Judeo-arabic Languages Information
The Judeo-Arabic languages are a collection of Arabic dialects spoken by Jews living or formerly living in the Arab world; the term also refers to more or less classical Arabic written in the Hebrew script, particularly in the Middle Ages. Just as with the rest of the Arab world, Arabic-speaking Jews had different dialects depending on where they lived. This phenomenon may be compared to cases such as different forms of Yiddish (Judeo-German) such as Western Yiddish and Eastern Yiddish, or forms of Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) in areas such as the Balkans, Thessaloníki/Istanbul, Morocco, etc.
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Characteristics
The Arabic spoken by Jewish communities in the Arab world differed slightly from the Arabic of their non-Jewish neighbours. These differences were partly due to the incorporation of some words from Hebrew and other languages and partly geographical, in a way that may reflect a history of migration. For example, the Judeo-Arabic of Egypt, including in the Cairo community, resembled the dialect of Alexandria rather than that of Cairo (Blau).[1] Similarly the Jewish Iraqi Arabic of Baghdad was found reminiscent of the dialect of Mosul.[2] Many Jews in Arab countries were bilingual in Judeo-Arabic and the dialect of the Arab majority.
Like other Jewish languages and dialects, Judeo-Arabic languages contain borrowings from Hebrew and Aramaic. This feature is less marked in the traditional Judeo-Arabic translations of the Bible, as the authors clearly took the view that the business of a translator is to translate.[3]
History
Jews in Arab countries wrote—sometimes in their dialects, sometimes in a more classical style—in a mildly adapted Hebrew script (rather than using Arabic script), often including consonant dots from the Arabic alphabet to accommodate phonemes that did not exist in the Hebrew alphabet.
Some of the most important books of medieval Jewish thought were originally written in medieval Judeo-Arabic, as well as certain halakhic works and biblical commentaries. Only later were they translated into medieval Hebrew so that they could be read by the Ashkenazi Jews of Europe. These include:
- Saadia Gaon's Emunoth ve-Deoth, his Tafsir (biblical commentary and translation), and his siddur (the explanatory content; not the prayers themselves)
- Solomon ibn Gabirol's Tikkun Middot ha-Nefesh
- Bahya ibn Pakuda's Chovot ha-Levavot
- Judah Halevi's Kuzari
- Maimonides' Commentary on the Mishnah, Sefer ha-Mitzvot, Guide to the Perplexed, and many of his letters and shorter essays.
Most communities also had a traditional translation of the Bible into Judeo-Arabic, known as a sharħ (meaning): for more detail, see Bible translations (Arabic). The term sharħ sometimes came to mean "Judeo-Arabic" as such, in the same way that "Targum" was sometimes used to mean Aramaic.
Present day
In the years following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, most Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews in Arab countries became Jewish refugees, fleeing mainly to France and Israel. Their dialects of Arabic did not thrive in either country, and most of their descendants now speak French or Modern Hebrew; as a result, the Judeo-Arabic dialects are now considered endangered languages. There remain small populations of speakers in Morocco, Yemen, Israel, Lebanon, the United States, and Tunisia.
See also
Endnotes
- ^ For example, in Cairene Arabic, as in Classical Arabic, "I write" is aktub. In Egyptian Judeo-Arabic, in western Alexandrian Arabic and in the Maghrebi Arabic dialects (Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian) it is nektob, resembling a first person plural.
- ^ For example, "I said" is qeltu in the speech of Baghdadi Jews and Christians, as well as in Mosul and Syria, as against Muslim Baghdadi gilit. This however may reflect not southward migration from Mosul on the part of the Jews, but rather the influence of Gulf Arabic on the dialect of the Muslims.
- ^ Avishur, Studies in Judaeo-Arabic Translations of the Bible.
Bibliography
- Ethnologue entry for Judeo-Iraqi Arabic
- Ethnologue entry for Judeo-Moroccan Arabic
- Ethnologue entry for Judeo-Tripolitanian Arabic
- Ethnologue entry for Judeo-Tunisian Arabic
- Ethnologue entry for Judeo-Yemeni Arabic
- Blanc, Haim, Communal Dialects in Baghdad: Harvard 1964
- Blau, Joshua, The Emergence and Linguistic Background of Judaeo-Arabic: OUP, last edition 1999
- Blau, Joshua, A Grammar of Mediaeval Judaeo-Arabic: Jerusalem 1980 (in Hebrew)
- Blau, Joshua, Studies in Middle Arabic and its Judaeo-Arabic variety: Jerusalem 1988 (in English)
- Blau, Joshua, Dictionary of Mediaeval Judaeo-Arabic Texts: Jerusalem 2006
- Mansour, Jacob, The Jewish Baghdadi Dialect: Studies and Texts in the Judaeo-Arabic Dialect of Baghdad: Or Yehuda 1991
- Heath, Jeffrey, Jewish and Muslim dialects of Moroccan Arabic (Routledge Curzon Arabic linguistics series): London, New York, 2002.
External links
- Alan Corré's Judeo-Arabic Literature site
- Judeo-Arabic Literature
- The Jews of Lebanon
- Reka Kol Israel radio station broadcasting a daily program in Judeo-Arabic (Mugrabian)
- Jewish Language Research Website (description and bibliography)
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Categories: Judeo-Arabic languages
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