Judeo-Italian (or Judaeo-Italian, Judæo-Italian, and other names including Italkian) is an endangered
Jewish language
Jewish languages are the various languages and dialects that developed in Jewish communities in the diaspora. The original Jewish language is Hebrew, supplanted as the primary vernacular by Aramaic following the Babylonian exile. Jewish langua ...
, with only about 200 speakers in Italy and 250 total speakers today.
The language is one of the
Italian languages
The languages of Italy include Italian, which serves as the country's national language, in its standard and regional forms, as well as numerous local and regional languages, most of which, like Italian, belong to the broader Romance gro ...
.
Some words have Italian
prefixes
A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Adding it to the beginning of one word changes it into another word. For example, when the prefix ''un-'' is added to the word ''happy'', it creates the word ''unhappy''. Particu ...
and
suffixes
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry g ...
added to
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 ...
words as well as
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 ...
roots.
The term ''Judeo-Italian''
The
glottonym
Linguonym (from la, lingua / language, and gr, ὄνομα / name) also known as glossonym (from grc, γλῶσσα / language) or glottonym (from Attic Greek: γλῶττα / language), is a linguistic term that designates a proper name of an ...
is of academic and relatively late coinage. In
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 ...
, the term was first used (as ''Judæo-Italian'') by Lazaro Belleli in 1904 in the ''
Jewish Encyclopedia'', describing the languages of the
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""T ...
s of
Corfu. In Italian, Giuseppe Cammeo referred to a ('Judaico-Italian jargon') in a 1909 article. That same year,
Umberto Cassuto
Umberto Cassuto, also known as Moshe David Cassuto (16 September 1883 – 19 December 1951), was an Italian historian, a rabbi, and a scholar of the Hebrew Bible and Ugaritic texts, Ugaritic literature, in the University of Florence, then at the ...
used the term , in the following (here translated into English):
Other designations
* Historically, Italian Jews referred to their vernaculars as (),
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 ...
for 'foreign language', 'non-Hebrew language').
The
Italian Jewish rite is sometimes called , and linguists use as a description of words of Romance origin in
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 ve ...
. This may be connected with the
Germanic use of the word (literally, 'foreign') and derived cognates, for
Romance peoples
The Romance-speaking world, Romanophone world, Neolatin world, or Latin-speaking world, is the part of the world where Romance languages (those evolved from Latin) are either official, co-official, or significantly used, comprising Latin Europe an ...
and
languages and sometimes
Celtic peoples
The Celts (, see Names of the Celts#Pronunciation, pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples () are. "CELTS location: Greater Europe time period: Second millennium B.C.E. to present ancestry: Celtic a collection of Indo-Europea ...
and
languages (as in English terms ''
Walloons
Walloons (; french: Wallons ; wa, Walons) are a Gallo-Romance ethnic group living native to Wallonia and the immediate adjacent regions of France. Walloons primarily speak '' langues d'oïl'' such as Belgian French, Picard and Walloon. Wall ...
'', ''
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia (; ro, Țara Românească, lit=The Romanian Land' or 'The Romanian Country, ; archaic: ', Romanian Cyrillic alphabet: ) is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Lower Danube and s ...
ns'', and ''
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
''): the Italian and Sephardic Hebrew script for Torah scrolls is known in Yiddish as or .
*In 1587, David de Pomis used the word in reference to the
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 ...
glosses in his trilingual dictionary. The Hebrew title of the 1609 Venice Haggadah uses the word or () for the language of
Leone Modena Leone may refer to:
Geography
* Leone, American Samoa
*Monte Leone, mountain in the ''Leone-Gruppe'' as part of Western Alps
*Sierra Leone, independent nation in West Africa
Leone as a given name
* Leone Battista Alberti (1404–1472), Italian ...
's translation (, ).
* Other historic descriptions are and , both of which were commonly used in the Middle Ages to mean early Italian dialects in general, i.e.
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve into numerous Romance languages. Its literary counterpa ...
varieties.
* After the institution of the
Ghetto
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 ...
forced Jewish communities throughout Italy into segregation, the term was identified with local Jewish varieties of regional dialects.
* Another native name type is (e.g., Judeo-Florentine ; < Latin *, or an assimilation of the hiatus * < *).
* The English
neologism
A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...
''Italkian'' was coined in 1942 by Solomon Birnbaum, who modelled the word on the modern Hebrew adjective , 'Italian', from the Middle Hebrew adjective (< ), 'Italic' or 'Roman'.
Influence on other Jewish languages
According to some scholars, there are some Judeo-Italian loan words that have found their way into
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 ve ...
.
For example, the word in Judeo-Italian for 'synagogue' is , closely related to , 'school'. The use of words for 'school' to mean 'synagogue' dates back to the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediter ...
. The Judeo-Italian distinction between and parallels the Standard Yiddish distinction between for 'synagogue' and for 'school'. Another example is Yiddish , from the Judeo-Italian ('
gentile
Gentile () is a word that usually means "someone who is not a Jew". Other groups that claim Israelite heritage, notably Mormons, sometimes use the term ''gentile'' to describe outsiders. More rarely, the term is generally used as a synonym fo ...
', 'non-Jew', 'Christian'), as differentiated from the standard Italian , meaning 'noble', 'gentleman'.
There are also several loanwords from Judeo-Italian dialects in
Judeo-Gascon, due to the migration of a few Italian families to the Sephardi communities in Gascony during the 18th and 19th centuries.
Dialects
Judeo-Italian regional dialects (, ), include:
*
Judeo-Ferraran () in
Ferrara
*
Judeo-Florentine (, ) in
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...
*
Judeo-Mantuan () in
Mantua
Mantua ( ; it, Mantova ; Lombard and la, Mantua) is a city and '' comune'' in Lombardy, Italy, and capital of the province of the same name.
In 2016, Mantua was designated as the Italian Capital of Culture. In 2017, it was named as the Eur ...
*
Judeo-Modenan () in
Modena
*
Judeo-Piedmontese () in the region of
Piedmont
it, Piemontese
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 =
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographics1_title1 =
, demographics1_info1 =
, demographics1_title2 ...
*
Judeo-Reggian () in the region of
Reggio Emilia of
Emilia-Romagna
egl, Emigliàn (man) egl, Emiglièna (woman) rgn, Rumagnòl (man) rgn, Rumagnòla (woman) it, Emiliano (man) it, Emiliana (woman) or it, Romagnolo (man) it, Romagnola (woman)
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title ...
*
Judeo-Roman () in
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
*
Judeo-Venetian () in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...
*
Bagitto () in
Livorno
At least two Judeo-Italian varieties, based on the
Salentino and
Venetian languages, were also used in
Corfu
/ref>.
Characteristics
All of the spoken Judeo-Italian varieties used combination 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 ...
verb stems with 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 ...
conjugations (e.g., , 'to eat'; , 'to steal'; , 'to speak'; , 'to go'). Similarly, there are abstract nouns such as , 'goodness'. This feature is unique among Jewish languages, although there are arguably parallels in Jewish English dialect.
Also common are lexical incorporations 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 ...
, particularly those applicable to daily life. Terms from other Jewish languages such as 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 ve ...
and Judeo-Spanish were also incorporated. Bagitto, the dialect of Livorno, is particularly rich in 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 t ...
s from Judeo-Spanish and Judeo-Portuguese
Judaeo-Portuguese, or Judeo-Lusitanic, is said to be the extinct Jewish language that was used by the Jews of Portugal.
See also
* History of the Jews in Portugal
* Spanish and Portuguese Jews
* Lusophone
* Lusitanic
Lusitanic is a term use ...
.
It was claimed by Cassuto that most Judeo-Italian dialects reflect the Italian dialect of places further to the south, due to the fact that since the expulsion of the Jews from the Kingdom of Naples, the general direction of Jewish migration in Italy had been northward.
Use in works and publications
One of the most accessible ways to view the Judeo-Italian language is by looking at translations of biblical texts such as the 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 ...
and Hagiographa
The Ketuvim (; hbo, , Modern: ''Kəṯūvīm'', Tiberian: ''Kăṯūḇīm'' "writings") is the third and final section of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), after Torah (instruction) and Nevi'im (prophets). In English translations of the Hebrew Bi ...
. For example, the Judeo-Italian language is represented in a 1716 Venetian Haggadah
The Haggadah ( he, הַגָּדָה, "telling"; plural: Haggadot) is a Jewish text that sets forth the order of the Passover Seder. According to Jewish practice, reading the Haggadah at the Seder table is a fulfillment of the mitzvah to each J ...
, a Jewish prayer book typically used during a seder
The Passover Seder (; he, סדר פסח , 'Passover order/arrangement'; yi, סדר ) is a ritual feast at the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover. It is conducted throughout the world on the eve of the 15th day of Nisan in the Hebrew c ...
, some samples of which are available online.
Today, there are two locations, the Oxford Bodleian Library, and the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, in which many of these texts have been archived.
ISO and Library of Congress classifications
The International Organization for Standardization
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ) is an international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Membership requirements are given in Art ...
language code for Judeo-Italian / Italkian in the ISO 639-3
ISO 639-3:2007, ''Codes for the representation of names of languages – Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages'', is an international standard for language codes in the ISO 639 series. It defines three-letter codes for ...
specification is ; the ISO 639-2
ISO 639- 2:1998, ''Codes for the representation of names of languages — Part 2: Alpha-3 code'', is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. The three-letter codes given for ea ...
collective language code (for Romance languages) can also apply more generally.
"Italkian" is not used by the US Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...
as a subject heading, nor does it figure as a reference to Judeo-Italian. The authorized subject heading is "Judeo-Italian language". Subheadings are:
*Judeo-Italian language: Glossaries, vocabularies, etc.
*Judeo-Italian language: Grammar.
*Judeo-Italian language: Italy Livorno Glossaries, vocabularies, etc.
*Judeo-Italian language: Texts.
The subject reference is: Judeo-Italian dialect.
LC-MARC uses the following language code: Judeo-Italian.
Assigned collective code: ta(Italian).
See also
* Italian Jews
Italian Jews ( it, Ebrei Italiani, he, יהודים איטלקים ''Yehudim Italkim'') or Roman Jews ( it, Ebrei Romani, he, יהודים רומים ''Yehudim Romim'') can be used in a broad sense to mean all Jews living in or with roots in I ...
* Judeo-Latin
Judeo-Latin (also spelled Judaeo-Latin) is the use by Jews of the Hebrew alphabet to write Latin.Ivan G. Marcus, "Judeo-Latin", in Joseph R. Strayer (ed.), ''Dictionary of the Middle Ages'', Vol. 7 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1986), pp. 176 ...
* Judeo-Romance languages Judaeo-Romance languages are Jewish languages derived from Romance languages, spoken by various Jewish communities (and their descendants) originating in regions where Romance languages predominate, and altered to such an extent to gain recognition ...
* 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 ...
Notes
References
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Judeo-Italian Languages
Languages of Italy
Endangered Romance languages
Gallo-Italic languages
Jews and Judaism in Italy