Judeo-Yemeni Arabic
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Judeo-Yemeni Arabic (also known as Judeo-Yemeni and Yemenite Judeo-Arabic) is a
variety of Arabic The varieties (or dialects or vernacular languages) of Arabic, a Semitic language within the Afroasiatic family originating in the Arabian Peninsula, are the linguistic systems that Arabic speakers speak natively. There are considerable variatio ...
spoken by Jews living or formerly living in Yemen. The language is quite different from mainstream
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 ...
, and is written in 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 ...
. The cities of
Sana'a Sanaa ( ar, صَنْعَاء, ' , Yemeni Arabic: ; Old South Arabian: 𐩮𐩬𐩲𐩥 ''Ṣnʿw''), also spelled Sana'a or Sana, is the capital and largest city in Yemen and the centre of Sanaa Governorate. The city is not part of the Governo ...
,
Aden Aden ( ar, عدن ' Yemeni: ) is a city, and since 2015, the temporary capital of Yemen, near the eastern approach to the Red Sea (the Gulf of Aden), some east of the strait Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is approximately 800,000 people. ...
, al-Bayda, and
Habban District Habban District is a district of the Shabwah Governorate in Yemen. As of 2003, the district had a population of 29,846 inhabitants. The district takes its name after the town Habban which lies in As Said District, located at 14o21'N. latitude, ...
and the villages in their districts each have (or had) their own dialect. The vast majority of
Yemenite Jews Yemenite Jews or Yemeni Jews or Teimanim (from ''Yehudei Teman''; ar, اليهود اليمنيون) are those Jews who live, or once lived, in Yemen, and their descendants maintaining their customs. Between June 1949 and September 1950, the ...
have relocated to Israel and have shifted to
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 ...
as their
first language A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongu ...
. In 1995, Israel was home to 50,000 speakers of Judeo-Yemeni in 1995, while 1,000 remained in Yemen. According to Yemeni rabbi al-Marhabi, most of these have since left for the United States. , fewer than 300 Jews were believed to remain in Yemen.


See also

* Judeo-Arabic languages


References


Further reading

*Khan, G. (Ed.). (2013, January 1). Hebrew as a secret Language in Yemenite Judeo-Arabic (EHLL). Retrieved February 13, 2015, from https://www.academia.edu/6421917/Hebrew_as_a_secret_Language_in_Yemenite_Judeo-Arabic_EHLL_ *Wexler, P. (n.d.). Jewish Interlinguistics: Facts and Conceptual Framework. Retrieved February 13, 2015, from https://www.jstor.org/stable/414288 *Piamenta, Moshe. 1990–1991. A dictionary of post-classical Yemeni Arabic. Leiden: Brill. (Includes bibliographical references (v. 1, p. xv-xxiv)). *Goitein, Shelomo D. 1960. The language of al-gades: The main characteristics of an Arabic dialect spoken in Lower Yemen. Le Muséon 73. 351–394.


External links


YouTube Video of Judeo-Yemeni
Jews and Judaism in Yemen Judeo-Arabic languages Mashriqi Arabic Languages of Israel Languages of Yemen {{arabic-lang-stub