French Philology...
and Margalit MatitiahuMargalit MatitiahuMargalit Matitiahu is a poet in Ladino and Hebrew from Israel.After the Holocaust, her parents moved to Israel from Thessaloniki, Greece where they were Sephardi Jews who were descendants of Jews from León...
] - Socolovsky, Jerome. "Lost Language of Ladino Revived in Spain", Morning Edition, National Public Radio, 19 March 2007.
- A randomly selected example of use of ladino on the Worldwide Web: La komponente kulinaria i linguístika turka en la kuzina djudeo-espanyola
- Israeli Ladino Language Forum (Hebrew)
- LadinoType – A Ladino Transliteration System for Solitreo, Meruba, and Rashi
- Habla Ladino? Sephardim meet to preserve language Friday 9 January 1998
- Edición SEFARAD, Radio programme in Ladino from Radio Nacional de España
- Etext of Nebrija's Gramática de la lengua castellana, showing orthography of Old Castilian.