Jewish language

Classification

Jewish languages are generally defined as the unique linguistic varieties 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 is quite similar to some non-Jewish varieties of Yemeni Arabic, while Yiddish, a Germanic language, 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. Along with their vernacular Jewish language, most Jews could read and write in Hebrew, which was necessary to fulfill the religious commandment to learn Torah 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. Hebrew, the "Holy Tongue", was the highest linguistic register in these communities, used for liturgy and study. Hebrew-Aramaic is the only adstratum shared by all Jewish languages. Some Jewish languages have multiple registers; for example, both Yiddish and Judezmo have three linguistic registers: colloquial, written, and scholarly-liturgical.