Judeo-Tat or Juhuri (, , ) is a

Judeo-Persian Judeo-Persian refers to both a group of Jewish dialects spoken by Jews 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 communities throughout ...

dialect and the traditional language spoken by the

Mountain Jews Mountain Jews are the Mizrahi Jews, Mizrahi Jewish subgroup of the eastern and northern Caucasus, mainly Azerbaijan, and various republics in the Russian Federation: Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, Karachay-Cherkessia, and Kabardino-Balkaria. M ...

in the eastern Caucasus Mountains, especially

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a Boundaries between the continents, transcontinental and landlocked country at the boundary of West Asia and Eastern Europe. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by ...

, parts of

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

and today in

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

. It belongs to the southwestern group of the Iranian division of the

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...

, albeit with heavy influence from

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

. The words ''Juhuri'' and ''Juhuro'' translate as "Jewish" and "Jews". The Iranic Tat language is spoken by the

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

Tats of

, a group to which the Mountain Jews were mistakenly considered to belong during the era of Soviet historiography though the languages probably originated in the same region of the

Persian Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire (; , , ), was an Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, it was the larg ...

. Judeo-Tat features Semitic elements in all linguistic levels of the language. Uniquely, Judeo-Tat retains the voiced pharyngeal approximant, also known as

ayin ''Ayin'' (also ''ayn'' or ''ain''; transliterated ) is the sixteenth letter of the Semitic scripts, including Phoenician ''ʿayin'' 𐤏, Hebrew ''ʿayin'' , Aramaic ''ʿē'' 𐡏, Syriac ''ʿē'' ܥ, and Arabic ''ʿayn'' (where it is si ...

(ع/ע), a phoneme whose presence is considered to be a hallmark of Semitic languages such as Arabic and no longer found in

Modern Hebrew Modern Hebrew (, or ), also known as Israeli Hebrew or simply Hebrew, is the Standard language, standard form of the Hebrew language spoken today. It is the only surviving Canaanite language, as well as one of the List of languages by first w ...

; no neighbouring languages feature it. Judeo-Tat is an

endangered language An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a " dead langua ...

classified as "definitely endangered" by

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

's ''

Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger The UNESCO ''Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger'' was an online publication containing a comprehensive list of the world's endangered languages. It originally replaced the ''Red Book of Endangered Languages'' as a title in print after ...

''.

Distribution

The language is spoken by an estimated 101,000 people: *

: 70,000 in 1998 *

: 24,000 in 1989 *

: 2,000 in 2010 *

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

: 5,000 *

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

2,500

Dialects

Being a variety of the Tat language, Judeo-Tat itself can be divided into several dialects: *Quba dialect (traditionally spoken in

Quba Quba () is a city and the administrative centre of the Quba District (Azerbaijan), Quba District of Azerbaijan. The city lies on the north-eastern slopes of Mount Shahdagh, Shahdag mountain, at an altitude of 600 metres above sea level, on the ...

and Qırmızı Qəsəbə as well as other towns and villages in the region.). *Derbent dialect (traditionally spoken in the town of Derbent and the surrounding villages). *Kaitag dialect (spoken in the

North Caucasus The North Caucasus, or Ciscaucasia, is a subregion in Eastern Europe governed by Russia. It constitutes the northern part of the wider Caucasus region, which separates Europe and Asia. The North Caucasus is bordered by the Sea of Azov and the B ...

). The dialects of Oğuz (formerly Vartashen) and the now extinct Jewish community of Mücü have not been studied well and thus cannot be classified.

Phonology

Alphabet

In the early 20th century, Judeo-Tat used the

Hebrew script The Hebrew alphabet (, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is a unicase, unicameral abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewish languages, most notably ...

. In the 1920s, the

Latin script The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...

was adapted for it; later it was written in

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...

. The use of the Hebrew alphabet has enjoyed renewed popularity.

Influences and etymology

Judeo-Tat is a Southwest Iranian language (as is modern Persian) and is much more closely related to (but not fully mutually intelligible with)Authier, Gilles (2012). Grammaire juhuri, ou judéo-tat, langue iranienne des Juifs du Caucase de l'est. Wiesbaden: Reichert modern Persian than most other Iranian languages of the Caucasus (for example: Talysh, Ossetian, and Kurdish). However, it also bears strong influence from other sources: Medieval Persian: Postpositions are used predominantly in lieu of prepositions, for example in modern Persian: باز او > Judeo-Tat ''æ uræ-voz'' "with him/her".

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

: like in modern Persian, a significant portion of the vocabulary is Arabic in origin. Unlike modern Persian, Judeo-Tat has almost universally retained the original pharyngeal/uvular phonemes of Arabic, for example "honey" (Arab. ), "morning" (Arab. ).

: As in other Jewish dialects, the language also has many Hebrew loanwords, for example "table" (Heb. ''shulḥan''), "luck" (Heb. ''mazal''), "rich" (Heb. ''ʻashir''). Hebrew words are typically pronounced in the tradition of other

Mizrahi Jews Mizrahi Jews (), also known as ''Mizrahim'' () in plural and ''Mizrahi'' () in singular, and alternatively referred to as Oriental Jews or ''Edot HaMizrach'' (, ), are terms used in Israeli discourse to refer to a grouping of Jews, Jewish c ...

. Examples: and are pronounced pharyngeally (like Arabic ‎, respectively); is pronounced as a voiced uvular plosive (like Persian ). Classical Hebrew () and ( kamatz), however, are typically pronounced as /v/ and /o/ respectively (similar to the Persian/Ashkenazi traditions, but unlike the Iraqi tradition, which retains and ) Azerbaijani:

Vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is a phonological rule in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – must share certain distinctive features (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, meaning tha ...

and many loan words Russian: Loanwords adopted after the Russian Empire's annexation of Daghestan and Azerbaijan Northeast Caucasian languages: "small" (probably the same origin as the medieval Caucasian city name "Sera-chuk" mentioned by

Ibn Battuta Ibn Battuta (; 24 February 13041368/1369), was a Maghrebi traveller, explorer and scholar. Over a period of 30 years from 1325 to 1354, he visited much of Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Iberian Peninsula. Near the end of his life, Ibn ...

, meaning "little Sera") Other common phonology/morphology changes from classical Persian/Arabic/Hebrew: * > /o/, /æ/, or /u/ as in "book" (Arab. ), "road/path" (Pers. ''rāh''), "sacrifice" (Arab., Aramaic or Heb. ''Korban'') * /o/ > /u/ as in "Absalom" (Heb. ''Abshalom'') * /u/ > /y/, especially under the influence of

vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is a phonological rule in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – must share certain distinctive features (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, meaning tha ...

* Stress on the final syllable of words * Dropping of the final /n/ as in /soχtæ/ "to make" (Pers. ''sākhtan'')

References

External links

* Judeo-Tat literature
Горско-еврейский язык
(словарь, грамматика, библиотека)
JUHURO.RU - Информационно развлекательный портал горских евреев
Горские Евреи Израиля population ~70,000
Горские Евреи Нальчика
Mountain Jews of Nalchik.
Горские Евреи Америки
Mountain Jews of the US.
Сайт Горских Евреев
Культура новости
Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World: "Juhūrī (Judeo-Tat or Judeo-Tātī)", p 16 sq
print: Brill, Leiden 2010 {{DEFAULTSORT:Juhuri Language Judeo-Persian languages Languages of the Caucasus Endangered Iranian languages Languages of Azerbaijan Languages of Russia Mountain Jews topics Iranian Jews Persian dialects and varieties