Jewish Languages

Jewish languages are a set of languages that have developed in various Jewish communities around the world, especially in Europe , in West Asia and North Africa. The usual development of these languages was through the addition of words and phrases from the Hebrew and used to express concepts mostly Jews. Given the insular nature of many Jewish communities in the past, many Jewish languages keep a vocabulary and structure language from the language that created it, even after it lost the vocabulary and structure.

Summary 1 History until the nineteenth century 2 Recent developments 3 Presentation of linguistic varieties 4 External links

/ / History to the XIX ^century

The books of the oldest and most important to the Jewish people were the Torah and the Tanakh written almost entirely in Hebrew Bible and widely used by Jews during their history. Jews have studied these Hebrew texts, have watched their commands , have based their prayers on them, and spoke the language thereof. For Jews , the Hebrew is the language of God , hence the name "lashon hakodesh" (" language sacred ").

The oldest inscription in Hebrew which was received, the Gezer calendar , dates from ^the tenth century BCE. It was written in paleo-Hebrew alphabet , alphabet which was used at the time of Solomon's Temple until it is changed to the Assyrian alphabet (Ktav ashur) by Ezra after the Babylonian Exile. At that time there were also changes in the language when she was growing toward the Mishnaic Hebrew. Until then, most Jews spoke the Hebrew in Israel and in Judea. But with the destruction of the Second Temple , most had begun to speak the Aramaic , and much of the Jewish Diaspora spoke Greek. While Jews emigrated to countries far away, and while the languages of the countries in which they were changed, they increasingly adopted the local language and began to speak several languages. During the Middle Ages , the Aramaic was the main language of the Jews. The Targum and the greater part of the Talmud were written in Aramaic. Later, during the Middle Ages , most of the Jewish literary works were written in Judeo-Arabic , that is to say the Arabic written with the Hebrew alphabet. For example, it was the language used by Maimonides. The Hebrew was still used in religious settings and officials such as religious events, and kept so important, as the Aramaic , for writing Ketubah (contracts of marriages ).

Over time, these dialects Jews are diffrencirent language so they formed a parent- language of its own. They were influenced significantly by words from Hebrew, the Aramaic , as well as other innovations. Thus, a wide variety of languages specific to the Jewish community were created. The best known are thus Yiddish in Europe , the Judeo-Spanish coming to Andalusia , which then spread to many regions around the Mediterranean following the expulsion of 1492 and the persecution of the Spanish Inquisition.

The Jews of the diaspora have formed many communities often folded in on themselves, partly because of the ostracism and persecution suffered by the surrounding communities, and the desire to maintain their own culture. This factor sociological contributed to the formation of dialects that have often diverged to form different languages.

In the early ^nineteenth century , the Yiddish was the primary language of Jews in Eastern Europe (which made the language most spoken by Jews in the world), while the Judeo-Spanish had spread the Maghreb , in Greece in the Balkans and even in present Turkey. Small groups in Europe spoke languages such as Judeo-Italian , the yvanique , the Karaites. The Jews of the Arab world speak different languages are grouped the name of Judeo-Arabic , while the Jews of Iran spoke Judeo-Persian , the other Judeo-Berber or, in Kurdistan , the Judeo-Aramaic.

Recent developments

This general picture has been greatly altered by historical events from the late ^nineteenth century. The emigration of several million European Jews toward the North America has greatly increased the number of English-speaking Jews, the colonial period in North Africa led the way for thousands of Jews from North Africa to the French and the Spanish , finally Zionism revived the Hebrew as a living language , the vocabulary has grown substantially and has simplified phonetics. Eliezer Ben Yehudah played a role of any player in the revival of the language, while the Haskalah promoted the Hebrew to the detriment of Yiddish. The Holocaust has eradicated the vast majority of Jews speaking European Yiddish , the German and Judeo-Spanish. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has led many Jews to leave the Arab world.

Jews today speak many languages, adopting for the vast majority language of their country of residence. The language most spoken by the Jews today is the English , then follows the Hebrew , the language spoken in Israel and by emigrants Israelis living abroad. The Hebrew is the language daily in Israel , although for much of the population, the Hebrew or the second language.

The third language most spoken by the Jews is now the Russian , with about 2 million speakers of the former Soviet Union and the majority of whom now lives in Israel. About 1 million Israelis speak Russian fluently.

The French , the Spanish and Portuguese are the languages spoken by many Jews. Hundreds of thousands of Jews speak French in France and Quebec , most of them coming from North Africa where they formerly spoke Judeo-Spanish or Arabic. The Spanish and Portuguese are spoken by the Jewish communities of Central America and South America. Buenos Aires and has a large Jewish community. A significant proportion of immigrants in Israel and speak fluent French or Spanish.

Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish , which corresponded to two major areas of civilization Ashkenazic and Sephardic , are still being spoken by some generations and in some islands of Europe ( Antwerp ) and America ( United States ). The Yiddish is still spoken among the Haredim. If the number of users decreases, however, there is renewed interest in these languages seen as bearers of a legacy culture. Many of the languages mentioned above are still of endangered languages , some, like the Judeo-Aramaic or Judeo-Provenal disappeared in 1977 , even tend to become dead languages.

Introduction of linguistic varieties

• varieties Judeo-Arabic : Arabic Judeo-Iraqi Arabic, Judeo-Moroccan Arabic, Judeo-Tripolitanian , Arabic Judeo-Tunisian Arabic, Judeo-Yemeni.
• dialects Neo- Aramaic : the hulaula ( Iranian Kurdistan ), the Lishan Didan ( Iranian Azerbaijan ), the Lishanid Noshan ( Iraqi Kurdistan South), the denial Lishana ( Iraqi Kurdistan in the North).
• dialects Persian : The Bokhara (spoken by the Jews of Bukhara ), the dzhidi (Judeo-Persian), the juhuri (or Judeo-tat, spoken by the Mountain Jews )
• Romance variety : the Judeo-Spanish and Western dialects ( tetuan and haketiya ), Judeo-Italian ( italkien ), the Judeo-Portuguese , Judeo-Provenal ( shuadit ), Judeo-French ( Sarphati ), the Judeo- Catalan , the bagitto (spoken by Granas or Jews from Leghorn).
• others: Yiddish (Judeo-German), jddischdaitsch (Judeo-Alsatian), the yvanique (Judeo-Greek, spoken by Romaniotes ), the Judeo-Berber , the Judeo-Georgian.

External Links

• Languages Jewish history, traces passage. Dossier on languages of the Jewish diaspora.
• Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish: a European heritage on the site of the European Sephardic Institute.