UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Judeo-Spanish Encounters Modern Spanish: Language Contact and Diglossia among the Sephardim of Los Angeles and New York City A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Hispanic Languages and Literature by Bryan Kirschen 2015 © Copyright by Bryan Kirschen 2015 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Judeo-Spanish Encounters Modern Spanish: Language Contact and Diglossia among the Sephardim of Los Angeles and New York City by Bryan Kirschen Doctor of Philosophy in Hispanic Languages and Literature University of California, Los Angeles, 2015 Professor Claudia Parodi-Lewin, Co-chair Professor Antonio C. Quicoli, Co-chair For the past century, Los Angeles and New York City have been home to two of the largest Latino and Sephardic populations in the United States. Interaction between these ethnic groups, therefore, has been inevitable. However, there has been minimal research on the linguistic repercussions that have resulted from contact between these two linguistically similar yet distinct groups. From a sociolinguistic agenda, I explore how Judeo-Spanish speakers in these two metropolises utilize their language and in which domains. Furthermore, my research reveals that, among my informants (n=25), Judeo-Spanish is used as a platform to acquire proficiency in varieties of Modern Spanish. Aside from conducting sociolinguistic interviews to account for the diglossic distribution among informants, I carry out production as well as perception experiments. These experiments ii determine which features typically associated with a given variety of language are prone to transference. For the production experiment, informants engaged in conversation with a native speaker of Spanish from either Los Angeles or New York City, representing different varieties of Spanish (Los Angeles Vernacular Spanish and Dominican Spanish, respectively). After reviewing the type of speech produced by the informants, results indicate that informants utilize prepalatals [dʒ], [ʒ], and [ʃ] instead of velar [x] approximately one-third of the time. For the perception experiment, informants listened to real and nonce words in Judeo-Spanish and Modern Spanish and were asked to identify to which language each token pertained or was more likely to pertain. This experiment reveals that, although phonological differences assist the informants in making categorical selections, lexicalization remains the most important property for such categorization. The results of the perception experiment offer insight as to some of the phenomena occurring in the speech production of the informants. Collectively, the results from these experiments reveal how Judeo-Spanish-speaking Sephardim utilize their language. Exploring theories of diglossia and accommodation demonstrate how informants position themselves in front of another speaker of Judeo-Spanish or Modern Spanish. As informants are often metalinguistically cognizant of the source languages of Judeo-Spanish, lexicalization allows them to determine which features to transfer between languages. iii The dissertation of Bryan Kirschen is approved. Teofilo Ruiz Sarah Abrevaya Stein Claudia Parodi-Lewin, Committee Co-chair Antonio C. Quicoli, Committee Co-chair University of California, Los Angeles 2015 iv To my family v TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Judeo-Spanish as a Jewish Language: Linguistic Realities and Ideologies 1. Introduction 1 1.1 What is a Jewish Language? 2 1.2 Djudezmo and Haketia: The Judeo-Spanish Spoken Vernaculars 13 1.3 Ladino: The Judeo-Spanish Written Calque 34 1.4 Ideological Stance Applied to Judeo-Spanish 41 1.5 Concluding Discussion 52 II. Sociolinguistic Considerations of the Sephardim of New York City and Los Angeles 2. Introduction 56 2.1 Sephardic and Latino Relations in the United States 57 2.1.1 Intercity Sephardic Relations 62 2.1.2 Language Ideology and Shift among Sephardim 66 2.2 Placing Judeo-Spanish in the United States Today 70 2.2.1 As an Endangered Language 70 2.2.2 As a Heritage Language 71 2.2.3 As a Metalinguistic Community 72 2.2.4 As a Post-Vernacular 73 2.2.5 As a Diasporic Language Ideology 74 2.2.6 As a Social Network 75 2.3 Informants and Methodology 77 2.3.1 Language Contact 84 2.3.2 Overview of Methodology 87 vi III. Diglossia and Metalinguistic Cognizance 3. Introduction 89 3.1 Diglossia 89 3.1.1 Diglossia and Jewish Languages 92 3.1.2 Turkish and Greek as Secret Languages 97 3.1.3 Hebrew as the Language of Recitation 98 3.1.4 French as the Language of the Elite 101 3.1.5 Portuguese as the Language of Comparison 102 3.1.6 Perceived Prestige among Varieties of Modern Spanish 103 3.2 Linguistic Insecurity 105 3.3 Code-Switching and Code-Shifting 106 3.4 Becoming Socialized into Metalinguistic Cognizance 107 3.4.1 In the Classroom 113 3.4.2 At Home 116 3.4.3 Around the Neighborhood 118 3.4.4 Within the Family 120 3.4.5 At Work 122 3.4.6 While Abroad 124 3.5 Concluding Discussion 126 IV. Judeo-Spanish Contact with Modern Spanish: Production 4. Introduction 128 4.1 Where Modern Spanish and Judeo-Spanish Diverge 128 4.1.1 Velarization of Prepalatals 129 vii 4.1.2 Devoicing of /z/ 133 4.1.3 Merger of /b/ and /v/ 134 4.1.4 A Different Distribution: Yeismo and Žeismo 135 4.2 Prior Research 139 4.3 Methodology 143 4.3.1 Judeo-Spanish and Modern Spanish Interaction 143 4.3.2 Research Questions 145 4.3.3 Prepalatal to Velar Shift 146 4.3.3.1 Intersentential Shift 147 4.3.3.2 Intrasentential Shift 148 4.4 Results 148 4.4.1 Phonological Production 149 4.4.2 Lexical Production 152 4.4.3 Native Spanish / Heritage Judeo-Spanish Informants 154 4.4.4 Sociolinguistic Variation among Speakers 156 4.5 Accommodation Theory 163 4.5.1 Convergence 164 4.5.2 Divergence 165 4.6 Summary 166 V. Judeo-Spanish Contact with Modern Spanish: Perception 5. Introduction 170 5.1 Methodology 172 viii 5.1.1 Real Word Identification Task 174 5.1.2 Nonce Word Identification Task 176 5.1.3 Real Word vs. Nonce Word Identification Tasks 177 5.2 Research Questions 179 5.3 Assessment 180 5.3.1 Statistical Analysis 181 5.4 Results 183 5.4.1 Between Variables: L2 Informants 183 5.4.2 Between Variables: L1 Informants 192 5.4.3 L1 vs. L2 Modern Spanish 194 5.5 Lexicalization vs. Phonologization 197 5.5.1 Selecting the Other 199 5.6 Summary 200 VI. Implications & Concluding Discussion 6. Introduction 202 6.1 The Nature of the Language 202 6.2 Implications 210 6.2.1 The Law of Return 211 6.3 Directions for Future Research 215 Appendices 218 References 224 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1 Map indicating migrations of the Sephardim as of 1492 22 Figure 1.2 Judeo-Spanish Spoken Varieties: A Chronological Paradigm 53 Figure 2.1 Birth cities of informants participating in this study 80 Figure 2.2 Age range of informants 81 Figure 4.1 Phonological transfer from Modern Spanish in the Judeo-Spanish of New York and Los Angeles informants, adapted from Harris (1994:176) 140 Figure 5.1 Interface seen upon selecting a language 174 Figure 5.2 Real Word Categories of Tokens 175 Figure 5.3 Real Word Breakdown of Tokens 175 Figure 5.4 Nonce Word Breakdown of Tokens 177 Figure 5.5 Real and nonce word prepalatal ~ velar categorical comparisons by mean, L2 informants 185 Figure 5.6 Real and nonce prepalatal ~ velar comparison by mean, L2 informants 187 Figure 5.7 Real and nonce /b/ ~ /v/ comparison by mean, L2 informants 187 Figure 5.8 Real and nonce /s/ ~ /z/ comparison by mean, L2 informants 188 Figure 5.9 Real and nonce word phonological comparison by mean, L2 informants 189 Figure 5.10 Real lexical vs. phonological comparison by mean, L2 informants 190 Figure 5.11 All real and nonce word comparison by mean, L2 informants 190 Figure 5.12 Prepalatal ~ Velar Categorizations: Real vs. Nonce, L1 informants 192 Figure 5.13 Phonological Categorizations: Real vs. Nonce, L1 informants 193 Figure 5.14 Real: Lexical vs. Phonological, L1 informants 194 Figure 5.15 All: Real vs. Nonce, L1 informants 194 x LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1 Sefarads, adapted from Bürki, Schmid, and Schwegler (2006:9) 14 Table 1.2 Ladino vs. Spanish vernacular 39 Table 1.3 Ladino vs. Djudezmo, Hebrew, and Modern Spanish 39 Table 2.1 Participants residing in New York City and Los Angeles 78 Table 2.2 Average age of participants residing in New York City and Los Angeles 81 Table 2.3 Languages Spoken at Home, S1601, Spanish, Population 5 years and older (U.S Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 2012) 86 Table 4.1 Judeo-Spanish phonemes, adapted from Hualde and Saul (2011:91), Varol (2006:21), and Nehama (1977:xviii) 129 Table 4.2 Prepalatal fricatives and affricate: Old Spanish and Modern Mainstream Spanish, adapted from Hualde and Saul (2011:99) 130 Table 4.3 Distribution of /dʒ/ 131 Table 4.4 Distribution of /ʒ/ 132 Table 4.5 Comparison of distribution between /dʒ/ and /ʒ/ 132 Table 4.6 Sibilants: Old Spanish, Judeo-Spanish, Peninsular Spanish, and Latin American Spanish, adapted from Hualde and Saul (2011:98) 133 Table 4.7 Historical distribution of /b/ ~ /v/ contrast, adapted from Amado Alonso (1967:21,46) 134 Table 4.8 Productions of /ʝ/, adapted from Penny (1991:93) and Schwegler, Kempff, and Ameal-Guerra (2010:293) 136 Table 4.9 Most common lexemes where [dʒ] is maintained 149 Table 4.10 Most common lexemes where [ʒ] is maintained 150 Table 4.11 Most common lexemes where [ʃ] is maintained 150 Table 4.12 Maintenance of prepalatals among non-native Spanish informants 151 Table 4.13 Most frequent Judeo-Spanish lexicon used in speech with Spanish- speaking interlocutor 153 xi Table 4.14 Biographical data for L1 Modern Spanish-speaking informants 155 Table 4.15 Maintenance of prepalatals among L1 Modern Spanish-speaking informants 155 Table 4.16 Binomial up and down analysis 158 Table 4.17 Binomial one level analysis; Application value: Occurrence of prepalatalization 159 Table 4.18 Constraint ranking by factor weight 161 Table 5.1 Phonological distinctions in lexical items between Judeo-Spanish and Modern Spanish 171 Table 5.2 Examples of lexical differences between Judeo-Spanish and Modern Spanish 171 Table 5.3 Example data sets in real word perception experiments 173 Table 5.4 Significance in tests among variables 191 Table 5.5 L1 vs.