Ladino
Ladino is a Romance language, derived mainly from Old Castillian and Hebrew (Spanish). Speakers are exclusively Sephardic Jews. The language is also called Judaeo-Spanish, Sefardi, Dzhudezmo, Judezmo, Spanyol, and Haquetiya.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.
Like Old Spanish, Ladino keeps the /S/ and /Z/ palatal phonemes, both changed to /x/ in modern Spanish. But unlike Old Spanish, it has an /x/ phoneme taken over from Hebrew.
Ladino is written with the Latin alphabet and sometimes also with the Hebrew alphabet (aljamiado). The usage of Greek and Cirillic alphabets was also common in the past but is rare nowadays. 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. Following the decimation of Sephardic communities throughout much of Europe (particularly the Balkans) during the Second World War, 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.
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. It was the most used language in Salonica until Greece assumed control over the city after the First World War. Over time, a corpus of literature, both liturgical and secular, developed.
During the Jewish Enlightenment, as Sephardim in the Ottoman Empire studied in schools of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, Ladino drew from French for neologisms.
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. At the same time, it arose the interest of philologists since it conserved language and literature which existed prior to the standardisation of Spanish.
Many native speakers today are elderly immigrants, 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.
Folklorists have been collecting romances and other folk songs, some dating from before the expulsion.
Here is a sample of religious poetry:
It is also sung in Hebrew (Ein k'Eloheynu) but the tune is different.
See also: Judaism, Yiddish language, Hebrew
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.
Non komo muestro Dio,
Non komo muestro Sinyor,
Non komo muestro Rey,
Non komo muestro Salvador.External link
See also Ladino (Indian), Ladin.