Jewish Languages

One of the oldest cultures in existence is the Jewish. Unlike other people, they did not remain in their homeland during all their history, but had to resettle in different points of the world. Being a minority, they faced many hardships and in consequence they were forced to resettle in different lands. It is remarkable to see how they could keep their ancient religion, traditions and language.

Now, in the point of keeping their language, we have to remember that they were not able to speak it, but still they manage to use it for their religious duties and create new literature. They had to learn the languages of the places they settled for everyday use. Interactions with their neighbors were not perfect and very often they kept a social life apart from others. At the end, using words for their everyday life, for their religious duties, traditions and trades, they ended up creating their own slang and finally their own languages suited for their needs.       

Hebrew is the main language of the Jewish people. It is a northwest Semitic language. It belongs to the sub-branch of the Canaanite languages and is the only language of this group still spoken. The oldest written texts in Hebrew date back to the 10^th century BCE, but it is believed that the language might be much older. It was the language of the ancient Israel. It is not known when it ceased to be a spoken language, but it was somewhere between the 4^th and the 1^st century BCE and was replaced by Aramaic.

The efforts to revive the language started in the mid of the 19^th century according to Omniglot. It all started with the movement known as Haskala (Enlightenment) with the aim of use it for secular purposes pioneering the modern literature.  But it is considered that the Jewish activist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda was the hero of the revival. He started a movement with his friends making Hebrew their spoken language and worked in the creation of the committee of the Hebrew language. He taught his son in Hebrew only making him the first native speaker of the language in centuries. Today, Hebrew is the only known language that was revived after being a dead language.

Hebrew is the official language of the modern State of Israel. It has official recognition as minority language in Poland. There are approximately 9 million speakers of this language, and as off 2017, 5 million of them are native speakers.

The Hebrew used in ancient times is known as Classical Hebrew, while the language in use today is known as Modern Hebrew. Although the grammar differs, the vocabulary is similar, except for modern influences of foreign languages and technology.  

Hebrew has its own script system. There are 22 letters + 5 final letters. It was originated between the 2^nd and 1^st century BCE. It’s an abjad script (each symbol represents a consonant). It is also known as Katav Ashurit (Assyrian script). But there are other kinds of scripts as well. The oldest texts were written in a script closely related with the Phoenician alphabet. There is a modern cursive script known as Katav Rahut originated during the 13^th century in Central Europe and was used in Yiddish language, now used informally for handwriting. Exists another form of cursive script known as Rashi, used to write religious commentaries to distinguish them from the formal script used in sacred texts. Latin script is used for transliteration purposes.  Hebrew script is also used as script in other Jewish languages.

Some phrases in Hebrew taken from Omniglot: 

- שלום(shalom): literally “peace”. It is the most common greeting.

- ברוך הבא/ ברוכים הבאים (Barukh ha’ba, used in singular / Brukhim ha’baim, plural): Welcome.

-? מה שלומך (Ma shlomkha if addressing a male, Ma shlomekh for female): How are you?

-? טוב, תודה, ואת / ואתה (Tov, todah, ve’at [fem] / ve’ata [masc]?): Fine, thanks, and you?

- בוקר טוב(Boker tov): Good morning.      - להתראות(Lehiraot): Good Bye.

- סליחה(Slikha): Excuse me!                      - בבקשה(Bevakasha): Please!

-!  מזל טוב(Mazel tov): Congratulations!              -! סבבה (Sababa): Cool!

Here are some Hebrew words that we use in English: “Amen” (אמן), “Kosher” (כשר), “Rabbi” (רב), “Shabbat” (שבת), “Messiah” (משיח), “Klezmer” (כלי זמר), “Kibbutz” (קיבוץ) and “Golem” (גולם).

Aramaic

Aramaic is a Northwest Semitic language, and like Hebrew it belongs to the sub-branch of the Canaanite languages. Because of the diverse forms of Aramaic, it is also referred as a group of languages. It was the Lingua Franca of the Assyrian and Persian Empires.  

With the decline of Hebrew, it was replaced gradually by Aramaic, and it was the main spoken language in the times of Jesus Christ. But among the different forms of Aramaic that developed in the Middle East, Jewish people developed their own form of Jewish Aramaic. Written texts can be found in the Hebrew Bible (Fragments of the Books of Ezra and Daniel), and major Jewish Texts like Talmud, Zohar, and ritual recitations like the “Kaddish”. It is written in Hebrew script . At the end of the 2^nd century CE appeared the Targum Onkelos, a translation (some prefer to say “interpretation”) of the Torah in Aramaic that is still used for study and commentary purposes.

There are still approx 10.000 speakers of modern forms of Jewish Aramaic, most of them live in Israel and they are mainly elderly people who immigrated to Israel coming from other Middle Eastern countries like Iraq, Iran and Azerbaijan.    

Here are 2 examples of comparative texts in Hebrew and Aramaic.  The first line is the original in Hebrew, the second line is the Aramaic translation: 

וְנָהָר יֹצֵא מֵעֵ֔דֶן לְהַשְׁקוֹת אֶת־הַגָּ֑ן וּמִשָּׁם יִפָּרֵ֔ד וְהָיָה לְאַרְבָּעָה רָאשִׁים׃  (H)  

וְנַהרָא הֲוָה נָפֵיק מֵעֵדַן לְאַשְׁקָאָה יָת גִנְתָא וּמִתַמָן מִתפָרַשׁ וְהָוֵי לְאַרבְעָה רֵישֵׁי נַהרִין׃  (A)

Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers (Gen 2:10).

וְּזֲהַב הָאָרֶץ הַהִוא ט֑וֹב שָׁם הַבְּדֹלַח וְאֶבֶן הַשֹּֽׁהַם׃  (H) 

וְדַהבַה דְאַרעָא הַהֻוא ההיא טָב תַמָן בְדֻולחָא וְאַבנֵי בֻורלָא׃  (A)

The gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there (Gen 2:12).

Yiddish

Yiddish is a Germanic language with close ties with High German. The birth of this language can be traced back to the end of the first millennium CE. The word Yiddish is synonym of “Jewish”, although some sources say that it might mean “Judeo-German”.  Its vocabulary is mostly Germanic but it has a high inventory of Semitic and Slavic words and some Romance influence. During the last century it has experienced some influence from American English. Its grammar is mainly German, but less complex.

Some people think that Yiddish is a dialect of German, and is a fact that both languages share a common ancestor (Middle High German). But although it’s easy to learn for German speakers, the truth is that it is not intelligible with this last one.

There are many dialects in this language, often classified as Eastern and Western dialects. There have been attempts to create a standard form of Yiddish. Since the end of the 19^th century, a form of de facto standard dialect has been used for literature. More information about the characteristics of this language can be read in the site for Jewish Languages . 

Before the World War II, Yiddish was the most important Jewish language with more than 10 million speakers, being Ashkenazi Jewish living in Europe. Today there are approx somewhere between 1 and 2 million speakers, mostly living in USA, Israel, Russia and Ukraine and most of them do not use it as primary language. Only certain Hasidic and Orthodox communities keep the language as their main language for everyday use.

Yiddish is written with Hebrew script, but it has its own orthography, and unlike in Hebrew or Aramaic, in Yiddish vowels should be written. Latin script is often used for MSM and emails.

Here are some phrases in Yiddish:

- ברוך הבא/ ברוכים הבאים (Borekh habo, used in singular / Brukhim haboim, plural): Welcome   [Notice that the written form is same in Hebrew]

- שלום־עליכם (Shoylem Aleychem): Hello [Notice that the written form is in Hebrew]

-? װאַס מאַכסטו (Vos machstu?): How are you?   [Literally: What you do?]

-אַ דאַנק (A dank): Thank you                     - גוטן מאָרגן(Gutn morgn): Good morning

-מיר רעדן ייִדיש (Mir reden Yiddish): We speak Yiddish

-איך קען קױפֿן אַ בוך (Ikh ken koifn a bukh): I can buy a book

-זײ געזונט (Zey gezunt): good bye   [Literally: Be Healthy!]

Here are some Yiddish words that we use in English: Bagel, Blintz (A sweet cheese-filled crepe), Glitch, Lox (Smoked salmon), Schmuck (A foolish person), Schmooze and Chutzpa.

Yiddish is a language with an extensive literature. There is a long list of writers and books to enjoy the use of this language. Poets, playwrights and satirists are part of this rich tradition. In 1978, Isaac Bashevis Singer, who wrote mainly in Yiddish, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.  

Ladino (Judezmo)

Ladino is a Romance language derived from Medieval Spanish. For centuries, there was a very prosperous Jewish community in Spain. After a successful campaign, King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile gained control of the territory that today is Spain. In 1492, they ordered the expulsion of the Jewish population under their territories and they resettled alongside the Mediterranean Sea but kept their Spanish language. Their language, that already had a high inventory of vocabulary coming from Semitic languages such as Hebrew and Aramaic, receive influences of languages such as Arabic, Turkish, Greek and Balkan languages.

Today, there are approx 150 thousand speakers of this language, most of them live in Israel, but there are small communities of speakers in countries such as Turkey, Greece and the USA. It is an endangered language.

There are 2 kinds of dialects: Western, with the sub-branches Tetuani and Haketia having both influences from North African Arabic dialects, and Eastern, with sub-branches Turkano and Italo-Balkan, influenced mostly by Turkish, Greek and Slavic languages.

Ladino is traditionally written with Hebrew alphabet, using mainly letters version Rashi and Solitreo. Nowadays is common to see Regular Hebrew script and Latin. It is possible to find old documents written with Cyrillic script, and less commonly with Arabic and Greek letters. 

Some phrases in Ladino taken from Omniglot: 

- ברוך הבא(Barukh abá): Welcome   [Notice that the written form is same in Hebrew]

-בױנוס דײאס (Buenos diyas): Literally “good day”. It is the most common greeting

-? קומו יסטאש / ? קי טאל יסטאס (komo estash? / ke tal estas?): How are you?

-? בײן גראסיאס, אי טו (Byen grasyas, i tú?): Fine, thanks, and you?

-!  קומי קון גאנה(Kome kon gana!): Bon appétit! [Literally “Eat with Desire”]   

-! האביריס בױנוס (Haberes Buenos!): Good News!

There is some literature in Ladino. Popular genres are romansas, coplas. Sephardic Jewish left more literature in Hebrew. Today, most of the new works in this language are dedicated to create songs. But some important texts of the Universal literature have been translated to Ladino. Here’s an example taken from the first line of the dedicatory of “The Little Prince” (El Princhipiko), and the same phrase can be compared with other languages. The first line is Ladino (Hebrew script), the second is Ladino with Latin script, the third is Spanish and the fourth is the original in French.

דימאנדו פּארדון אה לאס קריאטוראס פור אב׳יר דידיקאדו איסטי ליב׳רו אה אונה פירסונה מאײור

-Demando pardon a las kriaturas por aver dedikado este livro a una persona mayor (Lad).

-Pido perdón a los niños por haber dedicado este libro a una persona mayor (Sp)

-Je demande pardon aux enfants d’avoir dédié ce livre à une grande personne (F)

-I ask the indulgence of the children who may read this book for dedicating it to a grown-up.

Judeo-Persian

Judeo-Persian is a group of Jewish Iranian dialects spoken by those communities originated in Iran and the territories that used to be part of the Persian Empire. In terms of the written language, it refers to Persian texts written with Hebrew script.

There is not a standard version of the language. Spoken language tends to be influenced by the local dialects plus some loans coming from Hebrew and Aramaic. The language tends to be very conservative, being close to the language used by Hafez in his writings.  

There are approx 60 thousand of native speakers of Judeo-Persian dialects living mostly in Iran and Israel. This number excludes the Bukharian Jews, who also speak their own variation of Persian (Bukhori), but come mostly from Uzbekistan, and have important communities in the USA and Israel. Their Persian is closer to modern Tajik and they write not only with Hebrew script, but with Cyrillic, Arabic and Latin script. It is estimated that there are around 50 thousand speakers of Bukhori.

Some dialects of Judeo-Persian are: Judeo-Golpaygani, Judeo-Yazdi, Judeo-Esfahani, Judeo-Hamedani and Judeo-Shirazi. There is a new version spoken mainly in Israel called “Israeli-Persian”, with a higher inventory of Hebrew words while keeping Persian Grammar. You can read more in Iranica online. 

Here´s an example of Judeo-Persian text taken from a commentary book of the second chapter of Shir Hashirim (Song of Songs). The first line is in Hebrew and the second line is its translation in Judeo-Persian. The third line is the transcription of the Persian text:

ולעת בקר ענה אהובתי ואמר לי: קומי לך, אהובתי מלפנים ונאה  במעשים, לכי צאי משעבוד מצרים

ודר וקת צובח גִוואב דאד דוסת מן ובגופ׳ת במן׃ ור כ׳יז בתו, דוסתי מן אז קבלזין וניכו עמל הא, ברוו בירון אז גלות כ׳דמת מצרים

Vedar vaqt-e zobh javāb dād dust-e man vagoft beman: ur khiz betu, dustiye man az qablzin vaniku amalhā, buro birun az galut khedmat mitzraim.

(And in the middle of the morning, my beloved answered and said to me: Come up, my beloved and beautiful in deeds; go out of bondage of Egypt).

Here’s the text of a Jewish Bukhari song. You can follow this link to find more songs and musical note. 

Du chashmi man aknun ba tamoshoyi tu badas(t)

Güsham ba shunidani sukhanhoi tu badas(t)

(Now my eyes are looking at you

Ears are listening to your speech)

Judeo-Arabic

Judeo-Arabic is a group of Jewish varieties of Arabic that once were spoken throughout the Middle East, where Jewish communities lived in different Arabic countries. Their Arabic was slightly different from the language of their neighbors and they wrote using Hebrew script. Their language was influenced by the local dialects with heavy influences from Hebrew and Aramaic. 

There were Jewish communities in almost every corner of the Arab world, but the most important were located in Iraq, Morocco, Tunis, Egypt and Yemen. The case of Iraq deserves a special attention because they use to have the oldest Jewish community outside Israel, coming from the times when the kingdom of Judah was conquer by Babylon.  

Famous Jewish philosophers like Maimonides, Saadia Gaon and Judah Halevi, were speakers of Arabic and they wrote in Judeo-Arabic.

There are approx 500 thousand speakers of Judeo-Arabic, and most of them live in Israel. Very few Jews remain in the Arab World. 

Here’s an example of North African Judeo-Arabic. From the translation of “Le Buste” published in Tunis in 1930 p.3:

... כאנו אעצ׳ם אלג׳אהלא לא יקראו ולא יכתבו ולא יפ׳המו שי מן האדו אלאומור...

…Kanu a’azam aljahla la yiqrau wala yiktabu wala yifahmu sha’y min hadu alaumur…

…He was the most ignorant who do not read, do not write and do not understand anything of this…

Here is a translation of a line of Shema Israel prayer into Judeo-Arabic from Yemen. The first line is the original line in Hebrew and the second line is the translation. The third line is the transcription into Latin script:

וְהָיוּ הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה, אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוְּךָ הַיּוֹם – עַל־לְבָבֶךָ

ותכון הד׳ה אלכלמאת אלתי אמרך בהא אליום פי קלבך

Wa takun hadha al-kalimat, alati amarak biha al-yawm fi galbak

(And these words which I command you today shall be upon your heart)

Juhuri

Juhuri is a Southwestern Iranian language spoken by the Jewish communities in the Eastern Caucasus Mountains. Specifically this language comes from Azerbaijan and the Russian Republic of Dagestan. It is also known as “Judeo-Tat”. Today, there are approx 100 thousand speakers, most of them live in Israel, but there are still important communities in Azerbaijan and Russia. 

This language is very similar to Persian. It has a lot of loans from languages such as Hebrew, Aramaic, Turkish and most recently from Russian. It is written with Hebrew, Latin and Cyrillic scripts, this last is the most used alphabet nowadays. 

Here are some phrases in Juhuri:

- Одомире дуь пойгьи, оммо абат ишу гьердуь еки нисди  (Odomire dü poiqi, ommo abat işu qerdü eki nisdi) = A man has two legs, but each step is different!

גאִראָשדאינאִ האיז׳אִ יאי סאי־ז׳אָר סאעת תאי שאִמאִ פּאָמאָדאוּר בּאָדאָמיאָנאי פאוּראוּכדאי באיראַסדאי (Giroşdeni heçi ye se-çor säʕät te Şimi pomodur bodonjon-e furuxde verasde) = Three or four hours passed until Shimi finished selling her tomatoes and aubergine.

-Ez dur-e biror-xäher, künd-e qunşi xubi = A close neighbor is better than brothers and sisters far away.    

Yevanic

It’s a variety of Greek spoken by Jews living for more than 2000 years in Greece and neighboring countries. Today, there are very few speakers of this language, living mainly in Israel, Turkey and USA. It is written with Hebrew script.

There is a small amount of literature in this language. Here I leave a fragment of a translation of the Old Testament into Yevanic. The first line is the original in Hebrew from the book of Jonah. The second line is the translation into Yevanic. The third line is the transliteration of the second line in Greek letters and the last line is the translation into English according to the Complete Jewish Bible version.  

קוּם לֵךְ אֶל־נִינְוֵה הָעִיר הַגְּדוֹלָה וּקְרָא עָלֶיהָ כִּי־עָלְתָה רָעָתָם לְפָנָי׃

אַנַשְׁטאָ פּוֹרֶבְגוּ פְּרוֹשׁ נִנְוֶה טִין בּוֹלִי טִין מֶגלִי קָאִי דיאָלָלִישֶי אֵפִּי אפְטִין אוֹטִי אֶנֶבִין י קקִיאָהא אפְטִין אֶנוֹפִּיוֹמוּ

άνάστα πορεύγου πρὀς Νινβε τὴν πόλη τὴν μεγάλη καὶ διαλάλησε ἑπἰ αὐτὴν ὂτι ἐνἑβην ὴ κακíα αὐτὴν ἐνώπιóν μου

“Set out for the great city of Ninveh and proclaim to it that their wickedness has come to my attention” (Jonah 1,2)

Karaim

Karaim is the traditional language of the Karaites of Crimea. It’s a Turkish language related to Crimean Tatar. It belongs to the Kypchak group of Western Turkish languages. It has many loan words from Hebrew, Persian and Arabic. There are around 100 speakers, all of them elderly people living mainly in Lithuania, Poland and in the Ukrainian Crimea. This language is critically endangered.

It used to be written with Hebrew script. Now is more commonly written with Latin and Cyrillic script. 

When we talk about this language, we have to highlight that those researchers who are interested in Jewish languages, they usually include Karaim in this group. But karaites themselves are not considered as Jewish for religious purposes and not all sources of information about Judaism include them. 

Kaylinya and Qwara Language

Both are languages close related with the Qimant language, both spoken by the Beta Israel Ethiopian Jewish. They both belong to the Cushitic group of the Afro-asiatic languages.

Beta Israel group came to light when in an Israeli military operation they were airlifted to Israel. Today, the very few speakers of both languages live in Israel. By the time of their emigration, most of Beta Israel were native speakers of Tigrinya and Amharic, both Semitic languages. Today, their main language of communication is Hebrew.

Exist some old religious literature in those languages, written with Ge’ez alphabet. 

The topic of the Jewish languages includes much more languages, some of the already extinct and some other spoken by very few people. Experts still dispute whether some languages are real languages or just slang. Among other languages listed in the different groups I visited we have: Aragonit (Judeo-Aragonese, already extinct), Judeo-Berber (Coming from Berber, spoken by few North African Jewish, mostly as secondary language), Judeo-Malayalam (Dravidic language spoken by less than 100 people), Judeo-Marathi (Spoken by the Bene Israel, an ethnic Jewish group from India, where they spoke a variety of Marathi language with loans from Hebrew and Aramaic), Gruzini (A Kartvelian Jewish dialect spoken by Jewish communitie in the Caucasus), Judeo-Italian (known as Italkian, a dialect of Italian spoken by approx 250 people), Judeo-Piedmontese (An extinct dialect based on Piedmontese, with influences from Hebrew and Spanish), La’az (Also known as Judeo-Latin, an extinct version of Latin), Judeo-Occitan or Shuadit (An extinct language spoken by French Jewish, but related with Occitan. There is a dispute about the existence of a variety called Judeo-Catalan), Krimchak (A variety of Tartar spoken by Crimean Jews, now with less than 100 speakers), Sarfatik (An extinct form of Judeo-French), Judeo-Portuguese (An extinct form of Portuguese).

Other languages recently included in the list are Judeo-Swedish, Judeo-Russian and Judeo-English??? Can we include Judeo-English in the list of Jewish languages? Or is it only a kind of slang? I am leaving a link to a video, Watch it and make up your own min.

There is still more research to be done to have a better understanding to the Jewish Languages. Something in common is that Judaism is a whole way of life with many rules and customs that are explained in the Torah and in other texts in Hebrew, and because they are only of interest for the community, it was not easy to translate the terms involved in the different languages spoken and they never felt the need to do so.  There are good websites where you can read more. I can recommend https://www.jewishlanguages.org, https://www.omniglot.com and they are open to include more information and update what they already have. Wikipedia has a lot of information that they reference here. If you speak Spanish, I recommend the website http://proel.org where they have well researched information about the alphabets and languages of the World.