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Practices and Challenges in Documenting Endangered Jewish Languages Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-09-13 Sarah Bunin Benor, Ofra Tirosh-Becker
This forum brings together nine researchers to offer their perspectives on the process of language documentation. Questions include how they find speakers, how they conduct their research, and what linguistic data and metadata they collect. We asked about practical and scholarly issues that have arisen in their fieldwork, including speakers avoiding stigmatized linguistic features and exhibiting influences
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A Letter to the King Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-09-03 David Torollo
Many of the Jews who were expelled from Iberia in the fifteenth century settled in North Africa. More than 400 years later, Moroccan Sephardic Jews in Fes would engage with Spain again. In this article, I present an unpublished document of historical interest: a letter written in Judeo-Arabic in 1905 by the Jewish community of Fes and addressed to the Spanish king, Alfonso XIII, asking for financial
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Contact-Induced Change in the Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialects Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-07-31 Geoffrey Khan
In this article, I present an introductory overview of the Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialects, followed by a study of various aspects of contact-induced change that are exhibited by these dialects. Neo-Aramaic dialects were also spoken by Christian communities in the same region. The Jewish and Christian dialects differ from one another, even where the two communities lived in the same geographical area.
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The Letters of the Geonim as a Source of Epistolary Linguistic Forms in Modern Hebrew Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-07-31 Ruth Stern
The writing formulas in official letters in Modern Hebrew are often identical or similar to the formulas revealed in the Geonic letters. This article presents these similar formulas with two purposes in mind: 1) to illustrate the significance of the Interim Period for the formation of Modern Hebrew; 2) to show that the continuity of the use of the Hebrew language throughout history was a major factor
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“This Is Called Ḥaliq” Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-07-31 Noam Sienna
Descriptions of the Passover evening service in Gaonic writings of the late ninth and early tenth centuries include the word ḥaliq as an alternative term for ḥaroset, a sweet and sour dipping sauce made from fruit and nuts. Through a diachronic view of ḥaroset in both the Greco-Roman context of the rabbinic Passover meal and the ʿAbbasid context of Gaonic Judeo-Arabic writing, I argue that the etymology
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When Yiddish Was Written in Latin Letters Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2024-04-30 Oren Cohen Roman
Although Yiddish was traditionally written in Hebrew letters, texts in this language were also recorded using Latin characters in various circumstances, times, and places. These texts offer valuable information regarding pronunciation traditions and shed light on the processes of cultural history and sociolinguistics that acted as catalysts to their preparation. Various studies have discussed this
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Imitation Is the Most Sincere Form of Mockery: Mock Jewish English in Online Extremist Communities Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-12-06 Rachel McCullough
This article examines the use of Mock Jewish English (MJE) among members of the modern far right as a means of perpetuating ideologies centered around antisemitic canards originating from the 19th and 20th centuries. In order to investigate MJE as an act of language crossing, I examine the 900+ million token Unicorn Riot subcorpus of the Corpus of Digital Extremism and Conspiracies (CoDEC). Following
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“I Was the Only Goyim There”: Linguistic Imitation and Socialization among Sephardic New Mexicans Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-11-20 Sarah Leiter
This article explores linguistic imitation as a strategy of socialization. It focuses on the ethnographic context of New Mexico’s Jewish community, which some Hispanic New Mexicans are beginning to join after discovering their Sephardic, or Iberian Jewish, ancestry. Although several are choosing to formally ‘return,’ or convert, to Judaism, they often feel unwelcome in the community and, therefore
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Jewish Speech in Early 19th-Century Greek Comedy Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-11-17 Julia G. Krivoruchko
The article introduces the historical context of multilingual comedy by Greek writers of the early 19th century in Asia Minor, then an Ottoman realm. The author analyzes two passages from Erotomaniac Chatziaslanis and Monsieur Kozis containing Modern Greek dialects, Karamanlidika, Judeo-Spanish, Judeo-Turkish, and Judeo-Greek. The analysis shows that Jewish characters prefer to communicate in Judeo-Turkish
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“Oy with the Poodles Already!”: Yiddishisms and Non-Jewish Characters on American Sitcoms Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-10-25 Rebecca Margolis
The ever-increasing usage of Yiddish on American sitcoms and other comedic genres encompasses Jewish as well as non-Jewish characters. In this study I offer a metalinguistic analysis of how main or recurring fictional characters who are identified as non-Jewish employ Yiddish loanwords, intonation, and syntax (Yiddishisms) in American comedy television. I argue that Yiddishisms spoken by non-Jewish
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Judeo-Roman on Stage: The Scena all’ebraica in the Novantanove Disgrazie di Pulcinella (Rome 1769) by Gregorio Mancinelli Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-08-22 Erica Baricci
Sometimes, in the Commedia dell’arte, Jewish characters who speak Judeo-Italian appear on the stage, revealing a strong intention on the part of non-Jewish authors to mimic the language spoken by contemporary Jews. Therefore, the study of these external sources is very useful to enrich our knowledge of the Judeo-Italian of the early modern period. In this article I will present the scena all’ebraica
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Phonic Convergence in Estonian Yiddish Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-06-21 Anna Verschik, Karl Pajusalu
Multilingualism is a characteristic feature of Yiddish speakers in the Baltic region, and contact-induced language change is natural in this case. To date, some Baltic German impact on the local varieties of Yiddish has been discussed in the literature. This article focuses on the phonic impact of Estonian on Estonian Yiddish. The study is based on acoustic analysis of Estonian Yiddish sound recordings
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Speech Synthesis in the “Mother Tongue”: Designing, Training, and Evaluating a Text-to-Speech System for Yiddish Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-06-08 Isaac L. Bleaman, Jacob J. Webber, Samuel K. Lo
Although few linguistic corpora are available in Yiddish, there are numerous sources of so-called “found data” that can be adapted for language research, pedagogy, and resource development. We describe the steps taken to create the first speech synthesis (text-to-speech) program in Yiddish. A state-of-the-art TTS model, FastSpeech 2, was trained on a hand-corrected data set consisting of literary texts
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Specters of Judeo-Spanish: The Case for Judeo-Spanish as a Partial Overlap of Idiolects Shared by People of Sephardi Culture Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-05-29 Carlos Yebra López
The aim of this essay is to problematize the ontology of Judeo-Spanish qua language. First, I argue that its traditional conceptualization as an autonomous, self-contained language is predicated on a (flawed) classical ontological framework that relies on so-called ‘named languages theory.’ Second, I contend that a more enlightened understanding of Judeo-Spanish as a linguistic phenomenon necessitates
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A Macaronic Hebrew-Greek-Turkish Poem from the First Printed Karaite Prayerbook, Venice 1528 Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2023-05-19 Dan Shapira, Andrey Vinogradov
In this short article we publish, with translations, a macaronic Hebrew cum Middle Greek religious poem, accompanied by a refrain in Ottoman Turkish, all written in Hebrew characters and fully vocalized. The text comes from a Karaite prayerbook printed in Venice in 1528 on behalf of the Constantinople Karaite community. This poem and its origins played a role in different manipulations of Karaite identities
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Animacy-Based Verbal Agreement in Israeli Haredi Yiddish Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-10-27 Dalit Assouline
The article presents the first evidence of the emergence of a new animacy-based verbal agreement pattern in Israeli Haredi Yiddish. A study of recordings from the years 2017–2020 reveals that plural verbal agreement is always maintained with animate plural nominal subjects, but it is usually lost with inanimate plural nominal subjects. It is suggested that this linguistic change may be supported by
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Contemporary Haredi Yiddish Bilingual Pedagogical Materials Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-10-04 Zoë Belk, Eliyahu Benedict, Lily Kahn, Sonya Yampolskaya
This article examines Hebrew- and English-medium pedagogical materials aimed at Haredi learners of Yiddish. Our main findings are 1) the materials are produced by and for the community, which reflects the commonly held Haredi view that knowledge of Yiddish is a key element of in-group identity and therefore must be maintained and taught, 2) the learning materials tend to adopt an inductive approach
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The Politics of Language Choice in Haredi Communities in Israel Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-10-04 Heather L. Munro
Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Israel, this article explores the politics of language choice as a part of the negotiation of Haredi identity. Yiddish choice can be a subtle resistance to the Zionist project, of which Israeli Hebrew is a part. Certain Hasidic groups, and some very strict Lithuanian Haredi Jews, speak Yiddish, while others have adopted Israeli Hebrew. These choices illuminate ideologies
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Yiddish among Former Haredim Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-08-30 Eliyahu Benedict
This article examines the use of and attitudes towards Yiddish among former Haredim. Using an interview- and questionnaire-based study, I demonstrate that Yiddish- speaking former Haredim generally have positive attitudes towards the language and continue to use it on a frequent, and even daily, basis while hoping to pass it on to their children. Furthermore, attitudes towards Yiddish develop from
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TAJA Corpus: Linguistically Tagged Written Algerian Judeo-Arabic Corpus Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-07-07 Ofra Tirosh-Becker, Oren M. Becker
The Tagged Algerian Judeo-Arabic (TAJA) corpus is the first linguistically annotated corpus of any Judeo-Arabic dialect regardless of geography and period. The corpus is a genre-diverse collection of written Modern Algerian Judeo-Arabic texts, encompassing translations of the Bible and of liturgical texts, commentaries and original Judeo-Arabic books and journals. The TAJA corpus was manually annotated
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Yiddish Causal-Noncausal Alternation in Areal Perspective Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-07-07 Elena Luchina
Languages differ in the way they code causal-noncausal alternations, in which an event is presented as either having an external causer or happening by itself. Some languages make no distinction between the two situations, while others make a morphosyntactic distinction. Yiddish, a Germanic language, differs from other genealogically close Germanic varieties: Yiddish codes causal-noncausal alternation
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Expressions of Tense and Aspect in the Tunisian Varieties of Arabic: A Comparative Study of Jewish and Muslim Dialects Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-06-14 Wiktor Gębski
The aspectual and temporal value of the verb is one of the most discussed problems in Semitic linguistics. Nonetheless, in the field of North African Arabic dialectology this subject has not received its due attention, and compared to other Arabic dialects, it remains terra incognita. The present article explores strategies by which spoken varieties of Tunisian Arabic express tense and aspect. The
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Growing Up on the Wrong Side of the Mechitza: A Case Study of Contemporary Queer Jewish Language Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2022-05-30 Ellen Perleberg, Grace Elizabeth C. Dy
This article presents vocabulary and approaches for expressing LGBTQ+ identities and practices, which derive from Jewish tradition used by queer Jews in the Seattle area. From thirty-four semi-structured interviews with affiliates of Seattle Jewish life, the authors identify eight tokens of queer Jewish English vocabulary, including multilingual wordplay used to construct new terms for queer concepts
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Modern Judeo-Provençal as Known from Its Sole Textual Testimony: Harcanot et Barcanot (Critical Edition and Linguistic Analysis) Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2021-10-04 Peter Nahon
This study offers a linguistic description of the idiom of the Jews of the Comtat Venaissin (“Judeo-Provençal”) at the end of the 18th century, based on a critical edition of the only relevant document illustrating this language, a theatrical play in verse entitled Harcanot et Barcanot. The introduction provides a philological inventory of all known sources of “Judeo-Provençal.” The critical and variorum
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The Twenty-Four Egyptian Days in Yiddish Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2021-09-17 Justine Isserles
The object of this study is a list of twenty-four Egyptian days in Yiddish discovered at the end of a Hebrew miscellany from medieval Ashkenaz, preserved in the Basel Universitätsbibliothek. Egyptian days are inauspicious days for bloodletting; these are listed according to the Julian calendar and sometimes identified by saint names and feast days. The list is edited and translated into English. Dates
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Language of Modern Jewish Cultures: Comparative Perspectives, edited by Joshua Miller & Anita Norich Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2021-10-28 Evelyn María Dean-Olmsted
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The Early Judeo-Persian Letter L3 from the Cairo Genizah (Cambridge University Library T-S 18J3.16) Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2021-05-17 Ludwig Paul
The article presents the edition and translation of an Early Judeo-Persian (EJP) private-commercial letter that was probably written around the late 10th or early 11th century C.E. It is the best-preserved and, with 51 lines, the longest from the ca. 25 EJP documents that were found in the Cairo Genizah. It is written in a cursive form of the Hebrew script and shows typical EJP archaic and dialectal
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The Trilingual Prayer Copied by Avraham Firkowicz: The First Hebrew, Judeo-Slavic, and Crimean Judeo-Turkic Trilingual Text Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2021-05-17 Alexander I. Grishchenko, Dan Shapira
This article presents a unique trilingual (Hebrew, Turkic, and Slavic) religious literary work from the personal archive of Avraham Firkowicz (National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg). The text, containing 129 lines (verses) in Hebrew characters, is written in Firkowicz’s own hand. Its author has not been reliably identified, but it is assumed that he could be a Karaite Jew from Łuck / Lutsk (Wolhynia
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Targum Song of Songs and Late Jewish Literary Aramaic: Language, Lexicon, Text, and Translation, written by Andrew W. Litke Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2021-04-06 Steven E. Fassberg
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The Judeo-Arabic Dialect of Yefren (Libya): Phonological and Morphological Notes Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2021-04-06 Luca D’Anna
The present article offers a preliminary description of the Judeo-Arabic variety spoken in Yefren (Libya), based on interviews collected from three elderly female informants. It analyzes the phonology and morphology of the dialect, attempting some sociolinguistic considerations on issues of dialect contact between Muslim and Jewish varieties of Libyan Arabic. In conclusion, the article discusses the
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Jewish Languages in Historical Perspective, edited by Kahn, Lily Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2021-03-29 Bernard Spolsky
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German as a Jewish Problem. The Language Politics of Jewish Nationalism, written by Volovici, Marc Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2021-03-29 Kalman Weiser
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Splitting Definitives: The Separation of the Definite Article in Medieval and Pre-Modern Written Judeo-Arabic Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2021-03-22 Magdalen M. Connolly
This article explores the reasons behind the orthographic practice of representing the definite article in written Judeo-Arabic as an independent entity, a phenomenon which became widespread in Jewish Arabic-speaking communities in the pre-modern era. Commencing with its representation in fifteenth to nineteenth-century Egyptian Judeo-Arabic manuscripts, the orthographic feature is traced back to Judeo-Arabic
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Bivalent Writing: Hebrew and English Alphabets in Jewish English Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2020-12-10 Sarah Bunin Benor
Jewish English writing uses multiple combinations of the Hebrew and English alphabets. This paper demonstrates those uses, giving examples from rabbinic literature, Yiddish and Ladino newspapers, handwritten notes, pedagogical materials, organizations’ and restaurants’ logos, and regalia advertising sports teams, universities, and political candidates. The analysis demonstrates that hybrid combinations
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Contact between Textual Hebrew/Aramaic and Diaspora Jewish Languages: Introduction to the Thematic Special Issue of the Journal of Jewish Languages Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2020-12-07 Sarah Bunin Benor,Ofra Tirosh-Becker
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The Beginnings of Judeo-Arabic Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2020-12-07 Haggai Ben-Shammai
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In Memoriam, Professor Joshua Blau z”l (1919–2020) Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2020-12-07 Ofra Tirosh-Becker,Sarah Bunin Benor
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The Factors Regulating the Use of the Hebrew-Aramaic Component in Judeo-Spanish Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2020-12-03 Ora (Rodrigue) Schwarzwald
This article focuses on the quantitative and qualitative weight of the Hebrew-Aramaic (HA) component in Judeo-Spanish (JS) by examining three characteristics of language usage: 1. linguistic features of HA words: morphological—nouns vs. other categories (e.g., mazál ‘luck.N’ vs. maxamá ‘because of.PREP’); semantic—HA words and phrases related to Jewish religious concepts as opposed to other HA words
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The Loshn Koydesh Component in Contemporary Hasidic Yiddish Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2020-12-03 Zoë Belk, Lily Kahn, Kriszta Eszter Szendrői
The loshn koydesh (Hebrew and Aramaic) component has historically influenced the development of Yiddish lexis and grammar. We examine its contemporary use among 26 native speakers of contemporary Hasidic Yiddish from Israel, New York, and London using a written questionnaire examining the gender of loshn koydesh nouns, periphrastic verbs with a Hebrew/Aramaic element, and adjectives derived from the
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Adjectives of Hebrew and Aramaic Origin in Judezmo and Yiddish Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2020-12-01 David M. Bunis
Jewish languages contain a component derived from Hebrew and Aramaic, the earliest languages Jews used. We offer a historical comparative analysis of the structure and use of adjectives of Hebrew and Aramaic origin in the diverse spoken and written registers of Judezmo (Ladino, Judeo-Spanish) and Yiddish, the two major Jewish languages of the Sephardim and Ashkenazim of Europe. Attention is paid both
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The Lexical Impact of Hebrew in the Judeo-Italian of Medieval and Renaissance Siddur Translations Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2020-11-27 Michael Ryzhik
General traits of the Hebrew components of Judeo-Italian Siddur translations are analyzed. The most interesting cases are those where the same Hebrew component is used differently in different contexts: (1) the same Hebrew word remains untranslated in the title and is translated by the Romance lexical unit in the text of the prayer (שבת/sabbeto; כהן/sacerdote); (2) the same Hebrew word in the divine
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18th-Century Judeo-Arabic Documents from the Prize Papers Collection Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2020-11-03 Mohamed A. H. Ahmed
The Prize Papers Collection held at the National Archives in Kew contains more than 280 letters and documents in Judeo-Arabic (Arabic written in Hebrew script) taken from the British cartel ship Venus in 1800. Most of the letters and documents belonged to Shlomo Bū Shaʿra, an Algerian Jewish merchant who travelled between Algeria and Europe on business during the late 18th century. This article introduces
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The Texture of Jewish Languages in North Africa, written by Maman, Aharon Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2020-10-19 Norman Stillman
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מילון משווה למרכיב העברי בלשונות היהודים על יסוד האוסף של פרופ׳ שלמה מורג ז״ל, מהדורה שנייה מתוקנת ומורחבת (Synoptic Dictionary of the Hebrew Component in Jewish Languages, Based on the Collection of Shelomo Morag, z”l, Revised and Expanded Second Edition), written by Maman, Aharon Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2020-10-05 Sarah Bunin Benor
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Cross Scripts: Inscribing Hebrew into Jewish American Literature Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2020-09-09 Hana Wirth-Nesher
Most Jewish immigrants to America during the early 20th century arrived speaking Yiddish or Ladino and using Hebrew and Aramaic for liturgical purposes. When subsequent generations abandoned the first two languages, Hebrew and Aramaic were retained, used primarily for liturgy and rites of passage. Jewish American writers have often inserted Hebrew into their English texts by either reproducing the
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Gascon et français chez les israélites d’Aquitaine. Documents et inventaire lexical, written by Nahon, Peter Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2019-12-03 Alexander Beider
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Categorical Shifts of the Idiom Ribono shel(a)olam: From a Tannaitic Vocative to a Jewish Theocentric Interjection to a Substrate Component in Israeli Hebrew Discourse Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2019-12-03 Yishai Neuman
AbstractOral transmission of the Tannaitic Hebrew double genitive vocative ribbono šella‘olam ‘Master of the Universe’ maintains the definite article in the Hebrew component of two ancient Jewish vernaculars: Jewish Neo-Aramaic and Judeo-Arabic in Djerba. The textual transmission of the phrase, changed it graphemically from the Tannaitic original רִבּוֹנוֹ שֶׁלָּעוֹלָם into medieval רִבּוֹנוֹ שֶׁל
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Afterlife of the Hebrew/Aramaic Component of Judeo-Greek in Non-standard Varieties of Modern Greek Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2019-12-03 Julia G. Krivoruchko
The article presents fourteen case studies of the Judeo-Greek lexemes of Hebrew and Aramaic origin that have passed into the dialects and sub-standard sociolects of Modern Greek, and aims at improving their lexicological and etymological analysis. Starting with a brief description of the sources, it continues with a reconstruction of the semantic development of Hebrew/Aramaic loanwords and their derivatives
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Between Fiction and Reality: The Vienna Jewish Cabaret as a Mirror of Vienna Jewish Speech Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2019-12-03 Lea Schäfer
This article shows what we can learn from Vienna Jewish cabaret, so-called Jargontheater ‘jargon theater’ and the language situation of Vienna Jews at the end of the 19th century. By analyzing one of the most popular plays of this genre, we can see how structures from Yiddish dialects fused with Viennese German and what may have caused ‘Vienna Jewish speech,’ a Judeo-German city variety in the First
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Categorical Shifts of the Idiom Ribono shel(a)olam: From a Tannaitic Vocative to a Jewish Theocentric Interjection to a Substrate Component in Israeli Hebrew Discourse Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2019-12-03 Yishai Neuman
Oral transmission of the Tannaitic Hebrew double genitive vocative ribbono šella‘olam ‘Master of the Universe’ maintains the definite article in the Hebrew component of two ancient Jewish vernaculars: Jewish Neo-Aramaic and Judeo-Arabic in Djerba. The textual transmission of the phrase, changed it graphemically from the Tannaitic original רִבּוֹנוֹ שֶׁלָּעוֹלָם into medieval רִבּוֹנוֹ שֶׁל עוֹלָם.
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Judeo-Isfahani: The Iranian Language of the Jews of Isfahan Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2019-12-03 Habib Borjian
This article studies the native language of the Isfahani Jewish community. A description of the provenance of the community is followed by the sociolinguistic situation in the diaspora. The language description includes phonology and morphosyntax, with an emphasis on poorly studied features. The article is supplemented with texts and a glossary. The data was collected in Isfahan and from the diaspora
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A Unique Hebrew Glossary from India: An Analysis of Judeo-Urdu, written by Aaron D. Rubin Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2019-06-19 Ophira Gamliel
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Coṃpendio delas šeḥiṭót (Constantinople ca. 1510): The First Judeo-Spanish Printed Publication Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2019-06-19 Dov Cohen, Ora (Rodrigue) Schwarzwald
It is commonly accepted that Hilkhot Sheḥiṭa u-Vdika (literally, ‘The Laws of Ritual Slaughter and Examination’—Constantinople ca. 1510) was the first publication ever printed in Judeo-Spanish. Yet scholars possessed no evidence that the work actually existed, and no information was available regarding its contents or language. Recently, however, the first four pages of the publication were discovered
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Jewish Languages in Bosnia and Herzegovina: The Promise and Reality of the Language Rights Protection Regime Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2019-06-19 Gabi Abramac
The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (1992) seeks to protect and promote regional and minority languages in Europe. The objectives and principles defined by the Charter include the recognition of regional and minority languages as cultural assets. The Charter also commits the signatories to promote the study of, and research on, regional and minority languages. Bosnia and Herzegovina
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Judeo-Georgian Language as an Identity Marker of Georgian Jews (The Jews Living in Georgia) Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2019-06-19 Tamari Lomtadze, Reuven Enoch
The Judeo-Georgian language has not yet been fully studied. Up to the end of the 20th century, only religion, traditions, and customs had been considered key identity markers of Georgian Jews. The first comprehensive scholarly works relating to Judeo-Georgian appeared at the turn of the century. This article builds on previous research on the speech varieties of Georgian Jews. The purpose of the present
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Lexical Variation among South Florida’s Judeo-Spanish-speaking Sephardim Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2019-06-19 Bryan Kirschen
This study implements the Leipzig-Jakarta list as a word-elicitation task among speakers (n=20) of Judeo-Spanish in South Florida. Data demonstrate that while entirely different lexemes may be used to express similar meanings for a given token, variation is most demonstrable through phonological processes. An analysis of responses (n=2,000) reveals variation and innovation in the production of vowels
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The Notion of ‘Jewish Surnames’ Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2018-08-23 Alexander Beider
This article discusses the notion of ‘Jewish surnames,’ considering it to be synonymous to the expression ‘surnames borne by Jews.’ This can be particularly helpful if we want the definition to add real value for the search of etymologies. The article describes most important peculiarities of Jewish surnames, categories of names that are exclusively Jewish, and various cases when a surname is shared
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Further Jewish Neo-Aramaic Innovations Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2018-08-23 Hezy Mutzafi
The present article presents new findings related to Jewish Neo-Aramaic (JNA) innovations in the framework of North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA). The dialectal spectrum of JNA is so wide and variegated, that some geographically distant JNA varieties are markedly different from each other on all levels of language structure. Despite this great heterogeneity, the JNA dialects share supra-regional features
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XML Annotation of Hebrew Elements in Judeo-Arabic Texts Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2018-08-23 Mohamed A. H. Ahmed
The main aim of this study is to introduce a model of TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) annotation of Hebrew elements in Judeo-Arabic texts, i.e., code switching (CS), borrowing, and Hebrew quotations. This article will provide an introduction to using XML (Extensible Markup Language) to investigate sociolinguistic aspects in medieval Judeo-Arabic texts. Accordingly, it will suggest to what extent using
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The Erasure of Hasidic Yiddish from Twentieth Century Yiddish Linguistics Journal of Jewish Languages (IF 0.3) Pub Date : 2018-06-06 Chaya R. Nove
Unlike other Yiddish dialects that were diminished to the point of virtual obsolescence in the decades following World War II, Hasidic Yiddish remains the dominant language for several hundred thousand Hasidic Jews across the globe. And yet, a survey of the research on Yiddish linguistics published during the second half of the 20th century does not reflect this reality. In this article, I review how