Six Jewish languages
JVL Introduction
Arising in a past in which Hebrew was a purely sacred language, a variety of every-day spoken Jewish languages evolved, expressing something of the distinctiveness of the Jewish communities in which they developed.
Everyone knows about Yiddish, still spoken widely in ultra-Orthodox communities and among some secular Jews.
Some even know about the Sephardi Jewish Ladino, still spoken by a handful of older people in Britain today.
In this fascinating account Yvette Miller talks about these, but also about other Jewish languages: Bukharian in central Asia in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, Yevanic in northern Greece, Judeo-Arabic and its various local dialects in Yemen, the Maghreb, Iraq, and Egypt…
And not to forget Judeo-Italian in the ghettoes of the Middle Age
This article was originally published by Aish.com on Sat 27 Mar 2021. Read the original here.
6 Little-Known Jewish Languages
Jewish communities around the world created their own language.
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“When Spain was unified under Catholic rule in 1492, the monarchs King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella marked the milestone by forbidding any Jews to live in the country on pain of death. 200,000 Jews fled the country, bringing Ladino with them.”
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In fact the Ottoman state ‘shiplifted’ a vast proportion of Spain’s Jewish population to Ottoman lands:
“In July 1492, the new state of Spain expelled its Jewish and Muslim populations as part of the Spanish Inquisition. Bayezid II sent out the Ottoman Navy under the command of admiral Kemal Reis to Spain in 1492 in order to evacuate them safely to Ottoman lands. He sent out proclamations throughout the empire that the refugees were to be welcomed. He granted the refugees the permission to settle in the Ottoman Empire and become Ottoman citizens. He ridiculed the conduct of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile in expelling a class of people so useful to their subjects. “You venture to call Ferdinand a wise ruler,” he said to his courtiers, “he who has impoverished his own country and enriched mine!”. Bayezid addressed a firman to all the governors of his European provinces, ordering them not only to refrain from repelling the Spanish refugees, but to give them a friendly and welcome reception. He threatened with death all those who treated the Jews harshly or refused them admission into the empire”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayezid_II
The wonderful Joglaresa sings traditional Ladino songs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0MGVc_-Vts
More about her http://www.joglaresa.com/belinda.htm
JVL, you’ve gone one better here than even the Woody Guthrie article. What a wonderful history lesson in Jewish languages and dialects.
Interesting piece. thank you.
I find James Dickins comments difficult to comprehed. Surely there is this ancient, nay timeless, ‘Judeo-Christian’ heritage’ that the Right and Christian Zionists like Mike Pompeo talk about?
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/the-judeo-christian-tradition-is-over/614812/
We all know that the main threat to Jews has lways been from Muslims and Arabs not that kind and tolerant Christianity that Martin Luther personified?
Compared to the pogroms and blood letting in the Arab East Europe was for centuries a place of safety, a haven for Jews. I really feel that James Dickins must have got the wrong end of the stick!
Surely Jews were running away from the Muslims and Arabs to Christian Spain?
Even the Holocaust was, according to Netanyahu, the fault of the Palestinian Mufti, who persuaded Hitler not to expel them for fear that they would end up in Palestine?
“In part, this abandonment of traditional Jewish languages reflects the robust state of Israel as the homeland of the world’s Jewish communities. [Immigrants’] children grow up conversing in Hebrew.” This is an understatement of historic proportions, which neglects the very active role of 20th century Zionism in crushing Yiddish and these other languages. Yiddish above all was portrayed in Zionist ideology as the debased language of the stereotypical weak, cringing Diaspora Jew. It was to be rejected in favour of the revived Hebrew of the (equally stereotyped) strong, active, valiant chalutzim (“pioneers”). This was an active policy in Israel for a long time, and played no small part in the near-extinction of Yiddish among secular Jews.
A couple of points – 1: has the memory of Aramaic wholly disappeared (apart from the detestable Mel Gibson and his film)?
2: On Tuesday 9th c 1800 hrs there will be a JVP zoom event (webinar? conference?) presided over by none other than Avram Burg. My immediate question to them (submitted as soon as I could) is a bit of a request for alternative history: what would have happened (I should have put in ‘what would have had to have happened earlier?’) if the British imperialists had not in 1919 imposed the (very-small-minority language) Hebrew on the Jews of Palestine by making Hebrew one of three official languages, leaving Yiddish and other Jewish languages in the lurch/? Remember when the Yevsektsiyas called Hebrew ‘the fascist language’ – not unconnected with the forcible imposition of Hebrew on unwilling Jews?
Thanks, James, for pointing this out. That whole section is full of inaccuracies. I’m not a great expert on this extremely complex history but I know that the quote below is upside down and that, at the period mentioned, the Christians were in control, not the Muslims:
“Facing persecution from Islamic rulers in Spain, some Spanish Jews moved to North Africa in the 1300s and 1400s, bringing Ladino with them, establishing Ladino-speaking communities in Morocco.”
There is also some misrepresentation of the fate of Jewish languages since the establishment of the state of Israel. It’s too long to go into here but the author might at least have mentioned that this whole question of Jewish diaspora languages and cultures has been the focus of fierce and bitter political battles.
But Aish is a right-wing orthodox grouping which has a record of trying to draw young secular Jewish professionals into its separatist/particularist fold. It is not a source from which I would expect a progressive analysis (or any analysis at all really).
The one spoken by the witch-hunters was omitted. That one is called “Rubbish” and the BoD, CAA, JLM and the JC are all, AFAIK, fluent in it.
Fascinating. The author might also have mentioned Yeshivish.
rc, I assume many Jews still understand at least some Aramaic but I guess nobody actually speaks it. The same would have been the case with Hebrew until 1900 or so. Presumably pretty much all Jews before that time would have had at least a smattering of Hebrew but for religious purposes, not for daily speech.
Julia, I don’t know on what basis you are putting down Aish. I know many families whose children have attended their programs and they are certainly orthodox but not right wing or separatist – just very Jewish, outreaching and trying to strengthen Judaism.
Again this is a wonderful and enriching article and congratulations to JVL for publishing it.