languages
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
and
dialects
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...
that developed in
Jew
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...
ish communities in the
diaspora
A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin. Historically, the word was used first in reference to the dispersion of Greeks in the Hellenic world, and later Jews after ...
. The original Jewish language is
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
, supplanted as the primary vernacular by
Aramaic
The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...
following the
Babylonian exile
The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile is the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were captives in Babylon, the capital city of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, following their defeat ...
. Jewish languages feature a
syncretism
Syncretism () is the practice of combining different beliefs and various school of thought, schools of thought. Syncretism involves the merging or religious assimilation, assimilation of several originally discrete traditions, especially in t ...
of indigenous
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
and Judeo-Aramaic with the languages of the local non-Jewish population.
Ancient history
Early
Northwest Semitic
Northwest Semitic is a division of the Semitic languages comprising the indigenous languages of the Levant. It emerged from Proto-Semitic language, Proto-Semitic in the Early Bronze Age. It is first attested in proper names identified as Amorite ...
(ENWS) materials are attested through the end of the
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
—2350 to 1200 BCE. At this early state,
Biblical Hebrew
Biblical Hebrew (, or , ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite branch of Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Israel, roughly west of ...
was not highly differentiated from the other Northwest Semitic languages (
Ugaritic
Ugaritic () is an extinct Northwest Semitic language, classified by some as a dialect of the Amorite language and so the only known Amorite dialect preserved in writing. It is known through the Ugaritic texts discovered by French archaeologis ...
and Amarna Canaanite), though noticeable differentiation did occur during the
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...
(1200–540 BCE). Hebrew as a separate language developed during the latter half of the second millennium BCE between the
Jordan River
The Jordan River or River Jordan ( ar, نَهْر الْأُرْدُنّ, ''Nahr al-ʾUrdunn'', he, נְהַר הַיַּרְדֵּן, ''Nəhar hayYardēn''; syc, ܢܗܪܐ ܕܝܘܪܕܢܢ ''Nahrāʾ Yurdnan''), also known as ''Nahr Al-Shariea ...
and the
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...
, an area known as
Canaan
Canaan (; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – ; he, כְּנַעַן – , in pausa – ; grc-bib, Χανααν – ;The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus T ...
.
The earliest distinctively Hebrew writing yet discovered was found at
Khirbet Qeiyafa
Khirbet Qeiyafa ( ar, خربة قيافة), also known as Elah Fortress and in Hebrew as Horbat Qayafa ( he, חורבת קייאפה), is the site of an ancient fortress city overlooking the Elah Valley and dated to the first half of the 10th ...
and dates to the 10th century BCE. The Israelite tribes established a kingdom in Canaan at the beginning of the first millennium BCE, which later split into the Kingdom of Israel in the north and the
Kingdom of Judah
The Kingdom of Judah ( he, , ''Yəhūdā''; akk, 𒅀𒌑𒁕𒀀𒀀 ''Ya'údâ'' 'ia-ú-da-a-a'' arc, 𐤁𐤉𐤕𐤃𐤅𐤃 ''Bēyt Dāwīḏ'', " House of David") was an Israelite kingdom of the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. Ce ...
in the south after a dispute of succession.
The kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians in 722 BCE, and the kingdom of Judah was conquered by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, its higher classes exiled and the
first Temple
Solomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple (, , ), was the Temple in Jerusalem between the 10th century BC and . According to the Hebrew Bible, it was commissioned by Solomon in the United Kingdom of Israel before being inherited by th ...
destroyed. Aramaic became the primary language of the Jews deported to
Babylonia
Babylonia (; Akkadian: , ''māt Akkadī'') was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Syria). It emerged as an Amorite-ruled state c. ...
, with the first attestations of Jewish/Judean Aramaic found in
scrolls
A scroll (from the Old French ''escroe'' or ''escroue''), also known as a roll, is a roll of papyrus, parchment, or paper containing writing.
Structure
A scroll is usually partitioned into pages, which are sometimes separate sheets of papyrus ...
from the 5th century BCE on the island of
Elephantine
Elephantine ( ; ; arz, جزيرة الفنتين; el, Ἐλεφαντίνη ''Elephantíne''; , ) is an island on the Nile, forming part of the city of Aswan in Upper Egypt. The archaeological sites on the island were inscribed on the UNESCO ...
. Later the Persians made Judah a province and permitted Jewish exiles to return and rebuild the Temple. Aramaic became the common language in the north of Israel, in
Galilee
Galilee (; he, הַגָּלִיל, hagGālīl; ar, الجليل, al-jalīl) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon. Galilee traditionally refers to the mountainous part, divided into Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and Lower Galil ...
and
Samaria
Samaria (; he, שֹׁמְרוֹן, translit=Šōmrōn, ar, السامرة, translit=as-Sāmirah) is the historic and biblical name used for the central region of Palestine, bordered by Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. The first- ...
, though Hebrew remained in use in Judah with Aramaic influence.
Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, wikt:Ἀλέξανδρος, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Maced ...
conquered Judah in 332 BCE, beginning the period of
Hellenistic
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...
domination. During the
Hellenistic period
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in 3 ...
Judea became independent under the Hasmoneans, but later the Romans ended their independence, making
Herod the Great
Herod I (; ; grc-gre, ; c. 72 – 4 or 1 BCE), also known as Herod the Great, was a Roman Jewish client king of Judea, referred to as the Herodian kingdom. He is known for his colossal building projects throughout Judea, including his renov ...
their governor. One Jewish revolt against the Romans led to the destruction of the
Second Temple
The Second Temple (, , ), later known as Herod's Temple, was the reconstructed Temple in Jerusalem between and 70 CE. It replaced Solomon's Temple, which had been built at the same location in the United Kingdom of Israel before being inherited ...
in 70 CE, and the second
Bar-Kochba revolt
The Bar Kokhba revolt ( he, , links=yes, ''Mereḏ Bar Kōḵḇāʾ''), or the 'Jewish Expedition' as the Romans named it ( la, Expeditio Judaica), was a rebellion by the Jews of the Roman province of Judea, led by Simon bar Kokhba, ag ...
in 132–135 CE led to a large departure of the Jewish population of Judea. Biblical Hebrew after the Second Temple period evolved into
Mishnaic Hebrew
Mishnaic Hebrew is the Hebrew of Talmudic texts. Mishnaic Hebrew can be sub-divided into Mishnaic Hebrew proper (also called Tannaitic Hebrew, Early Rabbinic Hebrew, or Mishnaic Hebrew I), which was a spoken language, and Amoraic Hebrew (also cal ...
, which ceased being spoken and developed into a literary language around 200 CE. Hebrew remained in widespread use among
diasporic
A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin. Historically, the word was used first in reference to the dispersion of Greeks in the Hellenic world, and later Jews after ...
communities as the medium of writing and liturgy, forming a vast corpus of literature which includes rabbinic, medieval, and modern literature prior to the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language.
Development of Jewish varieties of languages
Jewish communities were dispersed around the world in the diaspora which followed the Jewish-Roman wars. Some adopted the languages of their neighbors, but many developed new varieties of these languages, collectively termed "Jewish languages". Various reasons led to the development of distinctive Jewish varieties of the languages of their non-Jewish host populations. Jews have often had limited exposure to non-Jewish society for various reasons, including imposed
ghettoization
A ghetto, often called ''the'' ghetto, is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished t ...
(whether self-imposed separation or the forced creation of the ghetto by the host city) and strict
endogamy
Endogamy is the practice of marrying within a specific social group, religious denomination, caste, or ethnic group, rejecting those from others as unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relationships.
Endogamy is common in many cultu ...
, and as a result, Jewish languages diverged and developed separately from non-Jewish varieties in the territories they settled in. Due to frequent expulsions and migrations, single Jewish communities were often influenced by multiple distinct regional languages via
language contact
Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more languages or varieties interact and influence each other. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics. When speakers of different languages interact closely, it is typical for th ...
. For example,
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
, while based on
Middle High German
Middle High German (MHG; german: Mittelhochdeutsch (Mhd.)) is the term for the form of German spoken in the High Middle Ages. It is conventionally dated between 1050 and 1350, developing from Old High German and into Early New High German. High ...
, has elements of
Romance
Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to:
Common meanings
* Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings
* Romance languages, ...
and Slavic. Jewish languages belong to a variety of genealogical language families, but these languages have common characteristics, making their study a distinct field of comparative linguistics known as
Jewish linguistics
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
. The common feature between the Jewish languages is the presence of
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
and Judeo-Aramaic lexical components, stemming from the shared use of these languages in writing and liturgy. Many Jewish languages also display phonological, morphological, and syntactic features distinct from their non-Jewish counterparts. Most written Jewish languages are ''Hebraized'', meaning they use a modified version of the Hebrew alphabet. These languages, unless they already have an accepted name (i.e. Yiddish,
Ladino
Ladino, derived from Latin, may refer to:
* The register of Judaeo-Spanish used in the translation of religious texts, such as the Ferrara Bible
*Ladino people, a socio-ethnic category of Mestizo or Hispanicized people in Central America especi ...
), are prefixed with "Judeo" (e.g.
Judeo-Italian
Judeo-Italian (or Judaeo-Italian, Judæo-Italian, and other names including Italkian) is an endangered Jewish language, with only about 200 speakers in Italy and 250 total speakers today. The language is one of the Italian languages. Some words ...
,
Judeo-Arabic
Judeo-Arabic dialects (, ; ; ) are ethnolects formerly spoken by Jews throughout the Arabic-speaking world. Under the ISO 639 international standard for language codes, Judeo-Arabic is classified as a macrolanguage under the code jrb, encomp ...
,
Judeo-Persian
Judeo-Persian refers to both a group of Jewish dialects spoken by the Jews living in Iran and Judeo-Persian texts (written in Hebrew alphabet). As a collective term, Judeo-Persian refers to a number of Judeo-Iranian languages spoken by Jewish com ...
Judeo-Marathi
Judeo-Marathi ( Marathi: जुदाव मराठी) is a form of Marathi spoken by the Bene Israel, a Jewish ethnic group that developed a unique identity in India. Judæo-Marathi is, like other Marathi, written in the Devanagari scri ...
,
Judeo-Malayalam
Judeo-Malayalam ( ml, links=no, യെഹൂദ്യമലയാളം, '; he, links=no, מלאיאלאם יהודית, ') is the traditional language of the Cochin Jews (also called Malabar Jews), from Kerala, in southern India, spoken today ...
Bukhori
Bukharian (autonym: Bukhori, Hebrew script: בוכארי, Cyrillic: бухорӣ, Latin: ''Buxorī'') is a Judeo-Persian dialect historically spoken by Bukharan Jews of Central Asia. It is a Jewish dialect derived from —and largely mutually in ...
, a dialect of Tajik and Mountain Jews spoke
Judeo-Tat
Judeo-Tat or Juhuri (''cuhuri'', , ) is the traditional language of the Mountain Jews of the eastern Caucasus Mountains, especially Azerbaijan and Dagestan, now mainly spoken in Israel.
The language is a dialect of Persian which belongs to the s ...
.
In the early 20th century, secularism among Jews and large population shifts prompted the beginning of a shift from Jewish to non-Jewish languages. Even so, the majority of Jews in
Eurasia
Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago a ...
and
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
, and many immigrants in
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
and
Palestine
__NOTOC__
Palestine may refer to:
* State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia
* Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia
* Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...
, still spoke Jewish languages. However, the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
brought about a significant drop in the use of Jewish languages, especially
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
although it has now begun to become more prevalent.
Classification
Jewish languages are generally defined as the unique linguistic
varieties
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
of Jewish communities in the diaspora in their contact with surrounding non-Jewish languages. Languages vary in their distance and divergence from their non-Jewish sister languages. For example,
Judeo-Yemeni Arabic
Judeo-Yemeni Arabic (also known as Judeo-Yemeni and Yemenite Judeo-Arabic) is a variety of Arabic spoken by Jews living or formerly living in Yemen. The language is quite different from mainstream Yemeni Arabic, and is written in the Hebrew alph ...
is quite similar to some non-Jewish varieties of
Yemeni Arabic
Yemeni Arabic is a cluster of varieties of Arabic spoken in Yemen, southwestern Saudi Arabia and the Horn of Africa. It is generally considered a very conservative dialect cluster, having many classical features not found across most of the Ara ...
, while
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
, a
Germanic language
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, Engli ...
, shows a high degree of dissimilarity to modern German dialects. Due to continued liturgical and literary use of Hebrew and Aramaic, Jewish communities were naturally in a state of
diglossia
In linguistics, diglossia () is a situation in which two dialects or languages are used (in fairly strict compartmentalization) by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety (labeled " ...
Torah
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the s ...
and teach it. Jews were expected to also have knowledge of Judeo-Aramaic, the language of religious commentary (''targumim'') as well as many prayers, including the
Kaddish
Kaddish or Qaddish or Qadish ( arc, קדיש "holy") is a hymn praising God that is recited during Jewish prayer services. The central theme of the Kaddish is the magnification and sanctification of God's name. In the liturgy, different version ...
. Hebrew, the "Holy Tongue", was the highest linguistic
register
Register or registration may refer to:
Arts entertainment, and media Music
* Register (music), the relative "height" or range of a note, melody, part, instrument, etc.
* ''Register'', a 2017 album by Travis Miller
* Registration (organ), th ...
in these communities, used for liturgy and study. Hebrew-Aramaic is the only
adstratum
In linguistics, a stratum (Latin for "layer") or strate is a language that influences or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum or substrate is a language that has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum or sup ...
shared by all Jewish languages.
Some Jewish languages have multiple registers; for example, both Yiddish and Judezmo have three
linguistic register
In sociolinguistics, a register is a variety of language used for a particular purpose or in a particular communicative situation. For example, when speaking officially or in a public setting, an English speaker may be more likely to follow pres ...
s: colloquial, written, and scholarly-liturgical.
Some Jewish languages show the effects of the history of language shift among the speakers, including Hebrew-Aramaic influence. Yiddish exemplifies such a language. Some Jewish languages may become marked as distinctively Jewish because some shift affected some parts of the language as a whole. For example, what is today known as
Baghdad Jewish Arabic
Baghdad Jewish Arabic ( ar, عربية يهودية بغدادية, ) or autonym haki mal yihud (Jewish Speech) or el-haki malna (our speech) is the Arabic dialect spoken by the Jews of Baghdad and other towns of Southern Iraq. This dialect d ...
(because it is the Arabic variety that was up until recently spoken by Baghdad's Jews) was originally the Arabic dialect of Baghdad itself and was used by all religious groups in Baghdad, but the Muslim residents of Baghdad later adopted Bedouin dialects of Arabic. Similarly, a dialect may be perceived as Jewish because its Jewish speakers brought the dialect of another region with them when they were displaced. In some cases, this may cause a dialect to be perceived as "Jewish" in some regions but not in others.
Some Jewish language varieties may not be classified as
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
s due to
mutual intelligibility
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...
with their parent language, as with
Judeo-Malayalam
Judeo-Malayalam ( ml, links=no, യെഹൂദ്യമലയാളം, '; he, links=no, מלאיאלאם יהודית, ') is the traditional language of the Cochin Jews (also called Malabar Jews), from Kerala, in southern India, spoken today ...
and Judeo-Spanish. In the case of Judeo-Spanish, also known as
Ladino
Ladino, derived from Latin, may refer to:
* The register of Judaeo-Spanish used in the translation of religious texts, such as the Ferrara Bible
*Ladino people, a socio-ethnic category of Mestizo or Hispanicized people in Central America especi ...
, linguistically it is a dialect of
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
Nahuatl
Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller ...
and
Maya
Maya may refer to:
Civilizations
* Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America
** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples
** Maya language, the languages of the Maya peoples
* Maya (Ethiopia), a populat ...
loanwords and influences for
Mexican Spanish
Mexican Spanish ( es, español mexicano) is the variety of Dialect, dialects and Sociolect, sociolects of the Spanish language spoken in Mexican territory. Mexico has the largest number of Spanish speakers, with more than twice as many as in a ...
;
Quechua
Quechua may refer to:
*Quechua people, several indigenous ethnic groups in South America, especially in Peru
*Quechuan languages, a Native South American language family spoken primarily in the Andes, derived from a common ancestral language
**So ...
and
Aymara
Aymara may refer to:
Languages and people
* Aymaran languages, the second most widespread Andean language
** Aymara language, the main language within that family
** Central Aymara, the other surviving branch of the Aymara(n) family, which today ...
in
Peruvian Spanish
Peruvian Spanish is a family of dialects of the Spanish language that have been spoken in Peru since brought over by Spanish conquistadors in 1492. There are four varieties spoken in the country, by about 94.4% of the population. The four Peruvi ...
;
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
, Quechua and
Guaraní Guarani, Guaraní or Guarany may refer to
Ethnography
* Guaraní people, an indigenous people from South America's interior (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia)
* Guaraní language, or Paraguayan Guarani, an official language of Paraguay
* ...
in
Argentinian Spanish
Rioplatense Spanish (), also known as Rioplatense Castilian, is a variety of Spanish spoken mainly in and around the Río de la Plata Basin of Argentina and Uruguay. It is also referred to as River Plate Spanish or Argentine Spanish. It is the ...
;
Maghrebi Arabic
Maghrebi Arabic (, Western Arabic; as opposed to Eastern or Mashriqi Arabic) is a vernacular Arabic dialect continuum spoken in the Maghreb region, in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Western Sahara, and Mauritania. It includes Moroccan, Alger ...
Haketia
Haketia ( he, חַכִּיתִּיָה; ar, حاكيتيا; es, Haquetía) (also written as Hakitia or Haquitía) is an endangered Jewish Romance language also known as ''Djudeo Spañol'', ''Ladino Occidental'', or Western Judaeo-Spanish. It ...
);
Levantine Arabic
Levantine Arabic, also called Shami (autonym: or ), is a group of mutually intelligible vernacular Arabic varieties spoken in the Levant, in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, and Turkey (historically in Adana, Mersin and Hatay on ...
,
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
, Turkish and South Slavic in "Ladino Oriental".
In some cases, as with Ladino, a register may be developed for Biblical translation and exegesis in which Hebrew-Aramaic patterns are frequently
calque
In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language wh ...
d, though the number of true Hebrew and/or Aramaic loanwords may be low. Another possibility is that Jews may speak the same language as their non-Jewish neighbors, but occasionally insert Hebrew-Aramaic or other Jewish elements. This is a transitory state in the shift from the use of Jewish to a non-Jewish language, often made in the context of assimilation. This occurred, for example, with many educated German Jews who transitioned from Western Yiddish to German. This variety of German, used between 1760 and the end of the 19th century (the
Haskala
The ''Haskalah'', often termed Jewish Enlightenment ( he, השכלה; literally, "wisdom", "erudition" or "education"), was an intellectual movement among the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, with a certain influence on those in Western Euro ...
), was written with the
Hebrew alphabet
The Hebrew alphabet ( he, wikt:אלפבית, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew languag ...
, and contained a small number of Hebrew and Yiddish loans. An example is
Moses Mendelsohn
Moses Mendelssohn (6 September 1729 – 4 January 1786) was a German-Jewish philosopher and theologian. His writings and ideas on Jews and the Jewish religion and identity were a central element in the development of the ''Haskalah'', or 'Je ...
's translation of the Hebrew Bible into German written with Hebrew letters.
Status
Among the most widely spoken Jewish languages to develop in the diaspora are
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
,
Ladino
Ladino, derived from Latin, may refer to:
* The register of Judaeo-Spanish used in the translation of religious texts, such as the Ferrara Bible
*Ladino people, a socio-ethnic category of Mestizo or Hispanicized people in Central America especi ...
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
is the
Judeo-German
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
language developed by
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...
who lived in
Central
Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object.
Central may also refer to:
Directions and generalised locations
* Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...
and
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...
before the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
.
Ladino
Ladino, derived from Latin, may refer to:
* The register of Judaeo-Spanish used in the translation of religious texts, such as the Ferrara Bible
*Ladino people, a socio-ethnic category of Mestizo or Hispanicized people in Central America especi ...
, also called '' Judezmo'' and ''Muestra Spanyol'', is the Judeo-Spanish language developed by
Sephardic Jews
Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefar ...
who lived in the
Iberian peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula (),
**
* Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica''
**
**
* french: Péninsule Ibérique
* mwl, Península Eibérica
* eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, defi ...
before the expulsion by the
Catholic Monarchs
The Catholic Monarchs were Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon, whose marriage and joint rule marked the ''de facto'' unification of Spain. They were both from the House of Trastámara and were second cousins, being bot ...
. Judeo-Catalan (also called ''Catalanic'' or ''Qatalanit''), was the Jewish language spoken by the Jewish communities in
Catalonia
Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy.
Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the north ...
,
Valencia
Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Valencian Community, Valencia and the Municipalities of Spain, third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is ...
, and the
Balearic Islands
The Balearic Islands ( es, Islas Baleares ; or ca, Illes Balears ) are an archipelago in the Balearic Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The archipelago is an autonomous community and a province of Spain; its capital is ...
Occitan language
Occitan (; oc, occitan, link=no ), also known as ''lenga d'òc'' (; french: langue d'oc) by its native speakers, and sometimes also referred to as ''Provençal'', is a Romance languages, Romance language spoken in Southern France, Monaco, Ital ...
as it was historically spoken by
French Jews
The history of the Jews in France deals with Jews and Jewish communities in France since at least the Early Middle Ages. France was a centre of Jewish learning in the Middle Ages, but Persecution of Jews, persecution increased over time, includ ...
.
Many ancient and distinct Jewish languages, including
Judaeo-Georgian
Judaeo-Georgian ( ka, ყივრული ენა) (also known as Kivruli and Gruzinic) is the traditional Georgian dialect spoken by the Georgian Jews, the ancient Jewish community of the Caucasus nation of Georgia.
Relationship to other la ...
,
Judeo-Arabic
Judeo-Arabic dialects (, ; ; ) are ethnolects formerly spoken by Jews throughout the Arabic-speaking world. Under the ISO 639 international standard for language codes, Judeo-Arabic is classified as a macrolanguage under the code jrb, encomp ...
,
Judeo-Berber
Judeo-Berber or Judeo-Amazigh ( ber, ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ ⵏ ⵡⵓⴷⴰⵢⵏ ''tamazight n wudayen'', berberit yehudit) is any of several hybrid Berber varieties traditionally spoken as a second language in Berber Jewish communities of ...
Judeo-Italian
Judeo-Italian (or Judaeo-Italian, Judæo-Italian, and other names including Italkian) is an endangered Jewish language, with only about 200 speakers in Italy and 250 total speakers today. The language is one of the Italian languages. Some words ...
,
Judeo-Malayalam
Judeo-Malayalam ( ml, links=no, യെഹൂദ്യമലയാളം, '; he, links=no, מלאיאלאם יהודית, ') is the traditional language of the Cochin Jews (also called Malabar Jews), from Kerala, in southern India, spoken today ...
have largely fallen out of use due to the impact of the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
on
European Jewry
The history of the Jews in Europe spans a period of over two thousand years. Some Jews, a Judaean tribe from the Levant, Natural History 102:11 (November 1993): 12–19. migrated to Europe just before the rise of the Roman Empire. A notable e ...
, the
Jewish exodus from Arab lands
The Jewish exodus from the Muslim world was the departure, flight, expulsion, evacuation and migration of around 900,000 Jews from Arab countries and Iran, mainly from 1948 to the early 1970s, though with one final exodus from Iran in 1979– ...
, the assimilation policies of
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
in its early days and other factors.
Yiddish was the language spoken by the largest number of Jews in the 1850s, but today the three most commonly spoken languages among Jews are English,
modern Hebrew
Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the He ...
, and Russian—in that order. Yiddish, as well as several other Jewish languages, has contributed to the vocabulary of coterritorial non-Jewish languages, such as
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
Kol Yisrael
''Kol Yisrael'' or ''Kol Israel'' ( lit. "Voice of Israel", also "Israel Radio") is Israel's public domestic and international radio service. It operated as a division of the Israel Broadcasting Service from 1951 to 1965, the Israel Broadcastin ...
, Israel's former public-service broadcaster, had long maintained short daily news and featured programming in many Jewish languages and dialects. For domestic audiences, it broadcast in Iraqi Jewish Arabic on its Arabic network, while also producing in Yiddish, Ladino, Moroccan Jewish Arabic, Bukharian and
Judeo-Tat
Judeo-Tat or Juhuri (''cuhuri'', , ) is the traditional language of the Mountain Jews of the eastern Caucasus Mountains, especially Azerbaijan and Dagestan, now mainly spoken in Israel.
The language is a dialect of Persian which belongs to the s ...
for both domestic and overseas shortwave audiences in relevant areas. In addition, for over two decades starting in the late 1970s, a daily 30-minute shortwave transmission was made to
Yemen
Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...
Radio Exterior de España
Radio Exterior de España (REE) or simply Radio Exterior is a Spanish free-to-air radio station owned and operated by Radio Nacional de España (RNE), the radio division of state-owned public broadcaster Radiotelevisión Española (RTVE). It is t ...
,
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
's international public broadcaster, provides programming in Ladino, which they refer to as Sefardi.
In the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
as well as in Birobidzhan, Russia, there are some local radio programs in Yiddish.
Judæo-Marathi
Judeo-Marathi ( Marathi: जुदाव मराठी) is a form of Marathi spoken by the Bene Israel, a Jewish ethnic group that developed a unique identity in India. Judæo-Marathi is, like other Marathi, written in the Devanagari scri ...
(
Marathi
Marathi may refer to:
*Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India
*Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people
*Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece
See also
*
* ...
: जुदाव मराठी) is a form of
Marathi
Marathi may refer to:
*Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India
*Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people
*Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece
See also
*
* ...
spoken by the
Bene Israel
The Bene Israel (), also referred to as the "Shanivar Teli" () or " Native Jew" caste, are a community of Jews in India. It has been suggested that they are the descendants of one of the Ten Lost Tribes via their ancestors who had settled there ce ...
, a
Jewish ethnic group
Jewish ethnic divisions refer to many distinctive communities within the world's ethnically Jewish population. Although considered a self-identifying ethnicity, there are distinct ethnic subdivisions among Jews, most of which are primarily the ...
that developed a unique identity in
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
. Judæo-Marathi, like other Marathi dialects, is written in the
Devanagari
Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental syste ...
script. It may not be sufficiently different from Marathi as to constitute a distinct language, although it is characterized by a number of
loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...
s from
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
and
Aramaic
The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety (linguisti ...
al forms or branching off as independent languages. The usual course of development for these languages was through the addition of Hebrew words and phrases used to express uniquely Jewish concepts and concerns. Often they were written in Hebrew letters, including the block letters used in Hebrew today and
Rashi script
Rashi script or Sephardic script (), is a typeface for the Hebrew alphabet based on 15th-century Sephardic semi-cursive handwriting. It is named for the rabbinic commentator Rashi, whose works are customarily printed in the typeface (though Ras ...
.
Conversely, Ladino, formerly written in Rashi script or
Solitreo
Solitreo () is a cursive form of the Hebrew alphabet. Traditionally a Sephardi Jews, Sephardi script, it is the predecessor of modern cursive Hebrew of Ashkenazi Jews, Ashkenazi origin currently used for handwriting in modern Israel and for Yiddi ...
, since the 1920s is usually written in Turkey in the Latin alphabet with a spelling similar to that of Turkish, and has been occasionally printed in the Greek and Cyrillic alphabets.''Verba Hispanica'' X Los problemas del estudio de la lengua sefardí , Katja Smid, Ljubljana, pages 113–124: ''Es interesante el hecho que en Bulgaria se imprimieron unas pocas publicaciones en alfabeto cirílico búlgaro y en Grecia en alfabeto griego. ..Nezirović (1992: 128) anota que también en Bosnia se ha encontrado un documento en que la lengua sefardí está escrita en alfabeto cirilico''. The Nezirović reference is: Nezirović, M., ''Jevrejsko-Spanjolska knjitévnost''. Institut za knjifevnost, Svjeálost, Sarajevo, 1992.
Also, some Yiddish-speakers have adopted the use of the Latin alphabet, in place of the Hebrew alphabet. This is predominantly to enable communications over the internet, without the need for special Hebrew keyboards.
The Hebrew alphabet has also been used to transcribe a number of languages including Arabic,
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
, French, Spanish, German and Greek. While not common, such practice has occurred intermittently over the last two thousand years.
See also
*
List of Jewish diaspora languages
This is a list of languages and groups of languages that developed within Jewish diaspora communities through contact with surrounding languages.
Afro-Asiatic languages Cushitic languages
* Kayla dialect, Kayla
* Qwara dialect, Qwara
Semiti ...
International Journal of the Sociology of Language
The ''International Journal of the Sociology of Language'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering the field of sociology of language. It was established in 1974 by the eminent sociologist of language Joshua Fishman, who has served many years ...