Shuadit (also spelled ''Chouhadite'', ''Chouhadit'', ''Chouadite'', ''Chouadit'', and ''Shuhadit''), also called Judæo-Occitan or less accurately Judæo-Provençal or Judæo-Comtadin, is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

Occitan Occitan may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain. * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France. * Occitan language Occitan (; o ...

dialect 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 ...

in the

South of France Southern France, also known as the South of France or colloquially in French as , is a defined geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Marais Poitevin,Louis Papy, ''Le midi atlantique'', A ...

. Though written in

Hebrew script The Hebrew alphabet ( he, 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 language and other Jewish ...

, the

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 ...

was

mutually intelligible 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 the Occitan spoken by non-Jews (Banitt 1963, Pansier 1925, Guttel & Aslanov 2006:560).Hammarström (2015) Ethnologue 16/17/18th editions: a comprehensive review: online appendices Shuadit is known from documents dating to as early as the 11th century in France. The language suffered drastic declines beginning with the charter of the

Inquisition The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, conducting trials of suspected heretics. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, ...

in France. Shuadit's last known speaker, the writer

Armand Lunel Armand Lunel (9 June 1892 – 3 November 1977) was a French writer and the last known speaker of Shuadit (Judeo-Provençal), a now-extinct Occitan language (in its written form based on the modified Hebrew alphabet; the language persists though i ...

, died in 1977.

Literature

17th_century_Provençal_Hebrew_cursive_script

Shuadit writings came in two distinct varieties, religious texts and popular prose, and they were written by adapting the Hebrew script. Religious texts contained a significantly higher incidence of

loanwords 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 the ...

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 reflected an overall more "educated" style, with many words also from

Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intelligib ...

, Provençal,

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 ...

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 ...

and

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

. The texts include a fragment of a 14th-century poem lauding Queen

Esther Esther is the eponymous heroine of the Book of Esther. In the Achaemenid Empire, the Persian king Ahasuerus seeks a new wife after his queen, Vashti, is deposed for disobeying him. Hadassah, a Jewess who goes by the name of Esther, is chosen ...

, and a woman's

siddur A siddur ( he, סִדּוּר ; plural siddurim ) is a Jewish prayer book containing a set order of daily prayers. The word comes from the Hebrew root , meaning 'order.' Other terms for prayer books are ''tefillot'' () among Sephardi Jews, ' ...

containing an uncommon blessing, found in few other locations (including medieval

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

), thanking

God In monotheism, monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator deity, creator, and principal object of Faith#Religious views, faith.Richard Swinburne, Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Ted Honderich, Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Ox ...

, in the morning blessings, not for making her "according to His will" (שעשני כרצונו ''she'asani kirtzono'') but for making her as a woman. The extant texts comprising the collections of popular

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the f ...

used far fewer borrowings and were essentially

written with the Hebrew script. This may have simply reflected Jews' then-prevalent avoidance of the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...

, which was widely associated with oppressive Christian régimes. The texts demonstrate the extent to which the Jewish community of

Provence Provence (, , , , ; oc, Provença or ''Prouvènço'' , ) is a geographical region and historical province of southeastern France, which extends from the left bank of the lower Rhône to the west to the Italian border to the east; it is bor ...

was familiar with Hebrew as well as the extent to which the community was integrated into the larger surrounding

Christian culture Christian culture generally includes all the cultural practices which have developed around the religion of Christianity. There are variations in the application of Christian beliefs in different cultures and traditions. Christian culture has ...

of the region.

Phonology

Shuadit had a number of

phonological Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

characteristics unlike all other

Jewish languages Jewish languages are the various Language, languages and Dialect, dialects that developed in Jewish communities in the Jewish diaspora, diaspora. The original Jewish language is Hebrew, supplanted as the primary vernacular by Aramaic following th ...

. The name "Shuadit" literally means "Jewish" and is the

pronunciation of the Hebrew word "Yehudit" (initial *j became , and *h was often elided between vowels). In words inherited from Hebrew, the letters ''

samekh Samekh (Phoenician ''sāmek'' ; Hebrew ''samekh'' , Syriac ''semkaṯ'') is the fifteenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including the Hebrew alphabet. Samekh represents a voiceless alveolar fricative . Unlike most Semitic consonants, the pro ...

'', ''

shin Shin may refer to: Biology * The front part of the human leg below the knee * Shinbone, the tibia, the larger of the two bones in the leg below the knee in vertebrates Names * Shin (given name) (Katakana: シン, Hiragana: しん), a Japanese ...

'' and ''

taw Taw, tav, or taf is the twenty-second and last letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Tāw , Hebrew Tav , Aramaic Taw , Syriac Taw ܬ, and Arabic ت Tāʼ (22nd in abjadi order, 3rd in modern order). In Arabic, it is also gives ri ...

'' were all pronounced , the same as ''fe''. The conjecture is that the first two

phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...

s merged with the phoneme, which then merged with the phoneme . In words derived from Latin, there was a tendency to

diphthong A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech o ...

ise after

plosive In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips ...

s and to delateralize to . Also, both and , as well as and , merged to the single phoneme . Thus, the Provençal words ''plus'', ''filha'', and ''jutge'' were respectively ''pyus'', ''feyo'', and ''šuše'' in Shuadit.

Evidence

A fundamental source for inferring information about the

phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

of Shuadit is the comedy ''Harcanot et Barcanot''. (See ''Nahon'' in the

References Reference is a relationship between objects in which one object designates, or acts as a means by which to connect to or link to, another object. The first object in this relation is said to ''refer to'' the second object. It is called a ''name'' ...

section.) Emperor

Pedro II of Brazil Don (honorific), Dom PedroII (2 December 1825 – 5 December 1891), nicknamed "the Magnanimity, Magnanimous" ( pt, O Magnânimo), was the List of monarchs of Brazil, second and last monarch of the Empire of Brazil, reigning for over 58 years. ...

recorded a number of

bilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...

Hebrew-Shuadit religious

poem Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...

Decline

In 1498, the

were formally expelled from 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 ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian ce ...

, and the underdeveloped regions of

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. However, the

Comtat Venaissin The Comtat Venaissin (; Provençal: , Mistralian norm: , classical norm: ; 'County of Venaissin'), often called the for short, was a part of the Papal States (1274‒1791) in what is now the region of France. The entire region was an enclave ...

was then under the direct control of the

Pope The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...

, and a small Jewish community continued to live there in relative isolation. From the time of the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

, when French Jews were permitted to live legally anywhere in France as full citizens, the status of Shuadit began to decline rapidly. The last known native speaker,

, died in 1977.

References

*Blondheim, D. S. 1928. Notes étymologiques et lexicographiques. Mélanges de linguistique et de littérature offerts à M. Alfred Jeanroy par ses élèves et ses amis. Paris: Champion. 71-80. *Jochnowitz, G. 1978 "Shuadit: La langue juive de Provence." ''Archives juives'' 14: 63-67. *Jochnowitz, G. 2013. "The Hebrew Component in Judeo-Provençal." In ''Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics'', ed. Geoffrey Khan et al., vol. 2, pp. xxxx. Leiden: Brill.
Link to full-text
*Nahon, P. 2021.
Modern Judeo-Provençal as Known from Its Sole Textual Testimony: Harcanot et Barcanot (Critical Edition and Linguistic Analysis)
" ''Journal of Jewish Languages''. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/22134638-bja10014 *Pansier, P. 1925. "Une comédie en argot hébraïco-provençal de la fin du XVIIIe siècle." ''

Revue des études juives A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance, and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own durin ...

'' 81: 113-145. *Pedro d'Alcantara (Dom Pedro II of Brazil). 1891. Poésies hébraïco-provençales du rituel comtadin. Avignon: Séguin Frères *Zosa Szajkowski, Dos loshn fun di yidn in di arbe kehiles fun Komta-Venesen (The Language of the Jews in the Four Communities of Comtat Venaissin), New York, published by the author and the Yiddish Scientific Institute—YIVO, 1948.

External links

Oxford course on Judeo-Provençal
{{Romance languages Judaeo-French languages Extinct Romance languages Provençal language Languages attested from the 11th century Languages extinct in the 1970s