A History of Languages Spoken by Jews by Merle Molofsky

LanguagesofJews

Colleagues,
Merle and I were at a gathering this weekend where a band was performing Yiddish songs and we started dancing and got into a discussion about Yiddish culture and language. With her permission, I wanted to share her follow-up note below. – Molly

Here’s a quick review of the history of languages spoken by Jews:

Hebrew: Hebrew is a Semitic language, the same language family as Aramaic and Arabic. There is evidence of Hebrew as a written language about 10,000 BCE. The ancient Israelites — the ancient Jews — spoke Hebrew. The entire Five Books of Moses — the Torah, the Jewish Bible — are written in Hebrew. The English word “Hebrew” comes from the Hebrew word “Ivrit”, meaning the Hebrews who spoke Hebrew, and the language itself.

Beginning with the Babylonian diaspora, around the Sixth Century BCE, and Roman conquests, Jews lost their national homeland, Judea. In Babylon, they were slaves, and learned and used the language spoken in Babylon, Aramaic. They eventually were freed from slavery when Persia conquered Babylon, around 540 BCE, and wound up living in various countries, eventually speaking the languages of their host countries, some of which countries they were assimilated into, such as Persia. Hebrew was no longer widely used by Jews as a major form of communication, and became a liturgical language. Around that time, Aramaic was a widely spoken language, and was spoken by Jews in various countries.

Some Jewish prayers also are Aramaic. Some say that Jesus and his disciples routinely spoke Aramaic, not Hebrew, and that the last words of Jesus, “Father, Father, why hast thou forsaken me?” — “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?”, from Psalm 22 by King David, also a Jewish prayer, are Aramaic — although so many words in Hebrew and Aramaic overlap, that the prayer could easily be either language. By 400 CE, Hebrew no longer was used as an everyday language. It was a language of scholarship, commentary, and of prayer.

Here is what “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani” looks like in Hebrew — Hebrew reads from right to left —

??? ??? ??? ??????
Now, Yiddish: Yiddish began forming as a language around the Ninth Century CE, when Jews living in the part of Europe that was German-speaking began speaking German. The German spoken then is called Old High German, and Yiddish preserved part of that language that fell into disuse — similar to what happened in rural Appalachia, when people living in Appalachia in the 18th and 19th century, having very little or even no contact with other people, spoke English as it had been spoken long ago, and preserved some phrases and words that were Shakespearean.

As Jews spread through Western Europe and Central Europe, they spoke their version of Old High German, which was called Yiddish. Yid means Jew in German, and Yiddish essentially means the language that Yids speak. Eventually, as Jews migrated into Eastern Europe, so did Yiddish. Jews wrote Yiddish using Hebrew letters, not German letters, not Roman letters. Yiddish picked up words and phrases from languages of the countries in which Jews were living, particularly Slavic languages — Polish, Ukrainian, Russian. There also are elements of Hebrew and Aramaic in Yiddish, because the Yiddish-speaking Jews also knew Hebrew, as Hebrew is the liturgical language of the Jews, and all Jewish boys and men learned Hebrew for communal prayer, and some elements of Aramaic also were preserved. Yiddish is the Jewish language used by most European Jews. Those European Jews are referred to as Ashkenazi, or Western Jews — which includes Eastern European Jewry!

Now, Ladino: You can see by the word that it is related to Latin — to Latin-derived languages, like Spanish. It is a Romance language, originally spoken by Iberian peninsula Jews. It is a Judeo-Spanish language, a form of old Spanish, which Jews in Spain learned and used — until they were kicked out of Spain by Queen Isabella the Catholic, the same Queen Isabella who funded Christopher Columbus. She was referred to as Queen Isabella the Catholic because she was fanatically Catholic, expelled the Jews, conquered Baobdil, the Moslem ruler of Granada, and expelled the Moslems. The only Jews and Moslems who remained had to convert to Catholicism, on pain of death. Painful death! Those Jews who remained are known as conversos. Some tried to remain secretly Jewish, and they were called Marranos. But they didn’t survive. There was no lineage of conversos or Marranos who survived, and maintained their Jewish identity.

The language was spoken by Jews throughout the Iberian peninsula and other parts of the Mediterranean world, the Levant, so that there are elements of Galician, Portuguese, and Turkish in Ladino. Jews from the Levant were called Sephardim. And, like Yiddish, Ladino also has a lot of words and phrases derived from the Hebrew — for the same reasons.

Here are words of a Ladino song that I know, “Adio Querida”. If you know any Spanish, you can see the similarity to Spanish. It’s a beautiful song! Adio, Querida, means Goodby, Beloved. Adio, as you can see, is very similar to the word “Adios” in Spanish. Incidentally, “Adios”, and “Adio”, mean “To God”. The word “Goodby” also means “God be with you”. Very similar derivation….

Adio,
Adio Querida,
No quero la vida,
Me l’amagrates tu

Tu madre cuando te pario
Y te quito al mundo
Coracon ella no te dio
Para amar segundo

Adio,
Adio Querida,
No quero la vida,
Me l’amagrates tu

Va, busacate otro amor,
Aharva otras puertas,
Aspera otro ardor,
Que para mi sos muert

 

Here’s a YouTube video of the song, with musicians and dancers…. http://youtu.be/L5GcCMcUPk8

Re “Flamenco Sepharad” — the dancers are dancing Tango, not Flamenco!

Mizrahi Jews are Eastern Jews, mainly from Egypt and North Africa — like the designer Isaac Mizrahi!

Warmly,
Merle