Judaeo-Spanish

Ladino/Judæo-Spanish
Ladino/Judæo-Spanish
גודיאו-איספאנייול Djudeo-espanyol
Native to	Israel, Turkey, Brazil, France, Greece, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Mexico, Curaçao
Native speakers	100,000 in Israel; 10,000 in Turkey; 1,000 in Greece; unknown numbers elsewhere, steady decline in most places
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Italo-Western Western Gallo-Iberian Ibero-Romance West Iberian Spanish Ladino/Judæo-Spanish; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Official status
Regulated by	Alliance Israelite Universelle
Language codes
ISO 639-2	lad
ISO 639-3	lad
ELP	Ladino

Ladino is a Romance language, derived mainly from Old Castilian (Spanish) and Hebrew. The relationship of Ladino to Castilian Spanish is comparable to that of Yiddish to German. Speakers are currently almost exclusively Sephardic Jews, for example, in (or from) Thessaloniki and Istanbul.

Like Old Spanish, Ladino keeps the [ʃ] and [ʒ] palatal phonemes, both changed to [x] in modern Spanish. But unlike Old Spanish, it has an [x] phoneme taken over from Hebrew. In some places it has also developed certain characteristic usages, such as muestro for nuestro (our). The structure is linguistically related to Spanish, with the addition of many terms from the Hebrew, Portuguese, French, Turkish, Greek, and South Slavic languages depending on where the speakers resided.

Name of language

The name "Ladino" is a variant of "Latin". The language is also called Judæo-Spanish, Sefardi, Dzhudezmo, Judezmo, and Spanyol; Haquitía (from the Arabic haka حكى, "tell") refers to the dialect of North Africa, especially Morocco. The dialect of the Oran area of Algeria was called Tetuani, after the Moroccan town Tétouan, since many Oranais Jews came from this city. In Hebrew, the language is called Spanyolit.

According to the Ethnologue,

The name 'Dzhudezmo' is used by Jewish linguists, 'Judeo-Espanyol' by Turkish Jews; 'Judeo-Spanish' by Romance philologists; 'Ladino' by laymen, especially in Israel; 'Hakitia' by Moroccan Jews; 'Spanyol' by some others.

Authors like Haim Vidal Sephiha^[1] reserve "Ladino" for a very Hebraicized form used in religious translations as in the Ferrara Bible.

Orthography

Today, Ladino is most commonly written with the Latin alphabet, especially in Turkey. However, it is still sometimes written in the Hebrew alphabet (especially in Rashi characters), a practice that was very common, possibly almost universal, until the 19th Century (and called aljamiado, by analogy with Arabic usage). Although the Greek and Cyrillic alphabets have been employed in the past, this is rare nowadays. Following the decimation of Sephardic communities throughout much of Europe (particularly in the Netherlands and the Balkans) during the Holocaust the greatest proportion of speakers remaining were Turkish Jews. As a result the Turkish variant of the Latin alphabet is widely used for publications in Ladino. The Israeli Autoridad Nasionala del Ladino promotes another spelling. There are also those who, with Iacob M Hassán, claim that Ladino should adopt the orthography of the standard Spanish language.

Perhaps more conservative and less popular, others along with Pablo Carvajal Valdés suggest that Ladino should adopt the orthography used during the time of the Jewish expulsion of 1492 from Spain. The orthography of that time has standardized and eventually changed by a series of reforms; it was finally changed by an orthographic reform in the 18th century. Ladino has retained some of the pronunciation that at the time of reforms had become archaic in standard Spanish. Adopting 15th century orthography for Ladino would bring back into existence the /s/ (originally /ts/) - c (before e and i) and ç/z (cedilla): such in caça, which was a letter of Spanish origin, the /s/ - ss : such as in passo and the [[voiceless postalveolar fricative|[ʃ]]] - x : like in dixo. The original pronunciation of [[voiced postalveolar fricative|[ʒ]]] - g (before e or i) and j : mujer, would be reestablished and the /z/ (originally /dz/) - z : would remain in Ladino words like fazer and dezir. The /z/ - s : in between vowels like in casa, would regain its pronunciation under this orthography as well. Like in modern Spanish, in Ladino the /z/ - s is also present before m, d and others like in mesmo or desde. The distinctive Ladino [[voiceless postalveolar fricative|[ʃ]]] - s : like in buscar, cosquillas, mascar, pescar or after is endings like in séis , favláis or sois could be reflected through writing by the x.

The difference between b and v would be clearer thus some concessions to Latin spelling, as in the case of the reflex of intervocalic -B-: eg Latin DEBET > post-1800 Spanish debe, will return to its Old Castilian deve spelling. The use of the digraphs ch, ph and th ( today /k/, /f/ and /t/ in standard Spanish respectively), formally reformed in 1803, would be in used in words like orthographía, theología. Latin q before words like quando, quanto and qual would also be used. Some argue that using Old Castilian Orthography will only distance non-Hispanic characteristics about Ladino and create problems that phonetical systems solve. Nevertheless, Classical and Golden Age Spanish literature would gain renewed interest, better appreciation and understanding should its orthography be used again.

History

During the Middle Ages, Jews were instrumental in the development of Castilian into a prestige language. In the Toledo School of Translators, erudite Jews translated Arabic and Hebrew works (often translated earlier from Greek) into Castilian and Christians translated again into Latin for transmission to Europe.

Until recent times, the language was widely spoken throughout the Balkans, Turkey, the Middle East, and North Africa, having been brought there by Jewish refugees fleeing Spain following the expulsion of the Jews in 1492.

The contact among Jews of different regions and tongues (including Catalan, Leonese and Portuguese) developed a unified dialect, already different in some aspects of the Castilian norm that was forming simultaneously in Spain. The language was known as Yahudice (Jewish language) in the Ottoman Empire. In late 18th century, Enderunlu Fazıl (Fazyl bin Tahir Enderuni) wrote in his Zenanname: "Spaniards speak the Jewish language but they are not Jews."

The common Ladino and Spanish favoured trade among Sephardim (often relatives) ranging from the Ottoman Empire to the Netherlands and the Conversos of Spain and Portugal. Over time, a corpus of literature, both liturgical and secular, developed. Early Ladino literature was limited to translations from Hebrew. At the end of the 17th century, Hebrew was disappearing as the vehicle for Rabbinic instruction. Thus a literature in the popular tongue (Ladino) appeared in the 18th century, such as Meam Loez and poetry collections. By the end of the 19th century, Sephardim in the Ottoman Empire studied in schools of the Alliance Israelite Universelle. French became the language for foreign relations (as it did for Maronites), and Ladino drew from French for neologisms. New secular genres appeared: more than 300 journals, history, theatre, biographies. Interaction with French also gave way to the creation of a new slang named judeo-franyol.

Given the relative isolation of many communities, a number of regional dialects of Ladino appeared, many with only limited mutual comprehensibility. This is due largely to the adoption of large numbers of loanwords from the surrounding populations, including, depending on the location of the community, from Greek, Turkish, Arabic, and, in the Balkans, Slavic languages, especially Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian.

Ladino was the common language in the Ottoman city of Salonika, captured by Greece in 1912 and subsequently renamed Thessaloniki. Despite a major fire, economic oppression by Greek authorities, and mass settlement of Greek-speaking refugees, the language remained widely spoken in Salonika until the death of 49,000 Salonikan Jews in the Holocaust during the Second World War.

Ladino was also a language used in Donmeh rites. An example is the recite Sabbatai Tsevi esperamos a ti. Today, the religious practices and ritual use of Ladino seem to be confined to elderly generations.

The Spanish colonization of Northern Africa favoured the role of polyglote Sephardim who bridged between Spanish colonizers and Arab and Berber speakers.

In the twentieth century, the number of speakers declined sharply: entire communities were eradicated in the Holocaust, while the remaining speakers, many of whom migrated to Israel, adopted Hebrew. The governments of the new nation-states encouraged instruction in the official languages. At the same time, it aroused the interest of philologists since it conserved language and literature which existed prior to the standardisation of Spanish.

Many native speakers today are elderly olim, who have not transmitted the language to their children or grandchildren, however it is experiencing a minor revival among Sephardic communities. In addition, Sephardic communities in several Latin American countries still use Ladino.

Qol Yerushalayim and Radio Nacional de España hold regular radio broadcasts in Ladino. Law and Order showed an episode with references to Ladino language.

Songs

Folklorists have been collecting romances and other folk songs, some dating from before the expulsion.

Many religious songs in Ladino are translations of the Hebrew, usually with a different tune. For example, Ein k'Eloheynu looks like this in Ladino:

Non komo muestro Dio,

Non komo muestro Sinyor,

Non komo muestro Rey,

Non komo muestro Salvador.

etc.

Quando el Rey Nimrod (Adaption)	When King Nimrod (translation)
Quando el Rey Nimrod al campo salía mirava en el cielo y en la estrellería vido una luz santa en la judería que havía de nascer Abraham Avinu.	When King Nimrod went out to the fields Looked at the heavens and at the stars He saw a holy light in the Jewish quarter A sign that Abraham, our father, was to be born.
Abraham Avinu, Padre querido Padre bendicho, la luz de Israel.	Abraham Avinu [our Father], dear father Blessed Father, light of Israel.
Luego a las comadres encomendava que toda mujer que preñada quedasse si no pariera al punto, la matasse que havía de nascer Abraham Avinu.	Then he told all the midwives That every pregnant woman Who did not give birth to her baby at once was going to be killed because Abraham our father was going to born.
Abraham Avinu, Padre querido Padre bendicho, luz de Israel. '	Abraham Avinu, dear father Blessed Father, light of Israel.
La mujer de Terach quedó preñada y de día en día le preguntava ¿De qué tenéis la cara demudada? ella ya sabía bien qué tenía.	Terach's wife was pregnant and each day he asked her Why do you look so distraught? She already knew very well what she had.
Abraham Avinu, padre querido Padre bendicho, luz de Israel.	Abraham Avinu, dear father Blessed Father, light of Israel.
En fin de nueve meses parir quería iva caminando por campos y viñas, a su marido tal ni le descubría topó una meara, allí lo pariría	After nine months she wanted to give birth to her baby She was walking on the fields and on the vineyards Her husband will not discover her She made a manger where she will have her baby.
Abraham Avinu, Padre querido Padre bendixo a la luz de Israel.	Abraham Avinu, dear father Father who blessed the light of Israel.
En aquella hora el nascido fablava "Andávos mi madre, de la meara yo ya topo quién me alexasse mandará del cielo quien me acompañará porque só criado del Dios bendito."	When the baby was born he told his mother 'Get away of the manger, my mother I will somebody to take me out He will send from the heaven the one that will go with me Because I am created by blessed God.'
Abraham Avinu, Padre querido Padre bendicho, luz de Israel	Abraham Avinu, dear father Blessed Father, light of Israel.

Por una Ninya (A song from Sofia, Bulgaria)	For a Girl (translation)
Por una ninya tan fermoza l'alma yo la vo a dar un kuchilyo de dos kortes en el korason entro.	For a beautiful girl I would give my soul a double-edged knife pierced my heart.
No me mires ke'stó kantando es lyorar ke kero yo los mis males son muy grandes no los puedo somportar.	Don't look at me singing, all I want do do is to cry, my sorrows are so great I can't bear them.
No te lo kontengas tu, fijika, ke sos blanka komo'l simit, ay morenas en el mundo ke kemaron Selanik.	Don't hold your sorrows, young girl, for you are white like bread, there are brunette girls in the world who set fire to Thessaloniki.

Anachronistically, Abraham - who in the Bible is the very first Jew and the ancestor of all who followed, hence his appelation "Avinu" (Our Father) - is in the Ladino song born already in the judería, the Jewish quarter. This makes Terach and his wife into Jews, as are the parents of other babies killed by Nimrod. In essence, unlike its Biblical model, the song is about a Jewish community persecuted by a cruel king and witnessing the birth of a miraculous saviour - a subject of obvious interest and attraction to the Jewish people who composed and sung it in Medieval Spain.

Evidently, the song attributes to Abraham many aspects of the birth of Jesus - the star announcing his impending birth, the cruel king killing innocent babies in an effort to prevent that birth, and his being laid in a manger. Moreover, his speaking rationally to his mother right after birth suggests the Muslim account where the baby Jesus (honoured by Islam as a Prophet though not as the Son of God) speaks to Mary and counsels her right after birth - a miracle not recounted in the Christian Gospels (see[1]). Jews in Medieval Spain were likely to be familiar with the Muslim version of Jesus' life as well as the Christian one.

Jennifer Charles and Oren Bloedow from the New York-based band Elysian Fields released a CD in 2001 called La Mar Enfortuna, which featured modern versions of traditional Sephardic songs, many sung by Charles in Ladino. There are a number of groups in Turkey that sing in Ladino, notably Janet - Jak Esim Ensemble, Sefarad, Los Pasharos Sefaradis, and the children's chorus Las Estreyikas d'Estambol.

Reference

^ El ladino. Lengua litúrgica de los judíos españoles. Haim Vidal Sephiha. Historia 16, 1978

External links

[Sephiha-1] El ladino. Lengua litúrgica de los judíos españoles. Haim Vidal Sephiha. Historia 16, 1978

[1]