70 Heritage Language Journal, 17(1) April, 2020

70 Heritage Language Journal, 17(1) https://doi.org/10.46538/hlj.17.1.3 April, 2020

Language Socialization and Intergenerational Transmission of Ladino: Three Generations of Speakers in the Twenty-First Century

Bryan Kirschen Binghamton University

ABSTRACT This study examines language socialization among five women of a single family who all speak Ladino, an endangered language spoken by Sephardic Jews. These women, ranging from 32-88 years of age, represent three generations raised in different countries and exposed to a number of languages, including Turkish, Hebrew, Ladino, Spanish, and English. Given the rarity of intergenerational transmission of Ladino over the past century, this study asks the following research questions: 1) how the women in this study have been able to preserve their heritage language, Ladino, in spite of contact with other languages, and 2) how said contact with other languages has affected their production of Ladino. To address these questions, each informant participated in a sociolinguistic interview and a lexical elicitation task. An analysis of data reveals the unique circumstances that have allowed for the grandmother’s relative monolingualism in Ladino, and the different trajectories the language has taken among subsequent generations. Despite relative stability vis-à-vis proficiency in Ladino, data indicate points of contact between Spanish and Ladino among the youngest informants who acquired both varieties simultaneously during childhood. This research was conducted in 2018 among informants in both (Florida) United States and (Bat Yam) Israel.

KEYWORDS: Language Socialization; Intergenerational Transmission; Lexical Elicitation; Contact; Ladino; Spanish

1. INTRODUCTION This study explores language socialization and practice among three generations of Jewish women, each born in a different country at a different period throughout the twentieth century. This triad (grandmother-daughter-granddaughter) is not only united by blood but also by language: Ladino.1 Ladino, also known as Judeo-Spanish, is both a Romance language and a Jewish language; it is also an endangered language. By carrying out an apparent time study, this article seeks to understand the ways in which language socialization has allowed for intergenerational transmission of Ladino, while also providing for linguistic variation from one generation to the next. The article will begin with a review of the language and population in question, followed by a general overview of language socialization. After describing the participants, research questions, and methodologies, the study will examine the distribution of languages among informants as well as production in Ladino. The subsequent discussion will consider how language socialization has affected the ways in which informants in this study, particularly those of the youngest generation, negotiate and produce the multiple linguistic codes that they speak.

2. LANGUAGE AND POPULATION IN QUESTION: LADINO AND THE SEPHARDIM Ladino refers to the Castilian-based variety of Spanish that developed among the Jews who settled predominantly into the Ottoman Empire following their expulsion from Spain and Portugal at the end of the fifteenth century. In a matter of a few generations, linguistic koinés formed among the

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communities where Iberian Jews, known as Sephardim, resided. The two principal communities where koinés formed among Sephardim in the Ottoman Empire were in the cities of Constantinople (today’s Istanbul, Turkey) and Salonica (today’s Thessaloniki, Greece) (Quintana Rodríguez, 2006, p. 276). The Spanish of the Sephardim continued to develop in a way unparalleled to that of the Spanish of Spain and the Americas. In contrast to those varieties, Ladino incorporated elements from Hebrew as well as contiguous languages to the Sephardim’s surroundings (e.g. Turkish, Greek, Serbo-Croatian, etc.). Ladino thrived for centuries in the regions where it was spoken among the Sephardim. One reason for the vitality of Ladino was due to the millet system in place in the Ottoman Empire. Under this system, religious minority groups had autonomous governance. Such self-governance allowed the Sephardim to remain in their own milieu, despite contact with other religious, linguistic, and cultural groups (Benbassa & Rodrigue, 2000). As such, Sephardim were able to maintain their ways of life, including intergenerational transmission of Ladino.

Today, Ladino is an endangered language. The shift in status began over a century ago with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. With the rise of nation states, Sephardim began to assimilate and acculturate to the linguistic ideologies and practices of their surroundings. This trend would continue for Sephardim who made their way to North and South America in the early part of the twentieth century and for the waves of Sephardim that migrated to Israel in the years following World War II.2 Aside from general forces of assimilation, the Holocaust is also a main reason for the endangerment of Ladino. During the first half of the 1940s, cities throughout what is now Greece, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, to name a few, witnessed the mass decimation of their centuries-old Sephardic communities (Rodrigue, 2005). Today, most speakers of the language are septuagenarians or older; however, as this article will demonstrate, younger speakers exist. Given bilingual/multilingual proficiency in a number of languages and the limited domains to which Ladino often pertains, speakers of Ladino are considered heritage speakers of the language. The women in this study have maintained Ladino in their family for generations outside of the Iberian Peninsula, from Turkey to Israel to the United States.

3. LANGUAGE SOCIALIZATION Given the endangered status of Ladino, the hybrid nature of Ladino as a Judeo-Spanish language, and the rarity of its intergenerational transmission, language socialization serves as an opportune framework to understand the multiplicity of layers that must be considered in accounting for the language’s preservation among the informants in this study. Language socialization refers to the diverse ways humans acquire social and linguistic competencies and activate them within a given social setting or group (Schieffelin & Oaks, 1986, p.163). As a field of research, language socialization has served as a focus of exploration in Linguistics, Anthropology, Psychology, Education, and Sociology, thus demonstrating its interdisciplinarity (Duff 2017, p. x). While language socialization occurs alongside language acquisition throughout infancy and childhood, it is a process that continues throughout one’s lifespan.

Apart from documenting practices of socialization in and about language, as a theoretical and methodological construct, language socialization also considers the linguistic properties of a language and variation among speakers. What is more, language socialization can serve as a framework to analyze multilingual sites, where various codes are present (Pahl, 2017). Attention

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to multilingualism is pertinent to this study, as Ladino competes with a number of different languages. In particular, Ladino serves as a heritage language for nearly all speakers today, thus presenting an additional dimension to the ways in which one can examine language socialization through practice and ideology. An examination of language socialization and the indexicality of a particular code, as Ochs and Schiefflin (2017, p. 10) and Howard (2017, p. 170) suggest, will elucidate the reasons for which a community experiences language shift or maintenance. Studies that have examined language socialization in the United States among Latino populations (Potowski, 2011; Villarreal, 2014; Zentella, 1997) as well as Jewish populations (Avineri, 2012; Benor 2012; Fader, 2009) will also demonstrate the panoply of ways that children and adults become socialized in and through language in their respective communities; these studies are particularly beneficial to this article as we examine the intertwined nature of a language that has been explored as both a Jewish language and a variety of Spanish.

While language socialization has been explored across communities that utilize Jewish languages or varieties of Spanish, this study aims to explore the intersection of these ethnolinguistic groups through Ladino. Avineri and Avni (2017, p.2) report that, within Jewish communities, familiarity with more than one language has always been the norm. That is, bi/multilingualism is a common characteristic across Jewish communities around the globe. Research on language socialization in and through a Jewish language has been explored by a number of scholars, ranging from the use of language among Orthodox communities (Fader, 2009), secular metalinguistic communities (Avineri, 2012), and those who are seeking to become Orthodox and utilize language as a tool for socialization and acceptance (Benor, 2012). While the previous studies focus on Yiddish and Hebrew, studies on Ladino are relatively few. Kushner-Bishop (2004) reports on efforts to preserve and revitalize Ladino in Israel. In her research, she considers performativity in and through Ladino, much in the way that the previously-cited studies seek to examine the ways in which one learns how to talk in and about a language. The notion of performativity is also relevant in Brink-Danan’s (2011) research on an online forum for Ladino in that the language is used as a post-vernacular. In such a case, language not only serves communicative purposes but also acts as a symbol of identity, resilience, and linguistic and cultural preservation.

Research across communities where Spanish is used, particularly within the United States, has also resulted in a range of studies vis-à-vis language socialization. Zentella’s (1997) longitudinal study demonstrates how the use of Spanish, English, and the contact between these languages have socialized Puerto Rican children in New York City in different ways as they go through adolescence. Villarreal’s (2014) research explores language socialization among Mexican and Salvadoran children in Los Angeles; her findings reveal that Salvadoran children utilize linguistic features associated with the tierras altas (highland variety of) Mexican Spanish given prestige of this variety and negative attitudes to their home variety of (Salvadoran) Spanish. Such bi-dialectal research is also the focus of much of Potowski’s (2011) research, demonstrating points of contact and practices of socialization among Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Chicago. These studies help situate our research on Ladino, a variety that is regularly in contact with other varieties of Spanish.

4. THE PRESENT STUDY This study explores the linguistic practices of five Sephardic women. Although a small sample, what is novel about this informant pool is that they are all members of the same family, pertaining

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to three different generations. What is more, these women, ranging from 32 to 88 years of age at the time of their interviews, are proficient in Ladino. As Ladino has been almost entirely lost among younger generations of Sephardim, this study presents a unique opportunity to understand how processes of language socialization and intergenerational transmission have been made possible. Although this family is as an anomaly in comparison to other Sephardic families who have all but lost their heritage language, this study may also prove valuable to communities undergoing preservation initiatives of an endangered language, while shedding light on the challenges in doing so.

Data for this research were collected in 2018. In the earlier part of the year, the researcher of this study conducted fieldwork within Sephardic communities of the Greater Miami-Dade County (henceforth referred to as South Florida). Having established a handful of contacts in the area who either spoke Ladino or knew of people who spoke the language proved beneficial in locating additional speakers. This referral-based system, known as the snowball approach, was how the researcher established contact with members of the family involved in this study. A speaker of the language provided the researcher with contact information for a possible informant, noting the need to contact said speaker as soon as possible. Such sense of urgency is quite common given the aging population and declining health of most speakers of Ladino. In establishing contact with the potential informant, the researcher learned that the woman with whom he was speaking was a 32- year-old speaker of Ladino who was about to give birth. Finding such a young speaker is uncommon in any Sephardic community around the world. After determining the details for the interview, the speaker noted that her 38-year-old Ladino-speaking sister would partake in the interview as well.

Within a few days, the researcher met with the younger sister (LA ERMANIKA), with whom he had first established contact, as well as her older sister (LA BOHORA).3 During this meeting, the researcher learned that the sisters’ mother (LA MADRE) lived nearby, and so he arranged for an interview with her shortly thereafter. The researcher also learned that the sisters had family members in Israel, including a Ladino-speaking aunt (LA TIA) and grandmother (LA NONA). The researcher traveled to Israel in the latter part of 2018 to interview the aunt and the grandmother. The following table presents relevant information regarding the five informants in this study, beginning with the grandmother.

Table 1.

Informants in this Study

Informant Translation of Code Place of birth Current (and longest) Age at time Code place of residence of interview 1. LA NONA Grandmother Izmir, Turkey Bat Yam, Israel 88 2. LA TIA Aunt Jerusalem, Israel Bat Yam, Israel 60 3. LA MADRE Mother Jerusalem, Israel South Florida, 67 United States 4. LA BOHORA Older sister New York City, South Florida, 38 literally: the eldest United States United States

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5. LA ERMANIKA Little sister New York City, South Florida, 32 United States United States As seen in the table, the three generations of speakers were born in different countries: Turkey, Israel, and the United States. In the case of LA NONA, although born in Turkey, she has spent most of her life in Israel. LA MADRE, despite being born in Israel, has spent most of her life in the United States. LA TIA, LA BOHORA, and LA ERMANIKA have remained primarily in their countries of origin, although in different cities or states from where they were born.

In order to account for language socialization in this unusual case of preservation, research questions are focused around linguistic practice and production among informants. Thus, this study seeks to not only account for the ways in which informants have been able to acquire and maintain their heritage language, but also the actual production of the language. As language socialization seeks to understand both when and how members of a community utilize their language, this study includes these two interrelated schemata. Our first research question asks how is it that the three generations of Sephardic women in this study have been able to preserve their Ladino, considering the constant decline in speakers of the language worldwide. Our second research question asks how the production of Ladino differs from one generation to the next. To address these questions, the researcher carried out a sociolinguistic interview as well as a lexical elicitation task with each informant. The methodology for each area of inquiry will be detailed in the corresponding sections, to follow. In tandem, both factions of experimentation seek to highlight the role of language socialization on the preservation of the language as well as variation between generations.

5. DIGLOSSIC DISTRIBUTION OF INFORMANTS This section examines the ways in which three generations of Sephardic women have been socialized in and through Ladino, and how such socialization has allowed for the preservation of the language within the family under study. To address our first research question, each informant participated in a sociolinguistic interview. The interviews were semi-directed with questions focused on the use of language as well as topics that ranged from childhood pastimes to religious and culture practices today. The researcher conducted all interviews in Ladino, which he himself learned as a second language during his graduate studies, so as to not only construct the sociolinguistic narratives of each informant but also to collect actual speech in the language. The data from this section will determine the diglossic distribution of each informant, allowing for an understanding as to the multiple codes informants have had to navigate throughout the different periods of their lives. To follow, we review the linguistic practices of LA NONA, LA TIA, LA MADRE, LA BOHORA, and LA ERMANIKA, while considering the periods and places in which they were raised and currently reside.

5a. La nona LA NONA was born in Izmir, Turkey, in what she believes to have been 1930. As no records exist in reference to her birth, her birthdate and year are subject to some debate within the family. LA NONA is the oldest of five siblings, all alive at the time of the interview. Her parents and grandparents were from various cities throughout Turkey, then part of the Ottoman Empire. During her childhood, Ladino was the primary language of the home. Despite occasional exposure to Turkish, she never felt comfortable speaking the language. LA NONA’s relative monolingualism in Ladino can also be attributed to the fact that, aside from a very brief stint at school, she never

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received a formal education, remaining at home with her mother. There, she would take care of the house and the four siblings who would be born in the coming years. At age 15, LA NONA married a Sephardic man from Bergama, Turkey who, naturally, spoke Ladino. Shortly thereafter, in 1948, at age 18, LA NONA moved to Jerusalem with her husband; this was the year that Israel received its statehood. Together, they had two children, the eldest of whom is LA MADRE in this study. LA NONA’s husband finished serving three years in the army and was killed shortly thereafter. She remarried another Ladino-speaking Sephardic man with whom she had two children, the older of the two being LA TIA in this study. When LA NONA first arrived in Jerusalem, she noted that everyone in her community spoke Ladino. For this reason, she felt that she never had to learn Hebrew, a language undergoing its own revitalization at the time. Her preservation of Ladino is particularly noteworthy given the period under consideration.4 That is, in an effort to foster linguistic unity through Hebrew in the new nation state of Israel, the languages that were most spoken at that time, which included Ladino, were often discarded (Spolsky, 2014). To this day, however, LA NONA has never felt comfortable speaking Hebrew.

Throughout our interview, LA NONA regularly commented “no me hue a la eskola ni aki” (‘I never went to school, not even here’), “nunka no lavori” (‘I never worked [here]’), and “nunka no sali de emplear ni nada” (‘I never went shopping or anything’). LA NONA would make her life at home, taking care of her children. At home, she always used Ladino and continues to do so. Her knowledge of Hebrew appears to be mostly passive, even after seven decades in Israel; this was determined in observing interaction between LA NONA and one of her daughters, for LA NONA responded in Ladino to the daughter’s remarks in Hebrew.5 All four of LA NONA’s children speak Ladino, since they had to (and have to) use it with her. She asserts that her generation and those that precede hers all spoke Ladino, opining that the younger generations are causing the older ones to forget their language. Although LA NONA has passive knowledge of Turkish and Hebrew, a review of her sociolinguistic narrative allows for the assertion that she is as close to a monolingual speaker of Ladino as there is today.

5b. La tia LA TIA wats born in Israel in 1958. She is LA NONA’s third child, and eldest of LA NONA’s second marriage. Before our interview began, LA TIA proudly asserted “[yo] se sabra,” (‘I am Israeli’), distancing herself from her mother’s upbringing. LA TIA’s family moved from Jerusalem to Bat Yam only when she was a toddler. Regarding her use of Ladino, she noted that everything in her life is in Hebrew, except for interaction with her mother: “solo kuando estamos kon la ima avlamos en espanyol, aval si estamos solos avlamos en ivrit…porke eya no save otra lingua, por mor de esto” (‘Only when we are with mom do we speak Spanish [Ladino], but if we are alone, we speak in Hebrew…It’s because she doesn’t know any other language, that’s why’). Although Ladino is one of LA TIA’s first languages and serves as her heritage language, she is most comfortable with Hebrew, which she also acquired as a child. Thus, as may be expected, her Ladino exhibits a number of borrowings from Hebrew (ima for ‘mother,’ aval for ‘but,’ and ivrit for ‘Hebrew’). LA TIA’s use of Hebrew throughout her discourse further demonstrates several instances of inter- sentential and intra-sentential code-switches, especially for discourse markers.

Although LA TIA uses Ladino with her mother, she regularly used Hebrew with her father, who has passed. Her father, of Bergama, Turkey, spoke Turkish, Hebrew, and Ladino. While he spoke

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Ladino to his wife (LA NONA), he used Hebrew more often with his children. LA TIA is married to a Sephardic man born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey; he speaks Turkish, Hebrew, and Ladino, though Hebrew is used most regularly at home. Together, they have two daughters and two grandchildren. According to LA TIA, her eldest daughter understands Ladino quite well but doesn’t speak it much; the younger daughter doesn’t understand the language at all. Her grandchildren do not have any active or passive proficiency in Ladino.

5c. La madre LA MADRE is the eldest of LA NONA’s four children. Since LA MADRE serves as the nexus between the older and younger informants in this study, her sociolinguistic narrative requires careful consideration. LA MADRE was born in Jerusalem in 1950. As noted, her father was killed when she was a young child; her memories of him, thus, are few. LA MADRE grew up in a Ladino-speaking household and community. Raised in Israel, she also learned Hebrew. Her time in Israel was limited, however, as personal matters would bring her to the United States, where she would live in New York City with a relative of her family. The relative with whom she would stay was the niece of her paternal grandfather; LA MADRE referred to her as LA TANT ‘aunt’ and to her husband as EL ONKLE ‘uncle.’6 Both LA TANT and EL ONKLE were raised in Izmir, Turkey and spoke Ladino as their mother tongue. Thus, at their home in New York, Ladino was the most regularly spoken language. Initially, the language barrier between LA MADRE and her English-speaking classmates made it difficult for her to form friendships; this issue was resolved rather quickly as she was immersed in English at school.

LA MADRE married a Sephardic man living in Israel, originally from Tangier, Morocco. She was introduced to him through the matchmaking efforts of her own grandmother in Israel. Her husband, although Sephardic, did not speak Ladino; rather, he spoke Spanish, as was common among his community.7 Within the family, there is a debate as to whether or not he spoke Haketia, the variety of Judeo-Spanish spoken by Sephardim of Morocco, despite his use of occasional words and phrases unique to the Jewish community of Tangier. Prior to meeting the man who would become her husband, LA MADRE corresponded with him through letters for a year – in Spanish. In relating this story, LA MADRE explained that she took Spanish in high school, thus enabling her to pick up on the differences between Ladino and what she learned at school. While learning Spanish was not challenging for LA MADRE, she still recalls how she was ridiculed by some of her Spanish- speaking classmates for using Ladino. LA MADRE would defend her (variety of the) language, in noting:

Los kastilyanos nunka entendían kualo estava avlando yo…se metian a reir. Dizian ‘i esto, kualo es?’ ‘Stas atrasada,’ you know. Yo les keria dizir, ‘mira, mozotros por kinientos anyos no asoltimos la lingua de la Espanya de tanto bivimos mas de dos mil anyos antes de la Inkizision ke mos arondjaron, i teníamos postos grandes en la Espanya’… Tenia ke avlar el espanyol de eyos.

Spanish speakers never understood what I was saying…they would laugh. They would say, ‘And that, what is that?’ ‘You’re slow [backward].’ I wanted to say to them, ‘look, for five-hundred years we haven’t abandoned the language of

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Spain, where we lived for more than two thousand years before the Inquisition ousted us, and we had high-up jobs in Spain’…I had to speak their Spanish.8

In her letters, although LA MADRE attempted to use the Spanish she learned at school, she believes that they contained a mixture of varieties.

LA MADRE’s husband moved to New York to be with her and found himself in the presence of many Ladino speakers. Even after moving in together, LA TANT and EL ONKLE remained in the same house as LA MADRE and her husband, thus providing for an atmosphere conducive to the preservation of Ladino. Slowly, the husband adapted his Spanish to the Ladino of his wife and in- laws. LA MADRE noted that her husband’s shift to Ladino seemed natural:

Kuando vino a la Amerika, mozotros la lingua de kaza es (sic) ladino. Mozotros no podemos trokar la lingua en la kaza porke esta es la lingua muestra. Es muy kolay, aval la lingua. El agora avla otra lingua; that’s his problem. Mozotros avlamos ladino. Az, el de tanto sintir i avlar, el se ambezo ladino.

When he came to America, the language of our house was Ladino. We couldn’t change our language in the home, because that was our language. It’s very easy, but [that was] the language. He now spoke another language; that’s his problem. We spoke Ladino. So, in hearing and speaking so much, he learned Ladino.

Although LA MADRE noted that her husband attempted to use Ladino with her and her relatives, he used his own Spanish once they had two children of their own. Having lived in Israel and being religious, the husband also spoke Hebrew. In America, the husband gained proficiency in English; over time, English began to replace the use of Spanish in their household.

LA MADRE and her husband moved from New York City to South Florida shortly after having their second child. Like LA NONA, LA MADRE remained predominantly at home, despite a short period working in child welfare services prior to marriage. Different from her siblings in Israel, who all speak Ladino, LA MADRE has passed on the language to her children. When LA MADRE and her family moved to South Florida, LA TANT and EL ONKLE moved with them as well, allowing for continued exposure to Ladino. Despite physical distance from her mother, LA MADRE continues to speak to LA NONA regularly by telephone, only in Ladino.

5d. La bohora and la ermanika LA MADRE gave birth to two children: LA BOHORA, age 38 at the time of our interview, and LA ERMANIKA, age 32 at the time of our interview. Given the shared upbringing of these siblings, their sociolinguistic narratives are reviewed in the same section; this is unlike LA TIA and LA MADRE who, although (half-)sisters, were raised in different environments.

LA BOHORA and LA ERMANIKA were both born in New York City; however, the former was 7 years old when she moved with her family to South Florida, and the latter was only a year old. LA BOHORA’s first language was Ladino, having only learned English in kindergarten. Like her mother, LA BOHORA remembers challenges as a child, growing up in a Ladino-speaking

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environment, while everyone outside the home spoke another language. Her upbringing was different than that of her mother’s, however, since she was exposed to different varieties of Spanish: “todos me avlavan en espanyol: mi padre en kastilyano, mi madre en ladino” (‘everyone spoke to me in [a variety of ] Spanish: my dad in Castilian, and my mom in Ladino’). At a young age, she realized that what was being spoken at home was not just one variety of Spanish. LA BOHORA noted that relatives from her father’s side of the family, Spanish speakers from Tangier, would make fun of her for speaking Ladino. She recalls being corrected by her family members: “dizian ke esto no es lengua definada - ke el espanyol no es refinada; esta mesklado kon turko… o ke no suena buena en espanyol” (‘they said that the language wasn’t clear- that [our] Spanish [i.e. Ladino] isn’t refined; it’s mixed with Turkish…or that it didn’t sound good in [their] Spanish’). Thus, from an early age, she realized that, although similar, Ladino and Spanish were not the same. Further, she was socialized into believing that the Spanish of her father’s side was more “correct” than the Ladino of her mother’s. LA BOHORA went on to formally study Spanish in high school. While this class did not prove difficult for her, she would have to double check to make sure she was speaking in the “right” type of Spanish for the given setting. LA BOHORA works for a marketing firm and uses Spanish regularly, although she affirms that she is more confident in her Ladino-speaking abilities than in her Spanish.

Aside from the aforementioned languages, LA BOHORA also speaks Hebrew, a language she learned through schooling, from relatives, and in spending months in Israel during visits throughout her childhood. LA BOHORA notes that she and her younger sister are unique in that they preserve Ladino, a language that none of their cousins speak, although they all understand it. Today, LA BOHORA mostly uses the language with her grandmother, although at times with her mother and sister, especially “kuando no keremos a dingunos ke entienden (sic)” (‘when we don’t want anyone to understand’). Apart from her role as sister, daughter, and granddaughter, LA BOHORA is also an aunt herself, to two of her younger sister’s children. With her nieces, she tries to use Ladino, noting it is a natural instinct since “es la lengua de la chikez” (‘it is the language of [her] childhood’). LA BOHORA’s husband, half Ashkenazi (of Eastern European descent) and half Sephardic (of Moroccan descent), does not speak Ladino.9

The youngest of the informants and speakers of Ladino in this family is LA ERMANIKA. LA ERMANIKA grew up in South Florida but, unlike her older sister, considers her first language to be English and not Ladino. She acquired Spanish and Ladino at home, but would often respond to her mother in Ladino and English, and use Spanish with her father. As a child, LA ERMANIKA described some initial resistance to speaking in Ladino, noting “siempre lo entendia, pero no keria avlar. Kuando me yevava muncho a Israel a vijitar…vide ke es – si no vo avlar, dingunos no van arresponder” (‘I always understood it, but I didn’t want to speak. When they often took me to visit Israel…I noticed that unless I spoke [in Ladino], no one would respond). Although LA ERMANIKA had other Sephardic friends as a child, they were often from Moroccan families and did not speak Ladino. Like her older sister, LA ERMANIKA experienced ridicule as a child due to her use of Ladino. That is, “se rian de mi, komo si no es una lingua” (‘they made fun of me, as if it weren’t a language’). Further, like her sister, she was subject to negative intrafamilial language attitudes toward Ladino from her father’s side of the family, who would correct her Ladino to their variety of Spanish.

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LA ERMANIKA also speaks Hebrew, due to formal education at school as well as the opportunity to further develop her proficiency while attending graduate school in Israel. LA ERMANIKA is married to an Ashkenazi man and they have two children together. LA BOHORA has made several attempts to convince her sister to use Ladino with her kids. To this regard, LA ERMANIKA commented “mi ermana siempre me grita porke kijo ke me ambeze a mi ija ke tiene kuatro anyos el ladino” (‘my sister is always yelling at me because she wants me to teach Ladino to my daughter who is four- years-old’). LA ERMANIKA explains that she tends to use English more than Spanish or Ladino since her husband only speaks English. For her, the opportunity to use Ladino mostly involves interaction with LA NONA. Each week, LA ERMANIKA calls her grandmother and speaks to her only in Ladino. While she was a graduate student in Israel, she also lived with LA NONA, providing for everyday use of the language at home.

Interaction between the two sisters seems to occur most commonly in English. However, LA ERMANIKA notes that she finds herself using Ladino “kuando le esto gritando o kero dizir una koza i no kero ke mi marido entienda” (‘when I’m yelling at her or when I want to say something that I don’t want my husband to understand’). LA ERMANIKA finds herself mostly using Spanish for work purposes; she is a strategy consultant and works with some Spanish-speaking clientele. She notes that the language additionally comes in handy living in South Florida. Unlike LA BOHORA, LA ERMANIKA believes that she speaks Spanish better than Ladino.

LA BOHORA’s and LA ERMANIKA’s fluency in Ladino and overall multilingualism have not gone unnoticed by their family in Israel. LA TIA regularly commented how uncommon it was for younger generations to speak Ladino, attributing her nieces’ proficiency not only to LA MADRE, but LA TANT and EL ONKLE who also lived in the same house as they did. LA NONA also recognized the important role that LA TANT played in helping LA MADRE preserve Ladino at home. Their exposure to LA TANT was long-lasting, considering she lived to the age of 105, passing away in 2016. LA NONA marveled at LA BOHORA’s and LA ERMANIKA’s language abilities in not only Ladino, but Spanish and Hebrew as well. LA TIA has been particularly impressed by LA ERMANIKA’s language abilities, noting “nasio en las Amerikas, se engradesio aya i todo, i avla el mijor de ti, de mi, de todos. Save el ladino, aval save i la lingua ke avlan los meksikanos i todos” (‘she was born in the Americas, was raised there and everything, and speaks better than you, than I, than all of us. She knows Ladino, but she also knows the language that the Mexicans and everyone speak’). Although family members recognize the importance of maintaining Ladino, especially to communicate with LA NONA, as demonstrated, they also value the multilingualism of LA BOHORA and LA ERMANIKA.

The following table reviews the primary language of each informant as well as the other languages in which they have active or passive proficiency.

Table 2.

Language Proficiency among Informants

Informant Primary Language Other Languages 1. LA NONA Ladino Hebrew and Turkish (passive) 2. LA TIA Hebrew Ladino (active)

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3. LA MADRE English Ladino, Spanish, and Hebrew (active) 4. LA BOHORA English Ladino, Spanish, and Hebrew (active) 5. LA ERMANIKA English Ladino, Spanish, and Hebrew (active) 6. PRODUCTION AND VARIATION IN LADINO Having accounted for the ways in which each informant has acquired and maintained Ladino, we turn to how each informant’s socialization in the language has allowed for its stability, on the one hand, and variation, on the other. To address our second research question, a lexical elicitation task was carried out with each informant following the sociolinguistic interview. To determine the level of lexical stability and variation between speakers and across generations, the researcher implemented a lexical elicitation task based on a slightly adapted version of Haspelmath and Tadmor’s (2009) 100-item Leipzig-Jakarta list (see Appendix). Although informants also produced Ladino throughout their sociolinguistic interviews, the application of a standard elicitation exercise allows for the same lexical items to be compared across informants.

To implement this task, the researcher read aloud each word on the list, asking informants to reply with the equivalent word in Ladino. The researcher read aloud all words in English for LA MADRE, LA BOHORA, and LA ERMANIKA, and translated them into Hebrew for LA NONA and LA TIA. Given LA NONA’s passive proficiency of Hebrew, the researcher was able to successfully implement this task. However, in her case, gesticulation and examples were often necessary. As noted, this test was administered after a sociolinguistic interview with each informant, allowing for the continuous and more natural use of the language before evaluation. To account for stability and variation across informants, analysis is based on the following metrics. First, we report on response rate, or how many words speakers were able to provide in Ladino. Second, we examine variation between informants based on different lexemes provided for a given meaning of a word. Lastly, we consider phonological variation between informants, demonstrating points of contact between Ladino and Spanish among the youngest of informants.

6a. Response Rate and Lexical Variation Informants were able to provide a Ladino meaning for at least 85% of the words that make up the Leipzig-Jakarta list. LA NONA responded to 99% of the items, followed by 96% by LA BOHORA, 95% by LA MADRE, 91% by LA ERMANIKA, and 85% by LA TIA. It is important to note that this study does not attempt to determine whether lexicon produced by informants is “correct” or “incorrect,” but rather it accounts for the ability to produce lexicon according to what the speaker may use in her Ladino. While nearly all null responses were from nouns of different word classes (body/animal parts, natural phenomena, miscellany), LA TIA had more difficulty in the production of verbs compared to other informants.

Certain words resulted in lexically divergent responses. That is, responses that are not due to phonological variation but, rather, the use of different lexemes to refer to similar concepts. Of the one-hundred items in this elicitation task, informants produced lexically divergent forms for twenty-four of them. Of the twenty-four items that resulted in two or more lexically divergent forms, eighteen were in competition with another Ladino-based lexeme. For example, ‘ear’ resulted in the production of oido among some informants and oreja among others; ‘to hear’ resulted in oir among one informant and sintir among others. ‘Wood’ resulted in three forms:

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madera among LA ERMANIKA and LA BOHORA, tavla by LA MADRE, and arvole from LA TIA and LA NONA. The word for ‘breast’ resulted in pecho among LA ERMANIKA, LA BOHORA, and LA MADRE, while LA TIA opted for tetas and LA NONA chose boka del alma. The word for ‘child’ yielded both ijo and kriatura, while LA ERMANIKA also noted that she has heard fijo, although it is not part of her Ladino.

Six forms that were in competition resulted in lexemes of non-Hispanic origin. In four instances, a Turkish element was selected (‘horn’ kuerno versus boynuzus; ‘ashes’ sinises versus duman; ‘roots’ los raises versus el kyok; ‘smoke’ umo versus duman). Turkish-based responses were not always in competition with Ladino-based ones, however, as demonstrated in the response for ‘knee,’ which consistently yielded diz among informants. Unlike some of the discourse markers observed throughout the natural speech of the sociolinguistic narratives described in the prior section, throughout the list, Hebrew was minimally incorporated. While informants noted garganta for ‘neck,’ LA ERMANIKA also provided garon. In Ladino, unlike Spanish, garganta is most commonly used for ‘neck’ instead of ‘throat,’ for which garon, from Hebrew, is used. Like Turkish borrowings, Hebrew borrowings also have adapted to the linguistic structure of Ladino, LA ERMANIKA, however, produced the .ח.ר.ב in words like aharvar ‘to hit,’ from the Hebrew root periphrastic structure of this meaning with dar haftona, ‘to hit,’ literally ‘to give a strike/blow.’

One of the more salient findings from our data is in regard to contact between Ladino and Spanish. As discussed, LA MADRE, LA BOHORA, and LA ERMANIKA were exposed to Spanish to various degrees throughout their lives, primarily through their husband/father from Tangier. A number of contact-related phenomena are evident from a review of the lexicon produced, particularly from that of LA BOHORA and LA ERMANIKA. As with other Iberian-based languages, the notion of bivalency applies. This term is defined by Woolard, who examined the use of Castilian and Catalan, (1998, p.7) to note “the use by a bilingual of words in segments that could ‘belong’ equally, descriptively and even prescriptively to both codes.” As such, while it may be difficult to determine whether an isolated word pertains to one language or another, a review of forms produced by other members of one’s family may prove useful in providing such insight. We may thus question the production of several lexical responses in this dataset. For example, LA ERMANIKA produced the word piel for ‘skin’, whereas all other members of her family produced kuero. Similar cases include her use of oir for ‘to hear’ as opposed to sintir, and the use of amarar instead of atar for ‘to tie.’ LA BOHORA and LA MADRE were the only informants who were able to provide a response for ‘shadow,’ in Ladino, with the former opting for the Spanish sombra and the latter with the more common Ladino solombra.10 As previously mentioned, both LA ERMANIKA and LA BOHORA produced madera for ‘wood,’ whereas LA MADRE produced tavla and LA TIA and LA NONA produced arvole. A comparison of lexicon from the younger informants, who are proficient in Spanish, to those of older generations, who are less proficient (LA MADRE) or not proficient (LA TIA and LA NONA) in the language, provides support for attributing the aforementioned forms to contact between the two varieties in question.

In the previous examples, contact is observed from primarily lexically divergent responses. Contact may also be demonstrated by means of phonological variation. Again, this was most salient among the youngest two informants. For example, ‘fly’ (noun) yielded different forms, including moshkito, moshka, and moshika. The most common form produced was moshka, as

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expected. LA ERMANIKA produced the form moshkito, while LA NONA produced la moshika; both appear to have used a form of the diminutive. In Ladino, the most common way to yield a diminutive is by means of the suffix –iko/a. While LA NONA uses this suffix, LA ERMANIKA utilizes the suffix ito, which is also embedded into the word in Spanish (cf. mosquito). LA ERMANIKA’s response could also be deemed as due to conflation with the Spanish (or even English) mosquito. LA BOHORA also demonstrated several cases of possible contact between Spanish and Ladino. Although LA ERMANIKA and LA TIA were unable to provide a response for ‘rope,’ the three other informants were able to. LA MADRE and LA NONA produced kuedra, while LA BOHORA produced kuerda. Metathesis is a common feature in Ladino, especially in the interchange of –rd to –dr. Thus, LA BOHORA’s response is more in line with Spanish than Ladino. We also observe potential contact in the production of a Ladino equivalent for ‘new,’ where LA BOHORA produced nuevo and all other informants produced muevo. While the use of the bilabial nasal is not common in all varieties of Ladino, it seems that LA BOHORA’s use of the alveolar nasal is due to contact with Spanish, especially since no other member in her family produced the Ladino form in such a fashion. Lastly, the response for ‘tongue’ resulted in numerous variations, including luenga, lengua, alguenga, and aluenga. In Ladino, alguenga is the term for the body part, while lingua (or in some cases lashon, from Hebrew) is the term used for one’s language. While we observe variation in responses, all informants produce the term with the diphthong [u̯ e], except for LA BOHORA. Her response of lengua, which she also used throughout her sociolinguistic narrative, may therefore be attributed to Spanish.

Another noticeable point of contact regards self-repair (correction) among the youngest informants. A situation of self-repair is different than a situation where an informant provides more than one possible equivalent form for a word since, with self-repair, the informant corrects herself after providing what she perceives to be an incorrect initial response. As an example, LA ERMANIKA corrected herself when producing the form kien to that of ken, for ‘who,’ removing the diphthong that would be pronounced in Spanish.11 LA BOHORA also displayed instances of self-repair. In producing a response for ‘in,’ she quickly went from adentro to ariento, to avoid use of the Spanish word. A similar process occurred when asked to provide the Ladino for the color ‘black,’ where she first produced negro and then preto. When providing a response for the color ‘red’ LA BOHORA did not finish her enunciation of what would have most likely ended up as Spanish rojo in order to produce the Ladino equivalent kolorado. These instances of self-repair, although few, are important since they provide us with aural evidence of contact between Spanish and Ladino as speakers determine the appropriate word for the given task.

7. DISCUSSION As a field of study, language socialization can go much further than explaining how and when humans learn to use different linguistic codes. Although said distribution is an essential element to understanding practices of language socialization, it is also useful in explaining variation that may be observed among speakers of a given population. That is, in this study, we are only able to explain variation among our informants by first addressing the languages they speak, the interlocutors with whom they use each language, and the attitudes that each speaker possesses in regard to their languages. In this study, the combination of the sociolinguistic interview and the lexical elicitation task allows for a more complete understanding of how language socialization conditions speakers not only to think about language but also to use language.

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In examining the current population of speakers, this study brings together different ethnolinguistic groups and allows for further deliberation as to how language socialization affects the production of language and serves as a stimulus for variation. While we find traces of Turkish throughout the Ladino of all informants, such contact is most evident with LA NONA, despite the fact that neither she nor the other informants speak the language. This is unlike Hebrew, where all informants except LA NONA speak the language regularly, especially LA TIA. Contact between Hebrew and Ladino is apparent throughout the sociolinguistic narratives, particularly in discourse markers and to refer to members of kin. Throughout our interviews, it also became evident that LA MADRE, LA BOHORA and LA ERMANIKA were regularly exposed to Spanish. However, while LA MADRE learned Spanish in school and was in regular contact with the language once married, Ladino was always the language of the home. Unlike LA MADRE, LA BOHORA and LA ERMANIKA were both exposed to Spanish and Ladino from birth, allowing for simultaneous acquisition of both varieties. While their sociolinguistic narratives demonstrate the ways in which both sisters have had to navigate when and with whom to use each variety, comparing their results from the lexical elicitation task to other members of their family reveals the ways in which language socialization has affected their production of Ladino, especially in regard to contact with Spanish.

Reference to contact between Spanish and Ladino has been part of a growing research agenda from decades ago (Benardete, 1953; Bénichou, 1960; Levy, 1944) to the present day (Harris, 1994; Kirschen, 2015; Romero, 2013). Unlike previous studies, however, this study examines how speakers of both varieties are able to preserve their Ladino while elaborating on linguistic repercussions of said contact. While we observe phonological and lexical differences among the youngest informants, when compared to the older generations of speakers, we also observe considerable stability in Ladino. Such preservation can be understood when framing this discussion under the auspices of one of the more common foci of studies on contact between Ladino and Spanish today: the production of sibilants [ʃ], [ʒ], and [dʒ]. Each of the aforementioned phones pertain to their own phonemes in Ladino, despite an originally allophonic distribution of the latter two in older varieties of Spanish. In Spanish, these three phones have all collapsed to [x]: [ˈdi.ʃo] versus [ˈdi.xo] (‘s/he said’), [mu.ˈʒeɾ] vs. [mu.ˈxeɾ] (‘woman’), and [ˈdʒen.te] vs. [ˈxen.te] (‘people’).12 However, due to contact between varieties, Ladino speakers have begun to replace their prepalatals with velar [x]; this has been found to occur primarily in those words in Ladino that derive from Spanish-based origin (Romero, 2016; Kirschen, 2018). Thus, it would not be uncommon for a speaker of Ladino to produce [ˈke.xa] instead of the expected [ˈke.ʃa] (‘complaint’), while being corrected if in the presence of another Ladino speaker. In this elicitation task, nine of the one-hundred words could have resulted in responses that included either the voiced or voiceless prepalatal fricative: (oreja ‘ear’; ojo ‘eye’; pasharo ‘bird’; pishkado ‘fish’; moshka ‘fly’; piojo ‘louse’; oja ‘leaf’; leshos ‘far’; viejo ‘old’). Although the replacement of prepalatal phones to velar [x] is a common characteristic of the production of Ladino by those speakers who are proficient in or have been exposed to Spanish, it did not occur in any of the possible instances in this elicitation task. In her work on Ladino in both the United States and Israel, Kushner-Bishop (2004, p.41) offers insight as to why such retention may be the case: “the retention of three sibilants, where in Modern Spanish only one remains, is perhaps the most pronounced phonological distinction today between Judeo‐Spanish and Modern Spanish, not to mention the one most jealously guarded by Judeo‐Spanish speakers.” Despite the youngest informants’

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bilingual proficiency in Ladino and Spanish, their regular use of Ladino may, in fact, enforce this salient distinction between varieties.

The implementation of the Leipzig-Jakarta list as a lexical elicitation task has helped determine the degree of stability between informants and generations, while also identifying points of variation. Informants in this study were able to provide Ladino equivalents for nearly all words in the list. They were unable, however, to yield a response for an average of 6.8 words. To put this into perspective, the researcher of this study has also carried out the Leipzig-Jakarta elicitation task among other speakers of Ladino as part of a larger-scale study. Among a group of thirty-nine speakers from Seattle and South Florida, the average number of words for which informants were unable to provide a Ladino equivalent was 19.2.13 Thus, compared to other speakers, the informants in this study perform at considerably higher rates.

The results of our lexical elicitation task also reveal information about the preservation of Ladino within each generation. In the second (child) and third (grandchild) generations, the younger informants were unable to provide as many responses in Ladino as their older siblings. That is, while LA MADRE was unable to yield a response for five meanings, LA TIA was unable to yield a response for fifteen; similarly, while LA BOHORA was unable to yield a response for four meanings, LA ERMANIKA was unable to yield a response for nine. This trend has been observed in other studies, where younger siblings have been found to retain less of their heritage language than their older siblings (Parada, 2013; Potowski, 2016, p.49). Of course, such birth order in one family does not determine proficiency alone; we must consider each informant’s upbringing, especially that of LA MADRE, which provided an environment conducive to the development, maintenance, and transmission of her heritage language.

Another productive discussion that results from this study is in regard to the maintenance of Ladino among the youngest informants. Throughout their lives, LA BOHORA and LA ERMANIKA have figured out how to balance their multilingualism. First, they acquired Ladino and Spanish at home, soon to be complemented by English outside the home, and Hebrew through religious education and interaction with family members abroad. Second, from a young age, they have had to determine which languages to use, with whom, and the social ramifications of such use. Further, as children, informants learned to become resilient. As per Carreira (2013), resilience “refers to the capacity to tap into personal, cultural, and social resources for maintaining wellbeing and finding meaning under difficult situations” (p. 404). The ability to build resilience serves as an important tool for speakers of heritage languages, especially within communities that may eschew bilingualism. As such, speakers from their childhood years begin to evaluate the social meaning of their linguistic proficiencies and production. For example, LA BOHORA and LA ERMANIKA were exposed to belittling remarks concerning their Ladino. Although some of these comments may have been made in jest by adults from their father’s Spanish-speaking side of the family or from young speakers of Spanish in their neighborhood who had (inadvertently) become socialized to such ideology, LA BOHORA and LA ERMANIKA remember moments when they did not want to speak Ladino.

Although these siblings have been able to maintain their bilingualism to the present day, the linguistic ramifications of contact between their Ladino and Spanish have been observed

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throughout this study. Such contact-induced change might be explained through the lens of agentivity (Winford, 2005, p.382), which seeks to consider not only “dominance relations” between one language and another, but also how speakers utilize said language(s) and with whom. This is particularly relevant in the case of LA BOHORA and LA ERMANIKA, where they have used Spanish at work and throughout South Florida, while Ladino is optional at home and obligatory with LA NONA. Continued contact with LA BOHORA and LA ERMANIKA may provide for a real-time study in years to come. Such longitudinal studies, like that of Zentella’s (1997) fieldwork in New York City’s El Barrio among the Puerto Rican community of East Harlem, are pivotal in understanding the ways in which language is transmitted, produced, and perceived in a community over time. That is, how will LA BOHORA’s and LA ERMANIKA’s Ladino change in the years to come?

While the preservation of Ladino within this family is unique, there is something to be said regarding the role traditionally held by women as it relates to intergenerational transmission of language. In her study on Haketia in Morocco, Paloma (2015) considers the role of Sephardic women in preserving language and culture within the household. She asserts that while men perform a number of responsibilities associated with liturgical ritual and political power in the public sphere, women retain much power in the private sphere, where heritage languages may be preserved. Harris (1994, p.136) has explored this topic as well, noting that Sephardic women, especially when living under the millet system of the Ottoman Empire, had been more isolated from neighboring non-Sephardic communities than their husbands. This relative isolation provided for linguistic dominance in Ladino among most women, who would remain at home and pass on the language to their children. Apart from such gender dynamics within Ladino-speaking communities, Sallabank (2011) asserts that language use among women is an important factor to consider across languages, given that “intergenerational transmission is carried out in the home, and usually falls to mothers” (p. 286).

As the role of women has shifted and Sephardic women spend more time outside the home, the preparedness of families to transmit Ladino intergenerationally has decreased. Although the aforementioned dynamics allowed LA NONA and LA MADRE to transmit Ladino to their children, the other informants work full-time outside of the home and do not lead lives that fit into what was once the stay-at-home role of a Sephardic woman. LA TIA has not passed Ladino on to her children, despite being married to a speaker of the language. Time will tell whether or not LA BOHORA and LA ERMANIKA will choose to pass on their heritage language, especially considering that their husbands do not speak the language.

8. CONCLUSION The collection of sociolinguistic narratives as well as the analysis of the linguistic production of the informants in this study highlight the ways in which language socialization has allowed informants to preserve their heritage language to the present day. Such maintenance is no small feat, given the rarity in finding three generations of speakers who continue to preserve the language in the twenty-first century. Although each of the five informants are from the same family, they represent different social realities, which are the result of the places and periods in which they were born and raised. Language is part of what unites this family and sets them apart from nearly all other Sephardic families that have lost their ancestral tongue in recent generations. By means

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of empirical research, this study has demonstrated how the five informants in this study have preserved their language, while also assessing both stability and contact-induced variation between them. The data collected and subsequent discussion have not only highlighted some of the challenges of preserving an endangered heritage language throughout time and space, but also demonstrated how the language continues to be safeguarded within this particular family, despite trends of linguistic assimilation. What is more, this article demonstrates that the language may still be preserved today, even under the closest confines of contact with Spanish.

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APPENDIX The Leipzig-Jakarta List of Basic Vocabulary Adapted from: Haspelmath & Tadmor (2009) (presented in order elicited)

1. back 26. fly 51. I 76. to hit 2. bone 27. horn 52. you 77. to know 3. breast 28. louse 53. she 78. to laugh 4. ear 29. tail 54. in 79. to run 5. eye 30. wing 55. not 80. to say 6. flesh 31. child 56. one 81. to see 7. foot 32. house 57. this 82. to stand 8. hair 33. name 58. what 83. to suck 9. hand 34. ash 59. who 84. to take 10. knee 35. fire 60. yesterday 85. to tie 11. liver 36. leaf 61. to bite 86. big 12. mouth 37. night 62. to blow 87. bitter 13. navel 38. rain 63. to burn 88. far 14. neck 39. root 64. to carry 89. good 15. nose 40. rope 65. to come 90. hard 16. skin 41. salt 66. to crush 91. heavy 17. thigh 42. sand 67. to cry 92. long 18. tongue 43. shadow 68. to do 93. new 19. tooth 44. smoke 69. to drink 94. old 20. ant 45. soil 70. to eat 95. small 21. bird 46. star 71. to fall 96. sweet 22. blood 47. stone 72. to give 97. thick 23. dog 48. water 73. to go 98. wide 24. egg 49. wind 74. to hear 99. black 25. fish 50. wood 75. to hide 100. red

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NOTES

1. The nomenclature of this language is diverse. Judeo-Spanish is often used to demonstrate the hybrid nature of this language; it also attempts to serve as an umbrella term for its many varieties. For many Sephardim, this language was typically referred to as a form of Spanish – spanyol, muestro spanyol, spanyolit or some sort of Jewish language – djidio, djudio, djudezmo. The term Ladino is used most commonly among speakers today, even though it has additional meanings and nuances. Since informants in this study regularly use this term, I have opted to use it throughout this paper, synonymous with Judeo-Spanish.

2. While much of present-day Israel was part of the Ottoman Empire, here we refer to mass migration following the declaration of the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

3. To refer to specific participants in this study, I use kinship terms in Ladino. When including words, phrases, and quotations in Ladino, I utilize the orthographic norms of the National Authority of Ladino as developed initially in the journal Aki Yerushalayim (Shaul, 2004).

4. In this article, the term Hebrew refers to Modern Israeli Hebrew, when in reference to the language spoken by informants in this study or in contact with Ladino today.

5. When alluding to passive proficiency, we refer to the ability to understand a language without being able to comfortably produce it. When referring to active proficiency, we refer to the ability to comfortably produce a given language.

6. The use of terms derived from French, especially in regard to kinship, has been quite common among Sephardim.

7. In this article, I use Spanish as an umbrella term to refer to Castellano (‘Castilian’). Thus, Spanish will be compared to Ladino, despite the problematics of nomenclature.

8 The Edict of Expulsion was responsible for the removal of the Jews from Spain, as opposed to the Inquisition itself, which was concerned with those who had already converted to Catholicism.

9. Whereas (many) Sephardim come from ancestors who spoke Ladino, Ashkenazim come from ancestors who spoke Yiddish.

10. This was the only word which LA NONA was unable to instantaneously produce in Ladino during the elicitation task. This might have been due to the design of the study, however, in that she was asked to translate from Hebrew.

11. The form kien is used in some varieties of Ladino (e.g., that of Salonica); however, it is not present in the Ladino of Izmir or, by extension, the variety of any of her family members.

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12. In Spanish, these prepalatals were replaced with either velar [x] or another fricative such as glottal [h] or uvular [χ], based on region.

13. For more information on performance among speakers of Ladino in South Florida, see Kirschen (2019); this article does not include data from Seattle informants.

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