Shuadit language
Encyclopedia
Shuadit, also spelled Chouhadite, Chouhadit, Chouadite, Chouadit, and Shuhadit is the extinct Jewish language of southern France
, also known as Judaeo-Provençal, Judéo-Comtadin, Hébraïco-Comtadin. The language is known from documents dating to as early as the 11th century in France
, and after suffering drastic declines beginning with the charter of the Inquisition
in France, finally died out
with the death of its last known speaker, Armand Lunel
, in 1977.
, as the language of commerce
and administration
of the Roman Empire
, spread to the region following the conquest of Transalpine Gaul
by Julius Caesar
, completed by 50 BC. There is, however, little evidence of whether Shuadit developed through the adoption and alteration of Latin by the local Jewish community, or whether it is a descendant of the much earlier Judæo-Latin language. Another possibility is that the language developed as a result of the influence of the exegetical
school at Narbonne
. (For further discussion, refer to Blondheim and Banitt in References below. See also the Judæo-French article at Zarphatic.)
, both forms were written exclusively using modifications of the Hebrew alphabet
.
Religious texts contain a significantly higher incidence of Hebrew
loanword
s, and reflect an overall more "educated" style, containing many words from Old French
, Provençal
, Greek
, Hebrew, Aramaic
and Latin
. These texts include a fragment of a 14th century poem lauding Queen Esther
, as well as a woman's siddur
. This siddur contains an uncommon blessing, found in few other locations (including medieval Lithuania
), thanking God, in the morning blessings, not for making her "according to His will" (she-asani kirtzono), but for making her as a woman. Even today, among the more "liberal" branches of Ashkenazi Judaism (Reform Judaism
and Reconstructionist Judaism
), this blessing is often worded as she-asani betzalmo ("who has made me in His image"), rather than she-asani isha ("who has made me a woman").
The extant texts comprising the collections of popular prose contain far fewer non-Provençal borrowings, and are essentially Provençal written using the Hebrew alphabet, possibly indicating a Jewish preference, prevalent at the time, for not using the Roman alphabet, regarded widely as synonymous with the oppressive Christian
régimes. These texts demonstrate the extent to which the Jewish community of Provence was thoroughly familiar with Hebrew, as well as the extent to which the community was thoroughly integrated into the larger surrounding Christian culture of the region.
. The name "Shuadit" literally means "Jewish", and is the Shuadit pronunciation of the Hebrew word "Yehudit". This is because initial /j/ becomes /ʃ/, and /h/ is often elided between vowels, so Yehudit -> Shehudit -> Sheudit -> Shuadit (through a later vowel system change).
In words inherited from Hebrew
and Aramaic
, the letters samekh, sin and thav are all pronounced /f/, the same as fe. The conjecture is that the two former /s/ phonemes merged with the /θ/ phoneme, and then merged with the phoneme /f/. This observation gives particular validity to the theory that Shuadit is an outgrowth of a much older Judæo-Latin language, rather than an independent development within southern France
, since the second step also occurred during the development of Latin from Proto-Italic.
In words derived from Latin, there is a tendency to diphthong
ize /l/ following plosives, and to de-lateralize /ʎ/ to /j/. Additionally, the phonemes /ʒ/ and /ʃ/, as well as /dʒ/ and /tʃ/, are reduced to the single phoneme /ʃ/. Thus, the Provençal
words plus, filho and juge, are rendered as pyus, feyo and šuše, respectively, in Shuadit.
of Shuadit is the comedy Harcanot et Barcanot. (See Pansier in the References section of this article.)
The earliest evidence of Shuadit as a distinguishable spoken language is probably in the comic poem, Lou Sermoun di Jusiou (The Jew's Sermon), likely written in the sixteenth century. Given its content, this poem was likely composed by a non-Jew
. Numerous parodies of Jewish speech appear also in recordings of Christmas carol
s.
The Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil recorded a number of bilingual Hebrew
-Shuadit religious poems.
. Although the community was not finally compelled to depart until 1501, much of the community had by then become dispersed into other regions, notably Genoa
and the "less-civilized" regions of Germany
. However, the Comtat-Venaissin was then under the direct control of the Pope
, and a small Jewish community continued to live there in relative isolation. From the time of the French Revolution
, when Jews were permitted to live legally anywhere in France as full citizens, the status of Shuadit began to decline rapidly. The extinction of the language was noted in 1977, upon the death of its last known native speaker, Armand Lunel
.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, also known as Judaeo-Provençal, Judéo-Comtadin, Hébraïco-Comtadin. The language is known from documents dating to as early as the 11th century in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, and after suffering drastic declines beginning with the charter of the Inquisition
Inquisition
The Inquisition, Inquisitio Haereticae Pravitatis , was the "fight against heretics" by several institutions within the justice-system of the Roman Catholic Church. It started in the 12th century, with the introduction of torture in the persecution of heresy...
in France, finally died out
Language death
In linguistics, language death is a process that affects speech communities where the level of linguistic competence that speakers possess of a given language variety is decreased, eventually resulting in no native and/or fluent speakers of the variety...
with the death of its last known speaker, Armand Lunel
Armand Lunel
Armand Lunel was a French writer and the last known speaker of Shuadit , a now-extinct Occitan language...
, in 1977.
Early history
Historians have failed to clarify the age and the exact development of Shuadit. LatinLatin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, as the language of commerce
Commerce
While business refers to the value-creating activities of an organization for profit, commerce means the whole system of an economy that constitutes an environment for business. The system includes legal, economic, political, social, cultural, and technological systems that are in operation in any...
and administration
Administration (government)
The term administration, as used in the context of government, differs according to jurisdiction.-United States:In United States usage, the term refers to the executive branch under a specific president , for example: the "Barack Obama administration." It can also mean an executive branch agency...
of the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
, spread to the region following the conquest of Transalpine Gaul
Gallia Narbonensis
Gallia Narbonensis was a Roman province located in what is now Languedoc and Provence, in southern France. It was also known as Gallia Transalpina , which was originally a designation for that part of Gaul lying across the Alps from Italia and it contained a western region known as Septimania...
by Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
, completed by 50 BC. There is, however, little evidence of whether Shuadit developed through the adoption and alteration of Latin by the local Jewish community, or whether it is a descendant of the much earlier Judæo-Latin language. Another possibility is that the language developed as a result of the influence of the exegetical
Exegesis
Exegesis is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text, especially a religious text. Traditionally the term was used primarily for exegesis of the Bible; however, in contemporary usage it has broadened to mean a critical explanation of any text, and the term "Biblical exegesis" is used...
school at Narbonne
Narbonne
Narbonne is a commune in southern France in the Languedoc-Roussillon region. It lies from Paris in the Aude department, of which it is a sub-prefecture. Once a prosperous port, it is now located about from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea...
. (For further discussion, refer to Blondheim and Banitt in References below. See also the Judæo-French article at Zarphatic.)
Varieties
Shuadit writings consist of two distinct varieties: religious texts and popular prose. As with most Jewish languagesJewish languages
Jewish 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...
, both forms were written exclusively using modifications of the Hebrew alphabet
Hebrew alphabet
The 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...
.
Religious texts contain a significantly higher incidence of 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...
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, and reflect an overall more "educated" style, containing many words from Old French
Old French
Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...
, Provençal
Franco-Provençal language
Franco-Provençal , Arpitan, or Romand is a Romance language with several distinct dialects that form a linguistic sub-group separate from Langue d'Oïl and Langue d'Oc. The name Franco-Provençal was given to the language by G.I...
, 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;...
, Hebrew, Aramaic
Aramaic language
Aramaic is a group of languages belonging to the Afroasiatic language phylum. The name of the language is based on the name of Aram, an ancient region in central Syria. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic family, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic subfamily,...
and Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
. These texts include a fragment of a 14th century poem lauding Queen Esther
Esther
Esther , born Hadassah, is the eponymous heroine of the Biblical Book of Esther.According to the Bible, she was a Jewish queen of the Persian king Ahasuerus...
, as well as a woman's siddur
Siddur
A siddur is a Jewish prayer book, containing a set order of daily prayers. This article discusses how some of these prayers evolved, and how the siddur, as it is known today has developed...
. This siddur contains an uncommon blessing, found in few other locations (including medieval Lithuania
Lithuanian Jews
Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks are Jews with roots in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania:...
), thanking God, in the morning blessings, not for making her "according to His will" (she-asani kirtzono), but for making her as a woman. Even today, among the more "liberal" branches of Ashkenazi Judaism (Reform Judaism
Reform Judaism
Reform Judaism refers to various beliefs, practices and organizations associated with the Reform Jewish movement in North America, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. In general, it maintains that Judaism and Jewish traditions should be modernized and should be compatible with participation in the...
and Reconstructionist Judaism
Reconstructionist Judaism
Reconstructionist Judaism is a modern American-based Jewish movement based on the ideas of Mordecai Kaplan . The movement views Judaism as a progressively evolving civilization. It originated as a branch of Conservative Judaism, before it splintered...
), this blessing is often worded as she-asani betzalmo ("who has made me in His image"), rather than she-asani isha ("who has made me a woman").
The extant texts comprising the collections of popular prose contain far fewer non-Provençal borrowings, and are essentially Provençal written using the Hebrew alphabet, possibly indicating a Jewish preference, prevalent at the time, for not using the Roman alphabet, regarded widely as synonymous with the oppressive Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
régimes. These texts demonstrate the extent to which the Jewish community of Provence was thoroughly familiar with Hebrew, as well as the extent to which the community was thoroughly integrated into the larger surrounding Christian culture of the region.
Phonology
Shuadit displays a number of phonological characteristics that make it unique among Jewish languagesJewish languages
Jewish 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...
. The name "Shuadit" literally means "Jewish", and is the Shuadit pronunciation of the Hebrew word "Yehudit". This is because initial /j/ becomes /ʃ/, and /h/ is often elided between vowels, so Yehudit -> Shehudit -> Sheudit -> Shuadit (through a later vowel system change).
In words inherited from 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
Aramaic language
Aramaic is a group of languages belonging to the Afroasiatic language phylum. The name of the language is based on the name of Aram, an ancient region in central Syria. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic family, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic subfamily,...
, the letters samekh, sin and thav are all pronounced /f/, the same as fe. The conjecture is that the two former /s/ phonemes merged with the /θ/ phoneme, and then merged with the phoneme /f/. This observation gives particular validity to the theory that Shuadit is an outgrowth of a much older Judæo-Latin language, rather than an independent development within southern France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, since the second step also occurred during the development of Latin from Proto-Italic.
In words derived from Latin, there is a tendency to diphthong
Diphthong
A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
ize /l/ following plosives, and to de-lateralize /ʎ/ to /j/. Additionally, the phonemes /ʒ/ and /ʃ/, as well as /dʒ/ and /tʃ/, are reduced to the single phoneme /ʃ/. Thus, the Provençal
Provençal language
Provençal is a dialect of Occitan spoken by a minority of people in southern France, mostly in Provence. In the English-speaking world, "Provençal" is often used to refer to all dialects of Occitan, but it actually refers specifically to the dialect spoken in Provence."Provençal" is also the...
words plus, filho and juge, are rendered as pyus, feyo and šuše, respectively, in Shuadit.
Evidence
A fundamental source for inferring information about the phonologyPhonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
of Shuadit is the comedy Harcanot et Barcanot. (See Pansier in the References section of this article.)
The earliest evidence of Shuadit as a distinguishable spoken language is probably in the comic poem, Lou Sermoun di Jusiou (The Jew's Sermon), likely written in the sixteenth century. Given its content, this poem was likely composed by a non-Jew
Gentile
The term Gentile refers to non-Israelite peoples or nations in English translations of the Bible....
. Numerous parodies of Jewish speech appear also in recordings of Christmas carol
Christmas carol
A Christmas carol is a carol whose lyrics are on the theme of Christmas or the winter season in general and which are traditionally sung in the period before Christmas.-History:...
s.
The Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil recorded a number of bilingual 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...
-Shuadit religious poems.
Decline
In 1498, the Jews were formally expelled from southern FranceFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. Although the community was not finally compelled to depart until 1501, much of the community had by then become dispersed into other regions, notably Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
and the "less-civilized" regions of Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. However, the Comtat-Venaissin was then under the direct control of the Pope
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
, and a small Jewish community continued to live there in relative isolation. From the time of the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
, when Jews were permitted to live legally anywhere in France as full citizens, the status of Shuadit began to decline rapidly. The extinction of the language was noted in 1977, upon the death of its last known native speaker, Armand Lunel
Armand Lunel
Armand Lunel was a French writer and the last known speaker of Shuadit , a now-extinct Occitan language...
.