Event
Tittle: Jewish Languages, Past and Present
Abstract: This presentation is devoted to the rich array of
languages other than Hebrew that have been written and
spoken by Jewish communities throughout history. Jewish
languages are genealogically very diverse, with
representatives from the Germanic, Romance, Slavic,
Hellenic, Indo-Aryan, Semitic, Dravidian, Caucasian, and
Berber language families. They include ancient languages
such as Judeo-Aramaic and Judeo-Greek, medieval varieties
such as Judeo-French and Judeo-Portuguese, and newly
emerging ones such as Jewish Amharic, Jewish English, and
Jewish Swedish. Some Jewish languages (such as Judeo-Arabic,
Judeo-Persian, Ladino, and Yiddish) have substantial written
traditions in the Hebrew script, while others (such as
Judeo-Malayalam and Jewish Berber) are or were primarily
spoken varieties. While the degree of difference between a
Jewish language and its non-Jewish equivalent can vary
considerably, they typically have a Hebrew and Aramaic
lexical component, and most of them exhibit certain
phonological, morphological, and syntactic differences from
their non-Jewish sister languages. The presentation will
provide historical and sociolinguistic introductions to
these fascinating language varieties and will survey some of
their most characteristic features.