Translating Religion Études sur le Judaïsme Médiéval

Fondées par Georges Vajda

Dirigées par Paul B. Fenton

TOME XXXVIII Translating Religion

Linguistic Analysis of Judeo- Sacred Texts from Egypt

by Benjamin H. Hary

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2009 This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hary, Benjamin H. Translating religion : linguistic analysis of Judeo-Arabic sacred texts from Egypt / by Benjamin H. Hary. p. cm. — (Etudes sur le judaïsme médiéval ; v. 38) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-17382-8 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Judeo-Arabic language— Dialects—Egypt. 2. Judeo-Arabic literature—Egypt—History and criticism. 3. Jews— Egypt—Languages. I. Title. II. Series.

PJ5079.5.E49H37 2009 492.7’70962—dc22 2009003328

ISSN 1568-5004 ISBN 978 90 04 17382 8

© Copyright 2009 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.

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ÌÈÈÁÏ Ï„·ÈÈ ÈÁ‡ „·ÎÏ ȯ‰ Èχ

In memory of my father Meir Hary (1924–2003)

In recognition of my grandmother Rachel Hary (1903–1987)

and in honor of my brother Eli Harry (1950– )

CONTENTS

List of Figures and Tables...... xi Preface...... xiii Technical Notes...... xix Introduction...... xxiii

PART I JUDEO-ARABIC: THE LANGUAGE OF ARABIC-SPEAKING JEWS

Chapter One – The Jewish Linguistic Spectrum...... 5 The Sociolinguistics of Jewish Varieties...... 5 Issues of Terminology ...... 8 The Emergence and Development of Jewish Varieties...... 13 Crossing Religious Boundaries...... 16 The Characteristics of Jewish Varieties ...... 19 A List of Jewish Varieties...... 25

Chapter Two – Judeo-Arabic within the Jewish Linguistic Spectrum...... 29 An Overview of Judeo-Arabic...... 29 The History of Judeo-Arabic...... 32 The Structure of Judeo-Arabic...... 37 The Judeo-Arabic Continuum ...... 39 The Diachronic Development of Judeo-Arabic Continuglossia ...... 41 The Current State of Judeo-Arabic...... 44 CONTENTS

Chapter Three – The Translation of Sacred Texts into Judeo-Arabic (the ¡ar˙) ...... 51 Translation and Issues of Sacredness...... 52 The Translator’s Dilemma...... 57 The Development of the ¡ar˙ ...... 60 The Cairo Collection...... 63 Previous Studies on the ¡ar˙...... 65 The Framework for the Linguistic Analysis of the ¡ar˙...... 68 Head-to-Toe Scanning...... 74 The Translation Continuum...... 83 The Work of the ¡ar˙an...... 85

Chapter Four – Spoken Egyptian Judeo-Arabic: The Evidence from the ¡ar˙ Texts...... 91 Spoken Egyptian Judeo-Arabic — An Introduction...... 91 Methodology...... 93 1. Phonetics and Phonology...... 100 2. Morphology ...... 112 3. Syntax ...... 125 4. Lexicon ...... 131 5. Summary of Colloquial Features of Spoken Egyptian Judeo-Arabic...... 134

Chapter Five – Additional Linguistic Issues of the ¡ar˙ Tradition...... 137 Issue One: Pseudocorrections ...... 137 Issue Two: The Theoretical Background of the Use of Hebrew and Aramaic Components in Judeo-Arabic...... 144 Cases of Interference in Direction A...... 148 Cases of Interference in Direction B...... 153 Issue Three: The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon in the ¡ur¥˙...156 Summary...... 159

viii CONTENTS

PART II A LINGUISTIC MODEL OF THE JUDEO-ARABIC TRANSLATIONS OF SACRED TEXTS

Chapter Six – Applying the Model...... 163 Introductory Notes ...... 163 Methodological Notes...... 165 Dynamic Literal/Interpretive Linguistic Tension: Complex Cases...... 166 Calque Translations...... 178 The Organization of the Examples...... 182

Chapter Seven – The Phrase and the Word Levels...... 183 Word-for-Word Translation...... 183 Word Order: Syntactic Adaptation...... 188 Word Order: Adverbs...... 192 Word Order: Numerals...... 198 Lexicon: Semantic Considerations...... 200 Lexicon: Sound/Appearance Considerations...... 205

Chapter Eight – The Morphosyntactic Level...... 213 Negation: Nominal ...... 213 Negation: Verbal...... 215 Prepositions ...... 219 Coordinating Particles and Conjunctions...... 231 Conditional Particles...... 234 Independent Personal Pronouns...... 237 Pronominal Suffixes...... 238 Relative Pronouns...... 240 Demonstrative Pronouns ...... 244 Interrogative Pronouns and Particles...... 248 Verb Conjugation: Infinitives...... 250 Verb Conjugation: Finite Verbs...... 256

ix CONTENTS

Cases: Accusative ...... 257 Cases: Directional ...... 264 Definiteness...... 266 Agreement: Number ...... 274 Agreement: Gender...... 280 Tense and Aspect...... 287 Mood ...... 293 Voice: Passive ...... 295 Numerals with Counted Nouns ...... 299

Chapter Nine – The Segment Level ...... 303 Assimilation...... 304 Emphatization and Deemphatization...... 305 Elision ...... 306

Orthographic Marking of the Glides ...... 307 Diacritic Marks...... 310 Hebrew-Influenced Orthography...... 311 Summary...... 327

Bibliography...... 329 Index ...... 347

x LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figure 1 Periodization of Judeo-Arabic...... 34 Figure 2 The Judeo-Arabic Continuum...... 38 Figure 3 The Continuglossic Nature of Judeo-Arabic...... 42 Figure 4 The Deviation/Literal Continuum of Definiteness...... 68 Figure 5 The Interpretive/Literal T-M-A Continuum...... 70 Figure 6 The Interpretive/Literal Continuum...... 70 Figure 7-1 The Phrase Continuum...... 71 Figure 7-2 The Lexical Continuum I...... 71 Figure 7-3 The Lexical Continuum II...... 72 Figure 7-4 The Morphosyntactic Continuum...... 72 Figure 8-1 The Word Level Continuum...... 75 Figure 8-2 The Segmental Continuum...... 75 Figure 9 The Less Literal/More Literal Continuum...... 85 Figure 10 What Happens in the Process of Translation?...... 86 Figure 11 The ¡ar˙an’s Work...... 87 Figure 12 The Development of the ≠im in Urban Egyptian Arabic...... 96 Figure 13 Direction A: Hebrew and Aramaic Are the Recipient Languages ...... 145 Figure 14 Direction B: Arabic Is the Recipient Language...... 146

Table 1 The Translation of Hebrew Ϙ in Genesis and Exodus...... 72 Table 2 The Translation of Hebrew ÈϘ· ÚÓ˘ in Genesis and Exodus...... 73 Table 3 The Example from the Passover Haggadah...... 76 Table 4 The Linguistic Model of the Analysis of the ¡ur¥˙ ...... 81–82

PREFACE

This book is about Arabic-speaking Jews, what and how they write and speak, and how they composed and used their liturgical or sacred writings in the past. How did I come to write such a book? Scholars at times explore issues that are deeply meaningful to them, and at other times they investigate topics that are as far removed from them as possible. When I wrote about Arabic-speaking Jews previously, I did not consider it to be a topic I was personally involved with. However, when I sat down to write the preface to this book, I realized that this topic is, after all, very personal to me. Despite my best efforts to be objective in my work, I know that biases probably remain of which I am unaware. Thus, I begin by situating myself in relationship to the material about which I am writing by establishing my background and making explicit my motives for writing this book. Growing up in Haifa, Israel, in the 1960s was not an easy task for a boy who was searching for his own identities, caught between the conflicting worlds of Jews and Arabs, Ashkenazim and Sephardim, secular and religious communities, and the like. My mother, Miriam Rebensaft, and her family had fled Nazi Germany in 1936, saving their lives, but not their Berlin middle-class status. The family settled in Bat-Galim, a small community in Haifa on the Mediterranean coast that absorbed many German Jews. The family remained proud of its German roots. My maternal grandmother Alice never bothered to learn Hebrew. She considered herself German and struggled to get along with the locals—Jews and Arabs—whom she referred to as diese barbarischen asiatischen Leute (these barbaric people from Asia). I was continually amazed by her bluntness. PREFACE

My grandmother also objected to my mother’s marriage to my father, Meir Hary. His father Haim Hary, a staunch Zionist, had been raised in Brody, a city in present-day Ukraine, around the turn of the twentieth century. With a degree in architecture from the University of Vienna, Haim Hary had come to then-Palestine to “build” Haifa. But he was not a “total” Ashkenazi, or Jew of Central and Eastern European descent.1 Although Haim came from Brody, it was well known that his family’s origins could be traced back to sixteenth-century Safad, at that time the center of Jewish intellectual life in Ottoman Palestine. Furthermore, Haim’s third wife, Rachel, my paternal grandmother, who had been born in Haifa, had a grandfather from Morocco, which also gave my father Sephardi origins. It was hard enough for my grandmother Alice to live in “the Orient,” as she called it, but to let her daughter marry a non-Ashkenazi was beyond her understanding.2 The marriage took place, however, and my grandmother learned to accept her son-in-law. Our household, though, was very German. When I first went to Berlin in 1977, following my mother’s early death, I was invited to breakfast by her surviving cousin, who served weich gekochtes Ei (soft-boiled egg) with the typical small silver spoon. I responded, “This is just like Israel,” not realizing that there was nothing Israeli about the soft-boiled eggs or the spoon, and that in fact I had been raised with a strong German cultural influence. I grew up in a family that always aimed to provide the children with a better education in order to improve the family’s socioeconomic situation amid the troubled economy of Israel at that time. I was sent to one of the best semiprivate schools in Israel, The Hebrew Reali School in Haifa. The atmosphere in the school, which thrived on

1 The term Ashkenazi is itself problematic and worthy of analysis; compare my discussion of the terms Mizrahi, Sephardi, and “Arab Jews” on pp. 30–32, below. 2 I am fortunate to have found my mother’s diary after her death in 1976, in which she described, with much agony, the difficult situation in which she found herself when considering marriage. xiv PREFACE snobbish Ashkenazi elite culture, did not look favorably upon frenkim, the derogatory Hebrew term for non-Ashkenazim in the 1960s, or upon Christian and Muslim Arabs. Considering that the non-Ashkenazi origin of our family was ignored and the Moroccan background practi- cally denied, there was no surprise that I completely identified with my German heritage and saw myself as such. Nevertheless, I was attracted to the Arabic language. Trying to un- derstand the “other” intrigued me from a young age. I heard at home and in school that Arabs were “bad” and that “we could not trust them,” yet I sometimes heard my uncles speaking in Arabic with my grandmother Rachel, and from time to time saw Arab friends from Haifa coming and going in our apartment. I studied Arabic seriously in high school and majored in Arabic and Islamic studies. I used Arabic during my military service and then studied it at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of California, Berkeley, where I earned my doctorate. Choosing Judeo-Arabic as my primary area of research closed a circle for me, because I finally got to explore the religiolect which was used by my grandmother Rachel’s relatives in Morocco, as well as by many of my fellow Israelis. Although many scholars of Judeo-Arabic are native speakers of the religiolect or at least had heard it at home, growing up I only heard a little bit of German in addition to Hebrew. By studying Judeo-Arabic, I am in a sense reclaiming my Moroccan roots, and this is one of the reasons that motivated me to write this book. It is in this context and these circumstances that I situate myself and my research on Judeo-Arabic. In acknowledgment of my heritage, I dedicate this book to the memory of my father Meir Hary Ï¢Ê, in recognition of my paternal grandmother Rachel Hary Ï¢Ê, and in honor of my loving brother Eli. The work on this project began in 1994, when I was first introduced to the Cairo Collection. As explained in chapter 3 (pp. 63–65), the collection consists of more than one hundred photocopied manuscripts and is housed at the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts in the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem. The manu-

xv PREFACE scripts contain mainly Jewish liturgical texts written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Judeo-Arabic. Many of them are ¡ur¥˙, which are verbatim translations of sacred religious and liturgical Hebrew/Aramaic texts into Judeo-Arabic, and in this case the Egyptian (mostly Cairene) variety of Judeo-Arabic. I started to publish articles about the nature of these translations and soon it became apparent that the writing of a volume or two was warranted. This book is the first, dealing with theoretical issues concerning these texts. The next volume, Sacred Texts: The Tradition of the ¡ar˙ in Egyptian Judeo-Arabic, with Critical Editions and Translations of the Book of Genesis, the Book of Esther, and the Passover Haggadah, due to appear in 2009, includes critical editions of three sample ¡ur¥˙ along with their translations into English and a linguistic introduction and commentary. I could not have completed such a project without the enormous help that I received from family and friends. I wish to thank my closest friend, Martin J. Wein, who read parts of the book and helped me shape some of my ideas about Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religiolects. Working with him on a separate project on these religiolects enriched me in ways beyond description. Martin has always been a source of love, energy, and intellectual challenge. I have also enjoyed many conversations about Judeo-Arabic with friends and colleagues: David Blumenthal, Piero Capelli, Rkia Cornell, Vincent Cornell, Shoshana Felman, Ruby Lal, Jeff Lesser, Frank Lewis, Deborah Lipstadt, Roxani Margariti, Gordon Newby, Yaron Peleg, Marina Rustow, Jacob Wright, and Ofra Yeglin. I thank Nick Fabian, Illan Gonen, Gene McGarry, and Michael Gugenheimer, who not only edited and proofread different chapters of the book, but also offered valuable comments and ideas. I would also like to thank the following colleagues, friends, and students, who helped me with different sections of the book at various stages: Angelika Bammer, Elitzur Bar-Asher, Moshe Bar-Asher, Sarah Benor, Michael Berger, Joshua Blau, Shmuel Bolozky, Alan Cienki, Abraham David, David Engel, María A. Gallego, Ophira Gamliel, Elena xvi PREFACE

Glaznov-Corrigan, Noa David, Sander Gilman, Galia Hatav, Nate Hoffer, Geoffrey Horowitz, Shlomo Izre’el, George Jochnowitz, Joshua Keller, Geoffrey Khan, Rina Kreitman, Damon Lynch, Aharon Maman, Meira Polliack, Emily Pollokoff, Gabi Rosenbaum, Ora Schwartzwald, Elana Shohamy, Doron Shultziner, Robert Smith, Debra Spitulnik, Devin Stewart, Sasson Somekh, Norman Stillman, Joseph Tedghi, Yosef Tobi, Don Tuten, Ofra Tirosh-Becker, and Sarah Willen.

Friends and family stood by me during the long process of writing this book and always bestowed on me emotional support and love: Ursula Blumenthal, Shuki Cohen, the five Harys in Los Angeles (Chris, David, Eliane, Goni, and Tania), Kimberly Katz, Raphy Marom, Wendy Newby, Arnon Rolnick, Mark Tanner, Tsipi Wagner, and especially my father, Meir Hary Ï¢Ê, who always kept asking when the book would appear; also my brother Eli and my sister-in-law Rachel, my nephews, Yuval and Tomer, and their partners Anat and Rony, my great-nephew Yonatan, my niece Mika, and my cousin Yael. Many thanks go to Paul Fenton, the editor of the series, to Michiel Klein Swormink, Publishing Manager, and his team at the Brill office in Boston, Michael Mozina and Jennifer Pavelko, who were cooperative and engaging throughout the process of bringing the book to print. I am also grateful to the units at Emory University of which I am a member: the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies, the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies, and the Program in Linguistics. All have been consistently helpful and supportive of my research and teaching. Additionally, the Social Science Research Council funded the beginning of this study in 1995; the Emory University Research Com- mittee also contributed funds to the project in 1995; the Institute of Critical International Studies at Emory College of Arts and Sciences funded several international trips connected to this study; the Jewish Studies Enrichment Fund and the Woodruff Fund both helped with the editing; and the Emory College of Arts and Sciences and Emory Graduate School helped finance the completion of this book.

xvii PREFACE

Thanks also go to Sulaiman Jubran (chair) and colleagues in the Department of Arabic at Tel Aviv University, where I taught in 2001. I would like to acknowledge the helpful and dedicated staff at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies in Yarnton Manor at Oxford University, where I spent the spring and summer of 2005 as a Visiting Skirball Fellow. The staff at the Bodleian Library in Oxford was also very helpful. I am also grateful to the staff at the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, who were helpful with assisting me with ms. HB 15. Finally, the Israeli Academic Center in Cairo and especially its admin- istrative and financial director, Amr Zakarya, as well as its general director, Gabi Rosenbaum, gave me an emotional and intellectual home during my visits to Egypt: ‰Î¯·‰ ÏÚ ÌÏÂΠ‡·È. People who know me are familiar with my love of a good cup of cappuccino. I cannot complete my acknowledgments without express- ing my gratitude to the staff in several cafés on three continents, where I spent countless hours writing this book: Midcity Cafe, Midtown Starbucks, and Octane Coffee Bar and Lounge in Atlanta; Caffè Nero on Broad Street in Oxford; and Cafeneto and Saquella Café in central Tel Aviv.

Atlanta, December 2008 Benjamin H. Hary

xviii TECHNICAL NOTES

(i) In this volume I use a broad phonemic conventional transcription, which is employed regularly in Middle Eastern and Islamic scholarship, for all the Judeo-Arabic citations. The citations include the Judeo- Arabic spelling in Hebrew characters, followed by a phonemic tran- scription when deemed necessary. Then follows the citation from the manuscripts (in bold) and the folio and the line numbers (all in parentheses), succeeded by the translation into English in single quotation marks. For example, ‰Ï‚Ú˙Ò‡ /ista>galna/ (15 29a,8) ‘we hastened’ is cited from ms. 151 (Genesis), folio 29a, line 8; and ¯˘‡„Á /˙idaa¡ar/ (74 23,17) ‘eleven’ is cited from ms. 74 (Haggadah), folio 23, line 17. In some chapters (such as 4 and 9), a more precise transcription is needed, so the allophonic (narrower) transcription is displayed, as is customary, between square brackets [ ], while the (broader) phonemic transcription appears between slashes / /. (ii) The transcription normally does not indicate initial glottal stops for the following reasons: first, it is not customary in works of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies; second, the phoneme is not always attested in the spoken variety; and finally, Wehr’s dictionary of standard Arabic (1976, 1994) uses the practice adopted here. Thus, in the following examples the initial glottal stop is not marked in the transcription: ‰Á‡ /i˙na/ (15 10a,16) ‘we’ and Â˙‡ /intu/ (74 14,1) ‘you (masc. pl.).’ The same occurs with nouns that follow the definite article: /al-um¥r/ ‘the things,’ rather than /al-

1 For some peculiarities with the numbering of the folios in ms. 15 (especially folios 0 and 23-1), see Hary 2009, the critical edition of Genesis. TECHNICAL NOTES

Since the transcription is often based on Spoken Egyptian Judeo- Arabic, if the initial glottal stop comes from an Old Arabic qåf, it is indicated in the transcription for historical reasons, as is the custom in Hinds and Badawi’s dictionary of Egyptian Arabic (1986): ÂÓ˜ /<ømo/ (3 4,7) ‘his people’ and √‡ˆÂ˜ /ala/ ‘on’ and /fi/ ‘in’ are usually denoted without the final long /å/ or long /•/; however, ‰Ï‡ /ila/ ‘to,’ also the definite direct object marker, may be transcribed as /ilå/ when deemed necessary. The relative pronoun È≤χ is transcribed /allaƒ•/ with long /•/ because it reflects Classical Arabic in the texts of the ¡ur¥˙. (vi) The transcription for Judeo-Arabic is as follows: For consonants: √ ø, // Ê /n/ À /®/ ” /s/ ⁄ /\/ Á /h/ à /g/ ‘ /¡/ · /f/ … /t/ or /h/ Õ /˙/ ’ /ß/ ‚ /q/ Ë /w/ Œ /x/ ÷ /∂/ „ /k/ Í /y/ œ /d/

xx TECHNICAL NOTES

For long vowels: Í /•/, /∑/ Ë /¥/, /ø/ « /å/ For short vowels: /i/, /e/ /u/, /o/ /a/ (vii) The transcription for Hebrew follows the guidelines of The Jewish Quarterly Review. Note that final ‰ is not marked in the transcription except for established terms such as Torah and Haggadah. (viii) The following abbreviations are used in the volume: fem. feminine p. page l. line pl. plural masc. masculine pp. pages ms. manuscript sg. singular mss. manuscripts vol. volume n. note

xxi

INTRODUCTION

Translations of Hebrew and Aramaic sacred texts into Jewish languages, religiolects,1 and varieties have been historically widespread throughout the Jewish world. Among Judeo-Arabic speakers, the tradition of such translations is known as the ¡ar˙2 (pl. ¡ur¥˙). The present study analyzes the intricacies of this genre of translating Hebrew and Aramaic sacred texts into Egyptian Judeo-Arabic by examining specific eighteenth- and nineteenth-century manuscripts of the ¡ur¥˙. Haim Blanc, who has written extensively on Egyptian Judeo-Arabic, wrote in 1981 (n. 5) that “A Judeo-Arabic literary tradition peculiar to Egypt must have existed, but has not been investigated in detail.” My publication of megillat p¥r•m il-mißriyy•n ‘the Cairene Purim Scroll’ in 1992, and now the present study are attempts to fill this lacuna described by Blanc almost thirty years ago. This study, however, does not attempt to reconstruct the original ¡ur¥˙ of the Jews of Egypt, whose use of the genre has a long history that is still unclear. Rather, the study aims to provide a plausible representation of what this translation tradition might have been like in Egypt in the period under study. The volume also attempts to shed light on the linguistic peculiarities of the genre. It develops a linguistic model of the process of translation of these sacred texts. Rather than viewing these texts as merely literal or “verbatim” translations, as has been the generally accepted approach,

1 For the definition of the term religiolect, see pp. 12–13. 2 The literal meaning of the term is ‘interpretation,’ ‘explanation,’ or ‘commentary.’ See Wehr 1994:541. INTRODUCTION this study traces in great detail the literal/interpretive linguistic tension with which the translators/interpreters/composers of these texts, known as ¡ar˙anim, actually struggled in their work. In addition to the desire to provide a verbatim translation of a sacred text, these translators also had to consider the linguistic parameters of the target religiolect and make decisions that affected their readership’s ability to read and use the translation. The book is divided into two parts. Part 1 investigates Judeo-Arabic, the language of Arabic-speaking Jews in general. Part 2 develops a linguistic model of the Judeo-Arabic translations of sacred texts. Chapter 1 sets the stage for the analysis by summarizing the spectrum of Jewish linguistic usage in historical and sociolinguistic terms. It challenges definitions of generally accepted terminology and establishes new terms such as Jewish-defined language, majority language, (language) variety, linguistic intelligibility, religiolect, castelect, and more. The chapter also tracks the emergence and development of Jewish languages, followed by a discussion of instances where Christians and Muslims have participated in the Jewish linguistic spectrum and adopted some of its usages. Furthermore, the chapter maps the prototype of a Jewish language and lists the various Jewish languages mentioned in the literature. I must emphasize that my analysis employs a measure of social construction, for lack of a better term, in grouping together a variety of languages/dialects/varieties under the rubric of “Jewish languages.” The notion of “Jewish languages,” “Christian languages,” or “Muslim languages” provides a useful analytic tool, but ultimately does not constitute an “element in the world.” Rather, it is an artificial grouping of an array of language formations that we can productively analyze because of the threads that link them religiously, linguistically, historically, and socioculturally. This is how I would like to clarify the distinction between commonplace notions of “Jewishness” and the kind of analytic grouping at the heart of my sociolinguistic analysis. In her effort to be a careful and responsible historian, Stern (2008) xxiv INTRODUCTION has adopted a similar approach, attempting to destabilize archaeologists’ prior assumptions about what counts as “Jewish” or what makes something “Jewish.” She has claimed that “[r]eliance on essentialist or syncretistic models of cultural dynamics has limited past evaluations of ancient Jewish populations.” Using the methods of historical lin- guistics, among other tools, she has reexamined data on North African Jews and demonstrated “how direct comparison of Jewish material evidence with that of its neighbors allows for a reassessment of what the category of ‘Jewish’ might have meant in different North African locations and periods.” According to Stern, this examination “allows for a more informed and complex understanding of Jewish cultural distinctiveness.”3 Chapter 2 explores Judeo-Arabic within the general framework of Jewish religiolects. It reviews the history of Judeo-Arabic and analyzes its structure, while discussing the language continuum used by Judeo- Arabic writers and speakers and tracing its diachronic development. This chapter also tackles some additional terminological issues, especially with respect to the denotation of Arabic-speaking Jews. Finally, the chapter offers some new insights into the status of Judeo- Arabic today. Chapter 3 examines the literary genre of the translation of sacred Hebrew and Aramaic texts into Jewish religiolects. It considers the perceived sanctity of the translated texts and demonstrates how translators dealt with the constant linguistic tension between their desire to provide a verbatim translation of the sacred text and their need to adapt the translation to the linguistic parameters of the target religiolect so that readers could comprehend them. The chapter analyzes the reasons why such translations were made and traces the evolution of the ¡ar˙ in Judeo-Arabic, especially in North Africa and Egypt beginning in the fifteenth century, while also taking into account Saadia’s

3 I thank Sarah Willen, who called my attention to Stern’s work and provided me with the quoted text.

xxv INTRODUCTION earlier translation of the in the tenth century. This is followed by a review of previous scholarship on the ¡ar˙ and a discussion of the Cairo Collection, from which several manuscripts relevant to this book are taken. This chapter then offers a linguistic method for analyzing the ¡ar˙ that is based on scanning the text on several linguistic levels, and then establishing a continuum of least-to-most-literary translations. Examples are provided from various categories and linguistic features. The chapter concludes with a description of various mechanisms that the ¡ar˙anim in Judeo-Arabic used when translating sacred texts. Chapter 4 departs to some degree from the previous analysis and attempts to demonstrate how a careful and thorough linguistic analysis of the ¡ur¥˙ can contribute to our understanding of the spoken variety among Egyptian Jews in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century. In this chapter I examine selected features of spoken Egyptian Judeo- Arabic in phonetics and phonology, morphology, syntax, and the lexicon. The chapter summarizes the characteristics of spoken Egyptian Judeo-Arabic that are reflected in the texts of the ¡ur¥˙, and then explores how these characteristics set this variety apart from the spoken Egyptian Arabic varieties used by Christians and Muslims. Finally, the chapter addresses methodological issues connected to the reconstruction of the spoken variety used by Egyptian Jews, as it may be extracted from the texts of the ¡ur¥˙, and demonstrates the connection between the orthography and phonetics/phonology as well as its limitations. It also points out similar orthographical trends in today’s publications in modern Egyptian dialect. Thirty years ago Haim Blanc argued that the dialect spoken by Cairene Jews was not distinct from the dialect spoken by Christians and Muslims, as opposed to the situation in other regional varieties of spoken Judeo-Arabic. For example, Blanc argued that Baghdadi Judeo- Arabic was indeed distinct in many ways from Christian and Muslim Baghdadi dialects,4 which I now call religiolects. Since the publication

4 See Blanc 1964 and Rabin et al. 1979:49–52. xxvi INTRODUCTION of Blanc’s work, additional texts have become available for the exam- ination of Late and Modern Egyptian Judeo-Arabic. In 1992 I published the beginning of my investigation of Judeo-Arabic; in the present study I continue that work while searching for colloquial elements that are present in the written texts of the religiolect. Furthermore, Gabriel Rosenbaum conducted extensive recordings of modern Egyptian Judeo-Arabic and reported on his findings in 2002 (see bibliography). All of these studies affirm that spoken Egyptian Judeo-Arabic is distinct from the varieties used by Christians and Muslims in Egypt. Chapter 5, too, is an excursus and explores the use of pseudo- corrections in Judeo-Arabic in general and in the Egyptian ¡ur¥˙ in particular. It demonstrates how both hypercorrections and hypo- corrections, two different types of pseudocorrections, are used in the texts, while also discussing the implications of the standardization of pseudocorrections in Egyptian Judeo-Arabic for both the literary and the spoken varieties. This chapter develops a broad theoretical model for the use of Hebrew and Aramaic components in Jewish religiolects, focusing in particular on Judeo-Arabic. Using Uriel Weinreich’s work on languages in contact, this model demonstrates how components are transferred into Judeo-Arabic from two different directions, explaining the reasons for each direction and giving examples of each direction from the various Egyptian ¡ur¥˙. Finally, the chapter provides a discussion of Hebrew and Aramaic lexical items employed in the Egyptian ¡ur¥˙. Part 2 of this book offers an in-depth analysis of the linguistic model of the Egyptian Judeo-Arabic ¡ur¥˙ (see table 4, pp. 81–82), as introduced more generally in chapter 3 through hundreds of examples extracted from the texts of the ¡ur¥˙. These examples, presented according to several levels, categories, and features, demonstrate the constant literal/interpretive tension in which the ¡ar˙anim found themselves. Most of the examples provided in this volume are based upon seven manuscripts, four of which are taken from the Cairo Collection:

xxvii INTRODUCTION

• Ms. HB 15 (=CAJS Rare ms. 255 5), located at the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia – a partial ¡ar˙ of the book of Genesis • Ms. 1302, Jerusalem Ben Zvi Institute – the book of Esther • Mss. 3, 74, 91, and 93 from the Cairo Collection – Egyptian Judeo-Arabic Passover Haggadah (located in Jerusalem) The critical editions, translations, and analyses of these manuscripts will appear in Hary, Sacred Texts: The Tradition of the ¡ar˙ in Egyptian Judeo-Arabic, with Critical Editions and Translations of the Book of Genesis, the Book of Esther, and the Passover Haggadah, forthcoming in 2009. Chapter 6 explores the methodological considerations related to the organization of these examples and applies the linguistic model to complex examples from the ¡ur¥˙ in order to demonstrate how the ¡ar˙anim translated their sacred texts. The chapter also analyzes the ultimate verbatim translations, known as calque translations, and demonstrates how they were incorporated into the ¡ur¥˙. Chapters 7 through 9 arrange the examples, taken from the texts of the ¡ur¥˙, in descending units of grammatical structure, from the phrase level down through the lexical, morphosyntactic, and segment levels in thirteen categories, focusing on various linguistic features. Chapter 7 lists examples at the phrase and word levels, chapter 8 treats the morphosyntactic level, and chapter 9 deals with the segment level. The book concludes with an extensive bibliography and an index which primarily covers part 1. Because part 2 offers hundreds of examples, the index covers the general themes of the linguistic categories and features (which are also found in table 4 on pp. 81–82). The index also covers references from chapters 1 through 6 to Saadia Gaon’s

5 In fact, ms. 255 is the new number assigned to the manuscript. It was originally catalogued by Glatzer as ms. 317. This manuscript is actually a ¡ar˙ of the Torah, with some parts missing. The manuscript also includes haf†arot, which are chapters from the Prophets read in synagogues after the weekly portion of the Torah. xxviii INTRODUCTION translation (tafs•r), as well as the Protestant Arabic translation of the Hebrew Bible; however, these references from chapters 7 through 9 are not indexed, because they are cited as alternative translations to the ¡ur¥˙. Today, Judeo-Arabic is an endangered religiolect, perhaps on the verge of extinction. Although the SIL International Ethnologue project maintains that as of the mid-1990s there were close to 500,000 Judeo- Arabic speakers, that number has declined today to just under 400,000 speakers, and it is estimated that the last native speaker of the variety will die this century. Therefore, I view the research on Judeo-Arabic language, culture, and history as a “salvage operation” to record and preserve one of the most fascinating phenomena in Jewish, Arab, and Middle Eastern cultures.

xxix

PART I

JUDEO-ARABIC: THE LANGUAGE OF ARABIC-SPEAKING JEWS

CHAPTER ONE THE JEWISH LINGUISTIC SPECTRUM

This chapter investigates the spectrum of Jewish linguistic usage in historical and sociolinguistic terms. It opens with an examination of how sociolinguistics and history have inquired into when, how, and why Jews have written and spoken differently from their neighbors. It then tracks the emergence and development of “Jewish languages.”1 This is followed by a discussion of instances where Christians and Muslims have adopted Jewish linguistic usages, leading to a proposal for some modifications in the accepted terminology. The chapter goes on to map the prototype of a Jewish language and lists the various Jewish languages mentioned in the literature. Finally, definitions of several terms are given, including Jewish-defined language, majority language, (language) variety, linguistic intelligibility, religiolect, castelect, and more.

The Sociolinguistics of Jewish Varieties Sociolinguistic studies attempt to analyze language use according to variables such as place of birth and language acquisition, place of domicile, age, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic factors, occupation, education, and so forth. An important variable which is often overlooked is religious affiliation and identity. Indeed, Jews almost everywhere tend to speak and write somewhat differently

1 I use the term “Jewish language/s” in quotation marks here because I have doubts about its accuracy. This is how it is meant to be used throughout the book. Later in the chapter I coin the term Jewish-defined languages. CHAPTER ONE from their (non-Jewish)2 neighbors, in the same way that young people tend to speak and write differently from the elderly. Although this study emphasizes the connection between religion and language, this does not mean that Jewish varieties need to be examined only through the prism of religion. Jewish languages are also migration languages, and they are also varieties of their own majority languages. Thus Judeo-Italian, for example, in addition to being a Jewish language, is also a migration language and a variety of Italian. The distinct features of a language used by Jews can range from as little as a few Hebrew or Aramaic words, to thoroughgoing linguistic innovations in all areas of the language, resulting in a language form

2 The term “non-Jews” may have developed in the United States as a politically correct euphemism for the traditional Jewish terms goyim and shiksas as a result of their negative overtones. While the intention was positive, the category of “non-Jews” and its derivatives are still problematic. They continue an awkward dichotomy and play down differences among various “non-Jews,” so that all people who are not Jewish are lumped into one group. Clearly, it is not useful to group all Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and adherents of other faiths into a single category of “non-Jews.” In addition, the term is a definition ex negativo, lacking any positive descriptive content. People should preferably be defined by what they are, rather than by what they are not. “Non-Jews” generally do not use the term to describe themselves, except in Jewish-defined contexts, e.g., in Israel. For example, a woman in China (with no connection to Jews) would not call herself a “non-Jew” when describing her identity. The term also effects a division of humankind into two groups, along the lines of traditional rabbinical theological thought; “non-Jews” is thus really a nonacademic religious term. Since the academic world should be multi-religious and/or secular, with a strong critical tradition, the use of specific religious terminology (such as “nonbelievers,” “sinners,” “the righteous,” “the enlightened,” or “non-Jews”) would be inappropriate. In addition, the term leaves no room for interreligious syncretism, or for people who affiliate with several religions at the same time–for example, people who can be considered to be both Jewish and Christian (Wein 2005, 2008). Finally, this term implies that Jews can be grouped easily into a single category. However, Moroccan Jews, for example, can as easily be grouped with Moroccan Muslims (in terms of some aspects of food, dress, language, for example) as with Ashkenazim, or even seen as a separate group. Thus, his dichotomy flattens any in-group Jewish differences. Consequently, I have avoided this term whenever possible, and I only use it for convenience to avoid cumbersome circumlocutions. I thank Martin J. Wein, personal communication.

6 THE JEWISH LINGUISTIC SPECTRUM that is largely unintelligible3 to others. The spectrum of Jewish linguistic practice thus runs the gamut from some Yiddish words in the lexicon of secular Jews in America today to languages like Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-Spanish, and Yiddish.4 Consequently, the field of Jewish lin- guistics needs to explore questions such as the following: • What constitutes a Jewish language? • Do Jews speak different languages, dialects, or “religiolects”?5 • What are the similarities and the differences between Jewish languages in various times and places? • How and why do Christians and Muslims use elements of Jewish languages? • How do Jewish languages differ from their related co-territorial counterparts,6 and in what ways are the former imbued with Jewish “culture”? • What role does language play in the emergence of a collective identity and the creation of community boundaries? • How do non-Jews view language use among Jews?

3 See below, pp. 10–11, on the issue of mutual intelligibility. 4 Birnbaum (1979) and Weinreich (1980) were among the first to discuss this phenomenon. Many scholars followed: Paper 1978; Rabin et al. 1979; Bunis 1981; Fishman 1981, 1985a, 1985b; Gold 1981, 1989; Rabin 1981; Wexler 1981, 2006; Hary 2004; Myhill 2004; Spolsky and Benor 2006; Hary and Wein 2008. Benor (2008) has critiqued the literature and offered important insights. 5 See below, pp. 12–13, for a definition of the term religiolect. 6 The term co-territorial language has been used to denote the dominant language used alongside “Jewish languages” in a specific area. The term is problematic because the dichotomy it creates gives rise to the mistaken impression that one of the languages is more “real” while the other is “co-.” In other words, it leads to the perception of one language (the “co-”) as marked and the other as unmarked. The situation on the ground, in fact, is more complex, since Jews have been known to use several languages simultaneously, and have often even mixed their uses of the various languages. It is therefore best to employ the term majority language, which does not have a judgmental connotation.

7 CHAPTER ONE

Issues of Terminology Scholars have so far investigated about twenty7 Jewish languages. These range from Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-Berber, and Judeo-Persian, used by Jews in the Middle East, to Judeo-Italian, Judeo-Provençal, and Yiddish, which originated in Europe.8 In view of the sociolinguistic considerations mentioned above, the Jewish linguistic spectrum should also include any other distinctive modes of speech and writing used by Jews, in addition to the more than twenty or so Jewish languages. Jews develop such distinctive language forms out of a wish to distinguish themselves from their neighbors, or due to outside encouragement or pressure, depending on majority-minority dynamics. The distinctive features in question may involve aspects of Jewish ritual practice, cuisine, and fashion, or also specific characteristics of speech and writing. To take one example, Jewish language use in the Netherlands has received only scant scholarly attention to date, but further research into the matter, including a compilation of a corpus of written and spoken “Judeo-Dutch,” would no doubt reveal some interesting features of this language form. The same is true of many other language zones with a Jewish population, such as “Judeo-German” (Matras 1991), “Judeo-Polish” (Brzezina 1986), or “Judeo-Russian” (Verschik 2007), to name a few.9 It is probably impossible to define the concept of Jewish languages

7 A list of sixteen languages is provided in Rabin et al. 1979:58–66. 8 See below, pp. 25–27, for a list of Jewish languages. The languages on this list are all part of the Jewish linguistic spectrum; other varieties may be added to the spectrum. 9 When I was a visiting Skirball Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies in the spring of 2005, I gave two separate talks about the Jewish linguistic spectrum in Oxford and in Manchester. On both occasions people from Amsterdam approached me after the lecture, telling me that they had always noticed that the Dutch they spoke possessed some special features which, they assumed, were to be attributed to the fact that they were Jewish. See also Jacobs (2005:303–306) who has mentioned “Jewish Dutch” and other post-Yiddish “ethnolects.”

8 THE JEWISH LINGUISTIC SPECTRUM solely on the basis of linguistic considerations,1 0 as it is difficult to find linguistic criteria that are common to Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-Spanish, Judeo-Tat, and Yiddish, for example. In other words, it is difficult to conduct a comparative study of Jewish languages based on genetic1 1 or typological1 2 classifications: not all Jewish languages are genetically related (as are the Semitic languages, for example), nor do all possess common typological characteristics (such as the Subject-Object-Verb word order in Japanese and Turkish, for example, a feature which is usually also associated with other grammatical characteristics such as postpositions, adjective-noun order, and more). Jewish languages therefore need to be examined within a different framework where sociohistorical and sociolinguistic factors are also taken into account, since these languages share cultural commonalities.1 3 Norman Stillman (1991) may have been the first to make a serious study of this connection by showing parallels between Jewish and Muslim languages, although Haim Rabin had alluded earlier to Muslim and Christian languages (Rabin et al. 1979:42–43). Stillman demon- strated that the common bonds between Jewish and Muslim languages are the Hebrew script and the Hebrew/Aramaic vocabulary, and the Arabic script and Arabic vocabulary, respectively.

1 0 Thus, I adopt the same approach taken by S. Morag (Rabin et al. 1979:53) and M. Zand (ibid., 55). 1 1 By genetic classification I mean language families that are postulated to have originated from protolanguages, such as the Indo-European or Afro-Asiatic languages. 1 2 By typological classification I mean languages that share similar structural features. For example, if the usual word order in a language is Object-Verb, it will also tend to have post- rather than prepositions. These features are called implied universals. 1 3 Paper uses the term Kulturbund (1978:vii). I have reservations about this term since there is very little evidence for a strong Jewish Kulturbund in most periods in history. For example, marriages between Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews were banned in many places (e.g., Amsterdam), being considered mixed marriages. Furthermore, the term itself has associations with the Central European Romantic nationalism of the nineteenth century that I would like to avoid.

9 CHAPTER ONE

In light of this discussion, a sociolinguistic approach would appear to be more appropriate for Jewish languages than a purely linguistic approach. Furthermore, it is not clear whether the term language is in fact suitable for the entire Jewish linguistic spectrum. Certainly in some instances the term language would seem to be fully justified—for example, in the case of Yiddish, especially after its official standardiza- tion at the Czernovitz conference in Austria-Hungary in 1908. What constitutes a language that separates it from a dialect? What are the prerequisites of a speech form that turn it from a dialect into a language? The famous Yiddish phrase, “A language is a dialect with an army and a navy,” attributed to Max Weinreich,1 4 clearly does not answer these questions. Linguists in general prefer to use the term variety when they do not wish to commit themselves to either of the terms language or dialect. In fact, Joshua Fishman (1985) has convincingly demonstrated that there are no clear linguistic or social criteria that can be used to distinguish between a language and a dialect. The term variety is fuzzy and vague, and as such can describe ambiguous situations. Language has to be defined along linguistic, geographical, historical, political, religious, and sociological lines; the definition of a language as a collection of mutually intelligible dialects is inadequate for a number of reasons. First, mutual intelligibility is relative and needs to be examined along a continuum, not in absolute terms. For example, rather than saying that English and German are not mutually intelligible, it would be more fitting to argue that English and German are less mutually intelligible than German and Dutch. Second, mutual intel- ligibility is sometimes connected to issues of political power. In fact, we know of African tribes who claim that they do not understand a neighboring tribe, whereas the latter perfectly understands the former.

1 4 The actual quote is taken from Weinreich 1945:13, ÔÇ ËÈÓ Ë˜ÚÏÈÈ„ Ç Êȇ Íǯt˘ Ç ËÀ‡ÏÙ Ô‡ ÈÈӯÇ. Weinreich writes that he heard it from someone else; George Jochnowitz thinks that the latter may be Joshua Fishman.

10 THE JEWISH LINGUISTIC SPECTRUM

Upon closer examination, it turns out that the tribe that understands its neighbors’ speech possesses more political power. The “defending” tribe, in an effort to maintain its independence, argues that its members do not comprehend the language of the powerful neighboring tribe (Chambers and Trudgill 1998:3–5). Third, there are different degrees of understanding, depending on directionality. Indeed, it is claimed that Danes understand Norwegians better than Norwegians understand Danes. Finally, there are languages, e.g., in Scandinavia, that are mutually more intelligible than are some of the dialects of what is considered the same language, e.g., Arabic or Chinese. Thus, the definition of a language as a collection of mutually intelligible dialects is untenable. In sum, there is no sharp dividing line between a language and a dialect; the distinction between the two is fluid and depends on numerous variables, which may change over time. For example, the dialects spoken in southern Sweden today were deemed Danish until 1658, when this region of Denmark became part of Sweden. After forty years the same dialects were already termed Swedish. The new appellation was quite likely a result of the Swedish conquest, and not due to any significant changes in people’s speech habits. Thus, geographical, historical, and political, rather than linguistic factors caused the dialects to be called Swedish instead of Danish (ibid., 9–11). It is in fact doubtful whether in many cases it is even possible or advisable to determine if a certain speech variety is separate or not. For example, Benor shows that Orthodox Jewish English, also called “Yeshivish” or “Yinglish,” is variously considered to be a separate language, a dialect, or a jargon, while some do not notice anything that distinguishes it from other varieties of English. Linguists describe the various varieties and possible ideologies associated with them, irrespective of whether a given language variety can be considered “separate” from another.1 5

1 5 See Benor, Jewish Languages Listserv, March 4, 2005. I have been much influenced by Sarah Benor’s work in the field of the Jewish linguistic spectrum.

11 CHAPTER ONE

Overall, it is better to use the vague term variety or language variety rather than language.1 6 In the past I have also used a different term, ethnolect,1 7 in the context of Jewish varieties. However, the term “ethnic” is very problematic and has undergone several changes in meaning. In popular usage its meaning is close to “racial,” but the academic usage is very different. Thus, for example, “ethnicity”1 8 has been defined as a “named human population with a myth [emphasis mine] of common ancestry, shared memories and cultural elements, a link with a historic territory or homeland and a measure of solidarity” (Smith 1993:49).1 9 A better and more suitable term is religiolect, which I mentioned briefly in Hary 1992:xviii n. 1. The term religiolect avoids the messiness of “ethnicity” and relates directly to the religious backgrounds of the people who use this language variety. A religiolect is thus a language variety with its own history and development, which is used by a religious community.2 0 A Jewish

1 6 Gold and Prager have used the term lect: “In order to see the objects of our inquiry ranged in a continuum, we choose to speak of lects, which we do not arrange in any rank of preference … We collect data as we find it in any Jewish lect, even those whose distinguishing marks appear to be few” (Prager 1986:225). 1 7 See Hary 1992, 1995:74, 1996c:727–28, 1997a:35–36, 1997b:220, n. 2, 1999:67–68, and elsewhere. 1 8 The problems associated with the terms “ethnic,” “ethnicity,” and the like are the reason for placing them in quotation marks throughout this study. 1 9 This is one of the classic definitions of ethnicity. A. D. Smith is a theorist of nationalism, and so his definition needs to be understood in this context. 2 0 A special case may be that of Yiddish-speaking secular Jews of the first half of the twentieth century, for example, who might have been uncomfortable with the term religiolect in reference to their variety. However, the term religiolect describes not a personal identity of its speakers, but characteristics of a variety that had often been embedded before the rise of secularism. Furthermore, even secular Jews may resort to religious self-definition in group construction, e.g., Bundists, Folkists, or Zionists. The term religiolect, however, may not fit all religious communities. In India the term castelect is more suitable. Thus, Jewish Malayalam is one of many castelects of Kerala. The dichotomy, then, in Kerala is not necessarily between the various religious communities, but rather between /ambalakkår/ ‘those who go to temples,’ and /pal6l6ikkår/ ‘those who go to /pal6l6i/, prayer shrines, i.e., churches/mosques/synagogues.’

12 THE JEWISH LINGUISTIC SPECTRUM religiolect, then, is a spoken and/or written variety employed by the Jewish population of a specific area, although it later may extend also to other communities and areas (see below). Our knowledge of the Jewish religiolects of the past is inadequate, since in many cases scholars began to study them when it was too late and only a handful of speakers were still using them—or, worse still, they had already become extinct. New Jewish religiolects have been created in modern times, due in part to migration patterns, conversion, and an increase in Jewish identity. Some of these modern varieties (see below, p. 27) have only been investigated in part, if at all.

The Emergence and Development of Jewish Varieties2 1 Jewish varieties, we assume, developed in parts of the Diaspora from preexisting languages and were used in both written and spoken forms by Jews within their communities. Some may have developed as a result of the migration and dispersion of the Jews throughout Africa, Asia, and Europe during the early centuries of the Common Era (Birnbaum 1971:68). These varieties initially came into being out of a desire for integration into the non-Jewish environment, but later came to be a hallmark of “continuing Jewish consciousness and identity” (Ben-Sasson 1971:771). Put another way, the Jews’ initial adoption of a preexisting language in the Diaspora may have been an attempt to fit into their new environment, but later the language established itself as a Jewish variety, with Hebrew script, Hebrew and Aramaic linguistic elements, and other distinctive characteristics, thus becoming a symbol of Jewish identity and an actual obstacle to integration. It is also possible that Jewish varieties have developed as a result of conversions to Judaism, and not just as a result of Jewish migration. In other words, non-Jews who converted to Judaism or non-Jewish

2 1 I thank Martin J. Wein for some of the ideas expressed in this section and for our long conversations and debates about these issues. See also the discussion in Wexler 2006:xv–xix.

13 CHAPTER ONE members of Jewish or mixed households—e.g., manumitted slaves, servants, nannies—may also have contributed to the development of Jewish varieties. This latter point has often been ignored in Jewish studies. It should be reemphasized, therefore, that the strict differentiation between Jews and other communities and religious groups only emerged gradually. The historian H. H. Ben Sasson (1994:277) has the following to say about what the boundaries between Jews and non-Jews looked like in the period that produced such important Jewish varieties as Judeo- Aramaic and ancient Judeo-Greek (Yevanic): In the Second Temple era, the Jewish faith expanded as it had never before and has never since. Throughout the Roman Empire and beyond it, people adopted the Jewish faith or at least part of the Jewish way of life. Large sections of the Jewish people made it their concern to convert the heathen to Jewish monotheism and took pride in the fact that Jewish customs were to be found everywhere. The subsequent rise of Christianity did not immediately halt the expansion of emerging rabbinic Judaism. Apart from the conversion of two kingdoms to nonrabbinic forms of Judaism—Himyar in southern Arabia in the fifth century C.E. and Khazaria in southern Russia in the first half of the eighth century C.E.—there are numerous indications of nonrabbinic conversions to Judaism of Berber tribes in North Africa in the pre-Islamic period. In addition, a systematic rabbinic conversion effort seems to have been directed at slaves owned by Jews. This was also practical, since rabbinic law banned non-Jews from handling food in Jewish households. Rabbinic law encouraged circumcision and ritual immersion of slaves, i.e., formal conversion and liberation,2 2 and strongly discouraged their resale. When freed, these people became full-fledged Jews (Rosenbloom 1978:80). There are further indications that sexual

2 2 According to rabbinic law, if a non-Jewish slave is converted, s/he becomes free, because Jews are not allowed to hold Jewish slaves.

14 THE JEWISH LINGUISTIC SPECTRUM relations between slaveholders and slaves were not uncommon, and that these were sometimes resolved through full conversion and liberation of the slave, so that the resulting offspring were considered Jews.2 3 In the view of Ben Zion Wacholder (1956:106), there is sufficient documentation to establish that many if not all of the Judaized slaves were finally emancipated and absorbed by the Jewish population. A reasonable guess might be that between the seventh and the eleventh centuries Middle Eastern and North African Jewry doubled as a result of the proselyting of slaves. In the light of combined slave absorption and mass conversion, the rise of Judeo-Arabic on three continents as a giant among Jewish varieties is hardly surprising, with many speakers of Judeo-Arabic being of converted background. On a smaller scale, also through possible conversion, Judeo-Berber emerged in North Africa in the same period and earlier. Elsewhere, Jewish memorial books from the Crusade massacres in early medieval Germany, the cradle of Yiddish, contain significant numbers of converts to Judaism in their lists of victims, although in this case no documentary evidence has so far been found for mass conversion or systematic proselytizing. While legal restrictions and bans on conversion to Judaism had been imposed from the outside much earlier, the path to conversion in the Old World was effectively blocked only after Christian and Muslim control over vast populations of the recently converted solidified in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Jewish religious law acknowl- edged this development through a more restrictive interpretation of proselytism, such as in the Shul˙an >Arukh (1565). By then, major Jewish varieties with written records had already become established.

2 3 As convincingly stated in Rabinowitz 1971:1187, “Sometimes Jews became over-intimate with women slaves and had them undergo ritual immersion for the purpose of proselytism; their children were regarded as full-fledged proselytes. The best known of these cases concerns the Exilarch Bustanai b. Óaninai.”

15 CHAPTER ONE

Considering the permeable or even blurred boundaries between Jews and non-Jews in many periods including the present, it would be rather unrealistic not to expect any linguistic input from proselytes. Benor (2004) has also pointed out in her research on newly-Orthodox Jews in the United States that the linguistic impact of the newcomers on Jewish English may be above average due to their possible tendency to “hyperaccommodate.” In fact, it is quite safe to assume that many Jewish religiolects emerged through a combination of two historical processes: on the one hand, a considerable amount of migration and subsequent integration of Jews, including adoption of preexisting languages outside core Jewish areas; and, on the other hand, a massive influx into many Jewish communities of non-Jews, who brought with them their own languages and enriched them with their newly-won religious and educational heritage.2 4 This interplay of acculturation and reculturation of migrants and locals, of mutual integration and isolation of Jewish and “non- Jewish” communities, and of transference and replacement of language elements appears to be mirrored in the complex structure and eclectic nature of many Jewish religiolects.

Crossing Religious Boundaries In recent years there has been a surge in interest in Jewish linguistics in general and in the definition of Jewish languages in particular. Benor has recently proposed that Jewish languages be considered not necessarily in terms of distinct systems, but rather as consisting of a “distinctively Jewish repertoire” from which Jews choose when they use their variety (Benor 2009). In other words, what has so far been considered the field of Jewish linguistics is really only the tip of the iceberg. First of all, the concept of religion-based varieties needs to be

2 4 For a present-day example, see Benor (2004). She describes many factors in the development of “Orthodox” Jewish English, one of which is the contribution of newly-Orthodox Jews. In other words, not just FFB (“Frum from birth”) Jews helped in the creation of Jewish English, but also Jews who became Orthodox.

16 THE JEWISH LINGUISTIC SPECTRUM extended so as to encompass varieties used by adherents of other faiths as well. For example, just as we can identify Jewish-defined languages, we could also recognize Christian- or Muslim-defined languages.2 5 Second, the term language should be broadened to include varieties that are not clearly distinguished from the majority languages.2 6 Finally, the participation of non-Jews in the Jewish linguistic spectrum, and religious crossover in general, should also be taken into account. This last point is especially relevant to the discussion here. There are indeed cases where Christians or Muslims have entered into the Jewish linguistic spectrum. For example, American non-Jews may use some Jewish English elements, mostly in the lexicon, especially if they live in a city with a sizeable Jewish population, like New York or Los Angeles. Thus, it is not unusual to encounter a Catholic Italian American asking a porter to schlep ‘carry’ her suitcase. This phenome- non is by no means new, as the following examples indicate: • As far back as the Middle Ages, Hebrew and Aramaic lexical items entered some Christian-German dialects in the Rhine Valley via Yiddish dialects and has survive until today. For instance, in Hes- sonian dialects Schmiere stehen ‘to keep a lookout’ comes from Hebrew ‰¯ÈÓ˘ /¡mira/ ‘guard’; schäckern ‘to flirt’ comes from Hebrew ¯ÂÎÈ˘ /¡ikor/ ‘drunken’; and Ganove ‘a thief’ comes from Hebrew ·‚ /ganav/, with the same meaning, spread beyond local dialects and even into standard spoken German. • Christian and Muslim craftsmen borrowed professional terminology from their Jewish colleagues in their respective trade jargons and even argot. For example, Primo Levi reports the use of Judeo-Italian elements in Northern Italy among Christian furriers. In Cairo and in Alexandria, Christian and Muslim goldsmiths still use an argot they think of as “Hebrew” or “Jewish,” which contains Hebrew and

2 5 See Norman Stillman’s work (1991) on Jewish and Muslim languages. 2 6 See the reference above to Judeo-Dutch and Benor’s proposal for a “distinctively Jewish repertoire.”

17 CHAPTER ONE

Aramaic elements. For example, the use of the word [¡a>>ål] ‘a thief’ seems to be derived from Aramaic [¡qal] ‘take.’ • Judeo-Persian used in Isfahan is easily distinguished from the Persian used by Muslims in that city (Rabin et al. 1979:53). However, Muslim Iranians in some Iranian villages, such as Sede and others, use the same Judeo-Persian employed in Isfahan only by Jews (ibid., 56). • According to reports from early modern Saloniki, non-Jews, especially those who worked in the city’s harbor, employed Judeo- Spanish as their daily speech. The historical background of this linguistic phenomenon is the demographic prevalence of Jews in the Saloniki port, which was so pronounced that there were periods when it was closed on Shabbat. • In Ruthenia (now western Ukraine) it was common for Orthodox Christian nannies to learn Yiddish and use it to communicate with the Jewish families for whom they worked. They would also teach Jewish children the Hebrew prayers, while Hebrew blessings were widespread among the general Orthodox Christian population.2 7 • The greatest challenge to traditional definitions of Jewish languages is the case of Modern Hebrew as used in Israel today. The majority of Israel’s non-Jews, over a fifth of the country’s citizens, are to varying degrees bilingual, usually Hebrew-Arabic and sometimes Hebrew-Russian. In spite of popular misperceptions, the linguistic community of Hebrew in Israel is no longer defined by religion, but, for the most part, by citizenship or residence. Since, as we have seen, Christians or Muslims may enter into the Jewish linguistic spectrum,2 8 or they might use some of what started out as distinctively Jewish features, it would certainly be preferable to use the term “Jewish-defined languages,” i.e., languages that were

2 7 See Erez 1959:231–44, 249–52; Sole 1959:149; and Wein 2007, the section on Christians and Jews in Ruthenia. 2 8 This is in contrast to M. Zand who claims that “a Jewish language … serves … only the Jewish population of that area” (Rabin et al. 1979:55).

18 THE JEWISH LINGUISTIC SPECTRUM defined by Jews, often standardized by Jewish Bible translations or the Hebrew Bible itself, but not all of whose elements were used exclusively by them. Of course, there is also a need for a discourse on Christian- as well as Muslim-defined languages.2 9

The Characteristics of Jewish Varieties It is generally acknowledged that Jewish varieties share a number of traits. The prototypical Jewish religiolect possesses certain features, ranging from script and grammatical structure to a specific tradition of translating sacred texts. Of course, not every Jewish religiolect needs to have all the features in order to qualify, as the existence of the Jewish linguistic spectrum makes clear. The first and most conspicuous of these features is the consistent use of Hebrew characters in writing.3 0 Jews almost invariably adopted the spelling conventions of Talmudic orthography, including the use of word-final letter forms and the occasional marking of vowel sounds, using available (consonantal) letters and/or other signs. Thus, the Hebrew script in this case symbolizes the Jewishness of the community. It is, in fact, not uncommon to find the script used as a mark of the religious affiliation of the users of a language, as with the Arabic script which is used for writing Aljamiado,3 1 (Muslim) Chinese, Jawi (Malay), Måppil¢l¢a-Malayalam,3 2 Persian, Olttoman Turkish, and Urdu, for

2 9 For a treatment of the issue, see Hary-Wein 2008. 3 0 Of course there are some exceptions. For example, Schwarzwald notes that most of the Judeo-Spanish literature in the Ottoman Empire in the last few hundred years was written in Hebrew characters (2001:82); however, Ottoman Judeo-Spanish was written in Hebrew characters only until the 1920s, when Attaturk legislated the use of Latin characters for Turkish. 3 1 López-Morillas has writen that the Arabic script in Aljamiado (a Spanish variety used by the Moriscos in the sixteenth century) and in other Muslim languages, as well as the Hebrew script in Jewish languages, became “an explicit emblem for the religious and cultural cohesion of the linguistic group” (1994:17). 3 2 This is a castelect of Muslims in North Malabar. It is written in Arabic script with some orthographic adjustments to the phonetic system of Malayalam.

19 CHAPTER ONE example—all languages used by predominantly Muslim language communities. Similarly, the Cyrillic script of Serbian symbolizes the importance of the Eastern Orthodox Church in that language community, whereas Croatian, although practically identical to Serbian, at least until the recent political developments, is written with the Latin script, in line with the Roman Catholic background of most of its users.3 3 The second trait to be found among many Jewish varieties is the use, sometimes simultaneously, of different traditions of orthography. Such competition among various orthographic systems is typical of a situation in which the choice among linguistic systems transmits implicit political, cultural, and religious messages. This can be seen, for example, in the Soviet spelling reform of Standard Yiddish. In contrast to the decision to use the traditional spelling of Hebrew/Aramaic-derived words taken at the Czernovitz conference, in the USSR there was an attempt to dissociate Yiddish from its religious roots (among others) by abolishing this orthographic tradition. Thus, the name of the Yiddish Communist newspaper and publishing house Emes ‘The Truth’ (a literal translation of Russian /pravda/) was spelled phonetically ÒÚÓÚ (/emes/) rather than traditionally ˙Ó‡ (/emet/), like the Hebrew word from which it is derived.3 4 An example from Judeo-Arabic is the historical competition among the Phonetic, the Arabicized, and the Hebraized orthographies (Hary 1996c). The tension between the latter two types of orthography from the fifteenth century onwards reflected the changing dynamics of interreligious relations, including the changing proximity between Jews and Muslims. In other words, the emergence of a Hebraized orthography in Late Judeo-Arabic was driven, among

3 3 I do not wish to imply here that people actually “choose” a script to fit their need for religious identification. While this may sound democratic, it is probably quite unhistorical. However, whenever rulers imposed a religion on a country, the religious authorities would usually be given responsibility for education, and they would of course impose their standards, including the script, on that country. 3 4 This does not mean that /emet/ was ever pronounced by Yiddish speakers. See Hary 1992:112–13 for further examples.

20 THE JEWISH LINGUISTIC SPECTRUM other things, by an increasing fragmentation of society along religious lines, evident also in Christian-dominated countries in the same period (Israel 1989). Similarly, the switch from the Phonetic to the Arabicized orthography in the tenth century and the subsequent disappearance of the former (Blau and Hopkins 1984:13–15; Hary 1996c:737) may hint at increased literacy. It is clear that the Phonetic orthography reflected a culture that was centered on oral rather than written transmission. This kind of competition between various systems is sometimes characteristic of varieties lacking standard forms. A third typical feature of Jewish religiolects is the incorporation of Hebrew and Aramaic elements. These are found not only in the religious and cultural sphere, but in the entire lexicon, as well as in the phonology, morphology, and syntax. For example, in Later Judeo-Arabic some authors use /ilå/ ‘to’ as a marker for the definite direct object, in imitation of the Hebrew accusative marker ˙‡ /et/ in Hebrew (Hary 1991b), something that is not found in non-Jewish Arabic varieties. Furthermore, in the Judeo-Arabic dialect of Peq•>•n the Hebrew root <-t-t ‘signal’ is used in an Arabic verbal pattern, /bi<áttit/ ‘(he) sends signals’ (Geva-Kleinberger 2005:50). Similarly, in Jewish English, Hebrew words such as ‰Îω ‘Jewish law,’ ¯˘Î ‘kosher,’ and ˘¯„ ‘drash’ (a biblical interpretation) take the English morphemes -ic, -ally, -ed, and -ing to create the following respectively: halakhically ‘as far as Jewish law is concerned,’ non-hekhshered ‘(food) without a rabbinic seal of kashrut,’ kashering ‘rendering (vessels and kitchen surfaces) kosher,’ and drashing ‘presenting a (biblical) interpretation’ (Benor 2004; 2009). In addition, Judeo-Italian speakers and writers insert Hebrew roots into Italian paradigms, such as /paxad/ ‘be afraid,’ /paxadoso/ ‘timid,’ and /impaxadito/ ‘scared,’ using the Hebrew root p-˙-d for ‘be afraid.’ Another example from Judeo-Italian is the verb /gannavyare/ ‘to steal,’ based on the Hebrew root g-n-v ‘steal,’ as in the sentence guarda che non gannavi ‘watch that she does not steal

21 CHAPTER ONE

(from you).’ In Jewish Malayalam3 5 as well, speakers use Hebrew lexemes with Malayalam forms: /sår2appe*††u/ ‘suffered, got into trouble’ consists of /sår2a/ ‘trouble,’ taken from Hebrew ‰¯ˆ and followed by /pe*††u/ (past of /pe*†-/); /s!ålomåyi/ ‘died’ includes /s!ålom/ ‘peace,’ taken from Hebrew ÌÂÏ˘ and followed by /åyi/ ‘to be’ (past of /åk-/). Finally, in Judeo-Spanish, the Hebrew roots ¡-˙-d ‘bribe,’ k-f-r ‘deny, be heretic,’ and d-r-¡ ‘interpret, expound’ take Spanish patterns to form the following Judeo-Spanish verbs: ¯‡„Á¢ /¡ohadear/ ‘to bribe,’ ¯‡¯Ù‡˜ /kafrar/ ‘to deny the existence of God’, and ¯‡Ò¯‡„د‡˘¯‡„ /dar¡ar/ or /darsar/ ‘to interpret’ (Hary 1999:74 n. 17). The fourth trait is that some Jewish varieties have developed a distinct spoken form, one which is mostly “unintelligible”3 6 to people outside the community (written Jewish languages are obviously unreadable to most non-Jews, if only because of the use of the Hebrew script). Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic (Blanc 1964) is one example. The fifth trait typical of most Jewish varieties is that their literature is written by Jews for a Jewish readership and usually deals with Jewish topics. However, it has happened that non-Jewish epics as well as other works have been translated or adapted in several Jewish varieties. Furthermore, this trait is not as exclusive as had been assumed in the scholarly literature (Blau 1999:49), considering the issue of crossing religious boundaries discussed above (pp. 16–19). Sixth, a migrated or displaced dialectalism has developed in many Jewish varieties. In other words, Jewish varieties in a certain region sometimes feature dialectal characteristics that are uncommon in that region. This is usually due to Jewish migration and dispersion. For example, in Cairene Judeo-Arabic one can encounter the forms /niktib- niktíbu/ for the first person singular – first person plural imperfect, otherwise typically found in “western” Arabic dialects (Fischer and

3 5 Some examples from Jewish Malayalam are taken from Gamliel 2008. 3 6 See above, p. 10–11, on the issue of intelligibility.

22 THE JEWISH LINGUISTIC SPECTRUM

Jastrow 1980).3 7 One would not expect to find these forms in Cairo; their appearance among Cairene Jews is probably due to Jewish migration from Morocco or Alexandria to Cairo.3 8 Another example of migrated or displaced dialectalism can be found in Judeo-Italian. In the southern Italian dialects (Gyoto-Italian) one finds the form /li donni/ ‘the women’ (however rare) instead of the standard /le donne/. In addition, a typical characteristic of central Italian dialects is a system of seven vowels. The combination of these two regional features can only be found in Judeo-Italian, suggesting a synthesis of dialectal elements from different regions due to migration among the Jewish communities in Italy. A seventh feature of many Jewish-defined languages is that they preserve archaic forms which have become extinct in the respective majority languages. For example, in Egyptian Judeo-Arabic the verbal pattern /fu>ul/ (chapter 4, p. 117, 2.2.1.1) has survived, as opposed to /fi>il/, which has replaced it in the modern Egyptian dialect. In addition, the interrogative pronouns /∑¡/ ‘what,’ /l∑¡/ ‘why,’ and /k∑f/ ‘how’ of Cairene Judeo-Arabic have survived in the sentence-initial position (pp. 114–16, 2.1.6), in contrast to the situation in the standard dialect, where other pronouns, /∑h/ ‘what,’ /l∑h/ ‘why,’ and /ezzåy/ ‘how’ appear at the end of the sentence. Furthermore, the demonstrative pronoun /de/ ‘this (masc.),’ an older Cairene form, survived among Jews through the twentieth century.3 9 Jewish Malayalam also possesses many archaic forms, the most striking of which is the dative ending

3 7 See Hary 1992:278 and the references there. See also chapter 4, p. 118, 2.2.2, for the clarification of the term “western” dialects. 3 8 On the other hand, as this form exists not only among Cairene Jews, but also in the west Delta (Behnstedt 1978:69), it is perhaps not of Maghrebi origin, but may have developed independently in Egypt. However, the existence of /niktib-niktíbu/ in the west Delta does not preclude the idea of migrated or displaced dialectalism as advanced above. See other examples of migrated dialectalism in Judeo-Arabic in chapter 4, p. 103, 1.1.6; p. 105, 1.6; p. 110, 1.13.4; and p. 114, 2.1.4.3. 3 9 Blanc 1974:216; Rosenbaum 2002c:126; see also pp. 113–14, 2.1.4.1.

23 CHAPTER ONE

/-ikku*/, instead of /-u*/, for nouns and pronouns ending in /-an/, e.g., /j•vanikku*/ ‘for life’ (instead of /j•vanu*/) and /avanikku*/ ‘for him (third person singular with dative ending)’ (instead of /avanu*/).4 0 Preserving archaic forms is also typical of migration languages. For example, French Quebec preserves archaic forms that are not used in Parisian French. Similarly, “western” Arabic dialects preserve forms that are common in the Koran but are not found in “eastern” dialects, for example, the word /˙¥t/ ‘fish,’ also found in the Koran, versus its “eastern” equivalent /samak/.4 1 In this respect it is only fitting that Judeo-Spanish and Yiddish, two Jewish religiolects with a rich history of migration, use many archaisms. The former preserves the archaic Old Spanish phonemes /¡/ and /d≈/, as opposed to /x/ for both in modern Spanish. Yiddish has kept the archaic word hait, which has disappeared as an independent word from German, surviving only as a suffix, e.g., Kindheit (Birnbaum 1979:10). Eighth, Jewish speakers have usually considered their varieties as separate from the majority languages and have given them special names, such as /il-lu\a dyalna/ ‘our language’ or /il->arabiyya dyalna/ ‘our Arabic’ in Moroccan Judeo-Arabic, whereas Muslim Moroccan Arabic is termed /il->arabiyya dilmsilm•n/ ‘the Arabic of the Muslims’ (Bar-Asher 1988; Stillman 1988). In Jewish Malayalam, speakers call their variety /malayalam ¡elanu/ ‘our Malayalam’ and distinguish it from other varieties of Malayalam, /ze lo malayalam ¡elanu/ ‘this is not our Malayalam.’4 2 Furthermore, Kerala Jews also refer to their language variety as malbarit or cochinit.

4 0 According to Ophira Gamliel, this archaic form is represented even today in the speech of Kerala Jews in Israel. Ayyar states that (1993:27–28) the dative /-ukku*/ after /-an/ was alternating with /u*/ in the earliest Malayalam inscriptions (note that the phonemes /u/ and /i/ alternate in Malayalam). There is only one text that has this archaic ending, the Råmacaritam from the thirteenth century. 4 1 For more examples see Shin>ar in Rabin et al. 1979:56–57. 4 2 They say it in Hebrew. In fact, “our Malayalam” is probably something that other speakers of castelects in Kerala might use to refer to their variety.

24 THE JEWISH LINGUISTIC SPECTRUM

Ninth, the “spirit” of Jewish-defined languages, their reservoir of images, formulations, concepts, and icons, is derived from Jewish sources in Hebrew and Aramaic, usually sacred texts. Tenth, many Jewish religiolects share a unique literary genre, the verbatim translation of sacred religious and liturgical Hebrew/Aramaic texts into the various Jewish religiolects (¡ar˙, pl. ¡ur¥˙, in Judeo- Arabic;4 3 ¡ar> or ¡ar˙ in Judeo-Neo-Aramaic; tavsili in Judeo-Georgian; tefila in Judeo-Italian; tamsir in Jewish Malayalam; ladino in Judeo- Spanish; taytsh in Yiddish; etc.). The translations include the Bible, Midrashic literature, Pirkei Avot (“Ethics of the Patriarchs,” a tractate of moral and religious teachings from the Second Temple period and the first centuries of the Common Era), the Passover Haggadah, the Siddur or prayer book, the Talmud, and more. However, the existence of these typical features of a Jewish variety does not mean that in order to qualify as such a variety needs to possess them all. Whenever a language variety used by Jews differs, even if only slightly, from the majority language, it deserves to be considered as part of the Jewish linguistic spectrum. Jewish varieties are thus best placed on a continuum stretching from those with a high concentration of the most prominent characteristics (Yiddish, for example) to those with only few and marginal traits (varieties of secular Jewish English, for example). Other forms of Jewish linguistic practice are located somewhere between these two poles.

A List of Jewish Varieties Jewish varieties are numerous and, as the following list shows, reflect Jewish history and geography.4 4 Beside Hebrew, the primary Jewish- defined language (although see Ornan 1985), Jewish forms of Aramaic

4 3 See chapter 3 for a detailed analysis of the genre of the ¡ar˙. 4 4 See the Jewish Languages Research Website (http://www.jewish-languages. org/), edited and designed by Sarah Benor and Tsuguya Sasaki/Tsvi Sadan. This website is an important endeavor toward a new understanding of the Jewish linguistic spectrum.

25 CHAPTER ONE began to develop even before the beginning of the Common Era. Before the end of the Second Temple period, Hellenistic Jews began to employ the Greek Koiné in its Jewish form, Yevanic, which many centuries later in the Balkans came to be known as Judeo-Greek. Judeo-Arabic began to develop in the seventh century C.E., with the spread of Islam in the Middle East and North Africa; Jews from Spain to Iraq adopted forms of Arabic and created Judeo-Arabic varieties. In North Africa, Judeo-Berber (Berberic) emerged, and in Iran, Judeo-Persian (Parsic). In Christian Europe, Latin eventually gave rise to at least six different Jewish religiolects: Judeo-Italian (Italkian) in Italy, Judeo- Provençal (Shuadit) in southern France and Judeo-French (Zarphatic) in the north, Judeo-Catalan (Catalanic) in the eastern part of the Iberian Peninsula, Judeo-Portuguese (Portugesic) in the western part, and Judeo-Spanish (Ladino, Jidyó, Judezmo) in between. After the expulsion of the Jews from the Iberian Peninsula toward the end of the fifteenth century, Judeo-Spanish spread east through the Balkans to Turkey and Palestine and south to Morocco and over to some parts of North Africa, in the form of Haketiya (Moroccan Judeo- Spanish). Yiddish originated in the tenth century among central European Jews, probably in Southwest Germany, and spread throughout Central and Eastern Europe and into Italy, and centuries later also to the Americas, Australia, Palestine, and South Africa. Before the Holocaust, three-quarters of world Jewry spoke Yiddish. Furthermore, Canaanic (Knaanic, also known as Judeo-Czech and Judeo- Slavic) emerged in Slavic-speaking areas, and Judeo-Alsatian (Yédisch- Daïtsch) in Alsace. In the east, Kurdish Jews use Judeo-Neo-Aramaic, Judeo-Arabic dialects, and also Judeo-Kurdish with mixed Hebrew, Turkish, and Arabic elements. In Central Asia, Judeo-Tajik (Bukharic; some speakers call it Farsi) is employed; Judeo-Tat (Judeo-Tatic, or Juhuri, of the Iranian family) is used by Jews in Daghestan in the eastern and northern Caucasus, and Judeo-Georgian (Gurjic) is used by Jews in Georgia in the southern Caucasus. Judeo-Crimchak (of the Turkic family) is employed by Crimean Jews, both Rabbinic and

26 THE JEWISH LINGUISTIC SPECTRUM

Karaite. Further to the east, Jewish Malayalam developed, especially among the Jews of Kerala in southern India. Most speakers of these religiolects have emigrated to Israel, France, North America, and elsewhere. Consequently, Jewish religiolects have declined, some have become endangered, and others are now extinct. On the other hand, these varieties are being replaced in recent decades by new Jewish religiolects. In Australia, Canada, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States, and elsewhere, some forms of Jewish English have emerged, especially in the last century and particularly among Orthodox Jewish communities. In France a form of Judeo-French has emerged, and in Argentina, Mexico, and other Spanish- speaking places, new varieties of Latin American Judeo-Spanish are being formed. The same holds true for Judeo-Dutch in the Netherlands, for Judeo-Russian in Israel and Russia, and so forth (see p. 8). Three Jewish religiolects hold a special place in Jewish culture, because they have been used both over a wide geographical area and for a long period of time: Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-Spanish, and Yiddish. Among these Judeo-Arabic holds pride of place: it has had the longest recorded history, from the pre-Islamic period to the present; it spans the widest continuous geographical area, from Spain to Yemen and Iraq; and “it was the medium of expression for one of the foremost periods of Jewish cultural and intellectual creativity” (Stillman 1988:3–4).

27

CHAPTER TWO JUDEO-ARABIC WITHIN THE JEWISH LINGUISTIC SPECTRUM

This chapter explores Judeo-Arabic within the framework of other Jewish religiolects. It reviews the history of this religiolect and analyzes its structure in some detail. It then discusses the language continuum employed by users of Judeo-Arabic and traces its diachronic evolution. The chapter also tackles some terminological issues, especially with respect to the denotation of Arabic-speaking Jews. Finally, the chapter discusses the state of Judeo-Arabic today.1

An Overview of Judeo-Arabic Judeo-Arabic is a religiolect (see pp. 12–13) that has been spoken and written in various forms by Jews throughout the Arabic-speaking world. Judeo-Arabic literature deals for the most part with Jewish topics, and is written by Jews for a Jewish readership. Several important features distinguish it from other varieties of Arabic. These include a mixture of elements of Classical and post-Classical Arabic, dialectal components, pseudocorrections, and pseudocorrections that have become standardized. In other words, it is a typical mixed variety. Judeo-Arabic also possesses a number of specific additional sociolin- guistic and sociocultural features that set it apart: the use of Hebrew rather than Arabic characters, various traditions of Judeo-Arabic orthography, elements of Hebrew and Aramaic vocabulary and grammar,

1 Some of the material in this chapter was published in different form in Hary 1992 and 2003. CHAPTER TWO and the style of the ¡ar˙ in Judeo-Arabic texts.2 Judeo-Arabic speakers have been a topic of discussion academically and politically for many years in Israeli society. Many designations for speakers of Judeo-Arabic exist, including Mizrahim (or Á¯ÊÓ‰ ˙„Ú, lit. “the communities of the East”), Sephardim (lit. “Spaniards”), and “Arab Jews.” Actually, the term Mizrahim, lit. “Easterners” (translated as “oriental Jews”) is of course a misnomer, since Moroccan Jews, for example, hardly count as being from the east, if the point of reference is Israel.3 The term Sephardim has its own problems. Strictly speaking, it refers to Jews whose ancestors had been expelled from the Iberian Peninsula, up to and especially in 1492, and who then settled in the Ottoman Empire and other countries. Although many Jews of the Ottoman Empire, especially in Arabic-speaking communities, adopted the religious ways and liturgical customs of the expellees from the Iberian Peninsula, pre-Sephardi traditions also survived in many areas, including North Africa. Finally, the term “Arab Jews,” attested histor- ically in various documents but now used only sporadically, may be misleading because the word “Arab” could be perceived as an “ethnic” marker. This leads to three unresolved issues: (i) The word “Arab” as an “ethnic” marker in the current Israeli sense did not exist historically or sociologically before the creation of modern Israel, so Arabic-speaking Jews in the past were conceptualizing something entirely different when designating themselves as “Arab Jews.” (ii) The concept of “ethnicity” itself remains unclear in most contexts,

2 The ¡ar˙ is a genre composed of literal translations of Jewish religious sacred texts from Hebrew into Judeo-Arabic. The reference here is to the style of this genre, characterized by Hebrew and/or Aramaic interference. Another term for this style is “Hebraism.” 3 An imaginary line drawn diagonally across the Mediterranean, from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Black Sea, has historically distinguished the Jewish “west” (in fact, north) from the Jewish “east” (in fact, south). This raises a number of questions, such as: Who set this imaginary line? Who used it? For what purposes?

30 JUDEO-ARABIC WITHIN THE JEWISH LINGUISTIC SPECTRUM

the Israeli case included; it is therefore best avoided in academic discourse, unlike the concepts of language or religion, which can be measured and marked more easily. (iii) The term “Arab Jews” bears controversial political connotations in Israel. For example, it may suggest a connection between “Arab Jews” and “Arab Israelis,” whose identity constructions seem similar on the surface, but in fact differ profoundly on various levels. For example, Arab Israelis in general feel less connected to the State of Israel than “Arab Jews.” In addition, many “Arab Jews” object to the term, sometimes strongly, because of the current Arab-Israeli conflict, among other reasons. Although some Israeli intellectuals today refer to themselves as “Arab Jews,”4 they are probably quite aware that their use of the term with its current connotations is rather remote from the way it may have been used by Jews in premodern Egypt, for example, where the political context was significantly different. Although in the past I have used the term “Jews of Arab lands,” this designation in retrospect may not be the most appropriate. The expression associates “lands” with a nationality, since the term “Arab” may be used to refer to a specific (pan-)nationalism.5 Thus, the use of this term would seem to establish a link, in the Romantic sense,

4 For example, members of the “Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow.” Professor Sasson Somekh of Tel Aviv University, an expert on the writings of the Egyptian author Nag•b Ma˙f¥z, spoke out at an “Iraqis conference” held at Tel Aviv University in May 2008 against this term, which he claimed was being used for political ends and/or in order to follow current trends. He defined an “Arab Jew” as a person born in an Arabic-speaking Jewish home, who lived in an Arabic-speaking Jewish community in an Arab Muslim environment, and was competent in literary Arabic, the basis of Arab culture. Indeed, I heard Professor Somekh identify himself as an “Arab Jew” at one of the Middle Eastern Studies Association meetings a few years ago. 5 The term “Arab” need not necessarily be identified with nationalism. A Syrian, for example, may ask herself, “Am I a Syrian or an Arab?” However, there have been attempts to demonstrate that the term “Arab” in the context of pan-nationalism encompasses all Arabic-speaking nations.

31 CHAPTER TWO between just one population group and a specific territory. Such a link is factually inaccurate, since many minorities—Jews, Kurds, Berbers, and others—who live in the “Arab lands” have their own national movements. Control of a given territory by a certain population is thus a historical and not a geographical fact; i.e., there is no “natural link” between human population groups and specific territories. Nationalism in the Middle East developed mainly in the twentieth century. Consequently, the terms “Arab Jews” or “Arabic-speaking Jews,” as historical and cultural designations, are best avoided in reference to any time before the end of the nineteenth century. After- wards the terms become ambiguous, especially “Arab Jews,” unless one specifically stipulates that the word “Arab” is not being employed in the more recent sense of nationality. Today, such “Arab Jews” are in reality almost exclusively multilingual Israeli, French, or North American nationals who for the most part do not hold any “Arab” citizenship (except for some Moroccan Jews). When referring to the time period from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present, the term “Jews of Arabic-speaking backgrounds” is thus more suitable. For premodern times the term “Arabic-speaking Jews” is fitting as well, and is therefore used extensively in this volume. The two latter terms would probably also be acceptable to more people than the term “Arab Jews.”6

The History of Judeo-Arabic At two points in its history, Judeo-Arabic underwent dramatic changes in its structure and use. The first change occurred during the fifteenth century, when the Jewish world reduced its contact with its Arab

6 This topic deserves further investigation. The following questions could be posed to subjects and then analyzed: What does the term “Arab Jews” mean to you? What does it evoke? What does the Arab part evoke and what does the Jews part evoke? Provide ten associations when you hear the term “Arab Jews,” etc. For a recent discussion of some of these issues, see Gottreich 2008 and Levy 2008.

32 JUDEO-ARABIC WITHIN THE JEWISH LINGUISTIC SPECTRUM counterpart. Although a great number of Jews settled in the Ottoman Empire after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, and in some ways experienced even more intense contact with the Muslim world, many curtailed their contacts with Arabs, their language, and their culture. Jews felt the need for more separation from their Muslim (and Christian) neighbors and began to congregate in exclusively Jewish neighborhoods (sometimes with active encouragement by the autho- rities) such as ˙art il-yah¥d (in Egypt) or mEllå˙ (in North Africa). This change was especially marked in some areas like North Africa, but less so in others like Yemen, where close contacts between Jews and non-Jews persisted for some time. As a result, Judeo-Arabic did not develop along the same lines everywhere. Because of the change in contact between the cultures in the fifteenth century, not only did the structure of Literary Written Judeo-Arabic (Hary 1992:79) come to incorporate more dialectal elements, but also more works were written in Hebrew. In fact, Hebrew, Arabic, and Judeo-Arabic were sometimes assigned different usage functions (Drory 1992, 2000). In the twentieth century this religiolect again experienced a dramatic change with the rise of Jewish and Arab national movements, the outbreak of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the consequent emigration of Jews from Arabic-speaking areas. These changes brought about the loss or near loss of the religiolect. The changes of both the fifteenth and the twentieth centuries brought about an increased use of dialectal elements in Judeo-Arabic texts. However, the changes in the fifteenth century were unique because they featured the development of the Hebraized orthography (Hary 1996c), characterized by, among other things, greater Hebrew/Aramaic influence on Judeo-Arabic spelling. Both changes were intimately connected to the decreased contact between Jews and their Arab neighbors, which led to a somewhat more insular Jewish existence in the Arabic-speaking areas.

33 CHAPTER TWO

For purposes of discussion and analysis it is convenient to divide the history of the religiolect into the following periods:7 Pre-Islamic Judeo-Arabic, Early Judeo-Arabic (eighth/ninth to tenth centuries), Classical Judeo-Arabic (tenth to fifteenth centuries), Later Judeo-Arabic (fifteenth to nineteenth centuries), and Contemporary Judeo-Arabic (twentieth century). This periodization, however, should not draw attention away from the major changes that occurred in the fifteenth and then in the twentieth century, as represented in figure 1:

Judeo-Arabic

Medieval Late Modern

Pre-Islamic > Early > Classical > Later > Contemporary (Change I) (Change II) Figure 1. Periodization of Judeo-Arabic There is a linear connection between medieval, late, and modern Judeo-Arabic.8 In other words, although the religiolect experienced two dramatic changes in its development, one in the fifteenth and the other in the twentieth century, it can still be divided into successive periods, each of which was influenced by its predecessor. The following paragraphs shed some light on each of the periods. There is some evidence that the Jews in the Arabian Peninsula during the pre-Islamic period used a type of Arabic Jewish dialect

7 I have offered a periodization of Judeo-Arabic elsewhere: Hary 1992:78, 1995:74–77, 1996c:730, 1997b:200–203, 2003:52–53; Elqayam and Hary 1997: 111–12; and more. In the periodization here, unlike in the previous instances, I am taking into account the two dramatic changes that occurred in this religiolect. 8 The dialectologist Haim Blanc was the first to point me in this direction. In his works on spoken Egyptian Judeo-Arabic (1974, 1981, 1985) he demonstrated a linear connection between the different periods of Judeo-Arabic in Egypt.

34 JUDEO-ARABIC WITHIN THE JEWISH LINGUISTIC SPECTRUM called al-Yah¥diyya (Newby 1971, 1988:21–23; Gil 1984:206). This dialect was similar to the Arabic dialect used by the majority, but included some Hebrew and Aramaic lexemes, especially in the domains of religion and culture. Some of these Hebrew and Aramaic words passed into the speech and writing of the Arabs. This explains why words of Hebrew and Aramaic origin appear in the Quran. There is no evidence, however, that Pre-Islamic Judeo-Arabic ever served as the vehicle of a distinct literature. For example, the poetry of the Jewish poet as-SamawÅdiyå< did not differ from that of his Arab contemporaries and, in fact, it constitutes part of the canon of Arabic literature, and not of . Were it not for Arab sources which report that he was Jewish, this fact would probably have remained unknown. In other words, as-SamawÅdiyå< was an Arab poet who happened to be Jewish.9 Yet there may also have existed al- Yah¥diyya writings in Hebrew characters (Newby 1971:220).1 0 After the conquests of early Islam, the Jews in the newly-conquered lands adopted the conquerors’ language. They began to incorporate Arabic into their writing and gradually developed their own religiolect. The second period of Judeo-Arabic began during the ninth century, and in Egypt already in the eighth century. This was the main period in which the Judeo-Arabic Phonetic orthography was used, though alongside the Arabicized orthography. Since the Phonetic orthography was phonetically based (Blau and Hopkins 1987:124–25; Hary 1996c) it did not imitate the orthography of Classical Arabic. Therefore, in Early Judeo- Arabic only scribes who were educated in Classical Arabic and wrote for readers versed in it used the Arabicized orthography,

9 See Snir 2005:488–91. He has claimed that as-Samaw

35 CHAPTER TWO which was based on the mechanical transfer of Classical Arabic spelling into Hebrew characters. The appearance of Saadia ibn Yosef al-Fayy¥m•’s (882–942 C.E.) translation of the Pentateuch into Judeo-Arabic marks the beginning of the third period, Classical Judeo-Arabic. Although the written form of this language contained dialectal features as well as pseudo- corrections, it tended to follow the model of Classical Arabic to a large extent (Blau 1980, 1981). The works written in this period covered the entire spectrum of literary composition: theology, philosophy, biblical exegesis, philology, grammar and lexicography, law, ritual, and literature, in addition to commercial and private correspondence. Furthermore, the number of such works in this period exceeded the number of Judeo-Arabic works of any other single period. The fourth period, Later Judeo-Arabic, reflects the beginning of the first dramatic change in the history of Judeo-Arabic, as stated above. This period lasted from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century. The shift from Classical to Later Judeo-Arabic was accompanied by “the increased social isolation of the Jews of the Arab world at the end of the Middle Ages within restrictive quarters, such as the mEllå˙ and ˙årat il-yah¥d” (Stillman 1988:5). During this period many more dialectal elements penetrated into the written language, and the tradition of the ¡ar˙—that is, the literal translation of Hebrew and Aramaic religious sacred texts into Judeo-Arabic—developed. Historical, halakhic, liturgical and other texts were written in this period, many of them aimed at the general public rather than the erudite elite. Toward the end of this period, and even more so in the following period, an extensive folk literature also came into being. This period, too, witnessed the continued use of the Hebraized orthography (Hary 1996c), i.e., Judeo-Arabic written with spelling conventions that were relatively heavily influenced by Hebrew and Aramaic. It was also at the beginning of this period that Jewish scholars began to write in Hebrew; by the end of the period Hebrew had become the preferred written language. Yemen was an exception in this development, because its Jewish

36 JUDEO-ARABIC WITHIN THE JEWISH LINGUISTIC SPECTRUM community was more isolated. The literary language of the third period, Classical Judeo-Arabic, continued to be used there well past the fifteenth century. The emergence of the literary language of the fifth period marks the beginning of the second dramatic change in the history of the religiolect. Contemporary Judeo-Arabic of the twentieth century is characterized by greater production of ßur¥˙, folktales, and other types of popular literature.1 1 In this period the texts are characterized by more dialectal components than in previous periods and exhibit local elements taken from the spoken variety. However, North Africans had already begun to use their local dialect in writing during earlier periods. As a result, Jewish readers from other Arabic-speaking areas found Maghrebi texts difficult if not impossible to understand. Furthermore, beginning in the previous period and continuing into this period, several dialectal centers developed and flourished among Arabic-speaking Jews. Thus, there arose Maghrebi Judeo-Arabic, Egyptian Judeo-Arabic, Syrian Judeo-Arabic, Iraqi Judeo-Arabic, and Yemenite Judeo-Arabic, each with its own local flavor.

The Structure of Judeo-Arabic Because it is the meeting point of Classical Arabic, Arabic dialects, Hebrew, and Aramaic, Judeo-Arabic exists in numerous mixed forms. As a result, one feature of Literary Written Judeo-Arabic is that it contains, among other elements, many colloquial characteristics. Figure 2 illustrates the continuum in Judeo-Arabic. Note that the dramatic changes in Judeo-Arabic that occurred during the fifteenth and the twentieth centuries resulted in a shift in the nature of the continuglossia,1 2 so that more and more dialectal elements penetrated

1 1 For a useful list of works in contemporary Judeo-Arabic, see Corré 1989. A list of Iraqi Judeo-Arabic folk literature, including poetry, can be found in Avishur 1979. 1 2 The term continuuglossia was introduced in Hary 2003 with the use of two u’s. Here I use continuglossia with one u to reflect the Latin origin more

37 CHAPTER TWO the writings composed in this religiolect. This had the effect of reducing the gap between the left and the right poles of the continuum.

JUDEO-ARABIC

Hebrew/Aramaic Hebrew/Aramaic

Literary Written Judeo-Arabic Dialectal Spoken JA

(Varieties Bn) (Varieties C)

Standard Arabic (Variety A) Arabic Dialects

Figure 2. The Judeo-Arabic continuum

At the right end of the Judeo-Arabic continuum one finds Dialectal Spoken Judeo-Arabic (Hary 1992:79). The left side of the Arabic continuum containing standard Arabic (the acrolect) is not found in a fully-developed form in Literary Written Judeo-Arabic; however, it is a source of style-shifting which many authors attempted to use, with mixed success. In other words, the language of Judeo-Arabic authors only approached standard Arabic. Had they written in a language that was too much like standard Arabic, their writings would have lost their distinctive identity, and would not have been considered Judeo- Arabic. On the other hand, standard Arabic is still the anchor for the

properly (I thank Michiel Klein Swormink, personal communication). It is largely meant to replace the term diglossia (Ferguson 1959) by emphasizing that a continuum describes the situation better than a dichotomy. In the case of Arabic, rather than stressing a contrast between standard and colloquial Arabic, the proposed term refers to a continuum on which the Arabic varieties are located.

38 JUDEO-ARABIC WITHIN THE JEWISH LINGUISTIC SPECTRUM left side of the Judeo-Arabic continuum. Thus, it is clear that the Jews, a minority language community, defined themselves linguistically according to the values of the Arabs, the dominant majority.

The Judeo-Arabic Continuum Many of the linguistic characteristics of the various Judeo-Arabic dialects (Varieties C) throughout their history can be identified by 1 3 means of a careful analysis of Judeo-Arabic texts (Varieties Bn). By identifying and setting aside the elements of Classical Arabic, pseudo- corrections, and the style of the ¡ar˙ in a written text, the student of Judeo-Arabic can isolate dialectal elements derived from colloquial Judeo-Arabic. Such an analysis should be done by comparison to the modern dialects.1 4 The influence of standard Arabic is particularly evident in the area of pseudocorrections. The reason for this is that Judeo-Arabic authors at times attempted to write in the more prestigious standard Arabic, with varying degrees of success and with occasional pseudocorrections. A number of Judeo-Arabic authors did master standard Arabic and wrote in it. Their writings in standard Arabic, however, cannot be considered Judeo-Arabic, and thus lie outside the scope of this religiolect. Maimonides (1135–1204) can serve as a good example of Classical Judeo-Arabic. He was certainly also capable of writing in standard Arabic (Variety A1 5), and indeed did so; without a doubt, he was able to switch between the different varieties of the language, adapting his writing to his readership. As a result, some of his works, such as his medical writings, which were aimed at Christian and Muslim readers, are in standard Arabic (Variety A), not in Classical Judeo-Arabic. In other works, such as his letters to his coreligionists, he used Literary Written Classical Judeo-Arabic (Varieties Bn).

1 3 See Hary 1992:11ff and 1996a for detailed explanations of Varieties A, B n, and C. 1 4 See chapter 4, pp. 93ff, for a further treatment of this methodology. 1 5 On Variety A and its placement on the Arabic continuum, see Hary 1995:77– 80, 1996a:71–75.

39 CHAPTER TWO

Judeo-Arabic writers’ and speakers’ attitudes are important for understanding the religiolect. Since they did not have the same ideal of al->arabiyya ‘the [pure] Arabic’ as their Muslim neighbors, they allowed themselves to rely more on colloquial elements when writing. But on the other hand, they aspired to write in the prestigious standard Arabic (Variety A), which they did not always master. This, in turn, resulted in pseudocorrections, a typical component of Judeo-Arabic (Hary 1992:62–67, 2003). To conclude, Judeo-Arabic, standard Arabic, Arabic dialects, Hebrew, and Aramaic were all part of the linguistic inventory of Jewish society in areas where Arabic was spoken. But standard Arabic, Arabic dialects, Hebrew, and Aramaic were not part of the Judeo-Arabic continuglossia, although they were in close contact with the religiolect and influenced its structure. The main difference between the continuglossic situation of Arabic and that of Judeo-Arabic lies in the functions of the varieties of Bn.

Whereas in Arabic, Bn—or, as it is sometimes termed, al-lu\a al-wuß†å ‘the intermediate language’—is used both orally (most often in the media) and in writing (mainly in private letters and personal communication, but also in modern prose, dramatic dialogues, and occasionally also in modern poetry), it is not employed as the main variety for literary compositions, as is the case with the varieties of

Bn of Judeo-Arabic. Generally speaking, Judeo-Arabic literary texts have been composed in Bn, whereas Arabic literary texts have been composed, for the most part, in Variety A. This last observation should be accepted with some reservation, since in recent years there has been a significant increase in the publication of written colloquial Arabic in Egypt.1 6 However, it is still the case that the majority of literary texts in the rest of the Arab world are composed in Variety A. In our description of the language community of Jews in Arabic- speaking areas, we see how continuglossia is intimately tied to the use

1 6 See chapter 4, p. 97, and Rosenbaum 2004.

40 JUDEO-ARABIC WITHIN THE JEWISH LINGUISTIC SPECTRUM of other languages, Hebrew and Aramaic in the present case. This situation is not unique to Judeo-Arabic. It is in fact compatible with what Ferguson has said about Tamil and the effect on it of Sanskrit and English, and about Arabic in some parts of the Arab world where French, English, Syriac, or Coptic also plays a role.1 7 In fact, continu- glossia occurs in many other speech communities.1 8 Faroese, for example, is a West Scandinavian language spoken by between forty and fifty thousand people on the Faroe Islands. For centuries Danish was the language of administration, religion, education, and culture on the islands, and Faroese was the spoken vernacular. But from the nineteenth century onward, there has been a systematic attempt to replace Danish with a “pure” form of Faroese, a written version of the language free from the “corrupted” vernacular with its foreign influences. In fact, a conscious effort has been made to create an intralingual continuglossic situation with two opposing poles: a purist written (and later oral) variety and a colloquial variety, where Danish is still in the background.1 9 Faroese is thus not just another example of an intralingual continuglossic situation, but also an interesting case of planned continuglossia.

The Diachronic Development of Judeo-Arabic Continuglossia The continuglossic state of Judeo-Arabic has evolved throughout its history.2 0 The situation in Classical Judeo-Arabic was not the same as that in Later Judeo-Arabic. The structure of the latter underwent

1 7 See the discussion in Ferguson 1959:337. 1 8 Ferguson alludes to this in ibid., 326. 1 9 I thank John Thomeson who sent me his manuscript. See Thomeson n.d. 2 0 I do not, of course, claim that my diachronic analysis of Judeo-Arabic is the only way to understand its history or the history of Arabic in general. Much of the data on this religiolect has been lost, and it is therefore possible to hypothesize other “histories” of Judeo-Arabic that are consistent with the available information. I have attempted here to sketch one possible history of Judeo-Arabic that may be useful for gaining a better understanding of how the history of Arabic has developed.

41 CHAPTER TWO several changes due to the fact that its literary varieties exhibited a stronger dialectal base than the literary varieties of previous periods. The relative position of a typical text of Later Judeo-Arabic (Varieties

Bn) would therefore fall more toward the colloquial end or right side of the continuum than would a typical text of Classical Judeo-Arabic. In

Contemporary Judeo-Arabic the dialectal base of Bn is again stronger than it was in Later Judeo-Arabic; the relative position of an average text of this variety is shifted even further toward the colloquial end of the continuum. In other words, the “linguistic distance” (Ferguson

1996:57–58) between Bn and C has changed over the centuries: in Classical Judeo-Arabic the distance between the two is larger than in Later Judeo-Arabic, and larger still than in Contemporary Judeo-Arabic.

Figure 3 shows the relative position of a typical text in Bn in different periods of Judeo-Arabic:

JUDEO-ARABIC

Varieties Bn Varieties C

1 2 3 4

1 = Literary Written Classical Judeo-Arabic 2 = Literary Written Later Judeo-Arabic 3 = Literary Written Contemporary Judeo-Arabic 4 = Spoken Dialectal Judeo-Arabic Figure 3. The continuglossic nature of Judeo-Arabic

Figure 3 is a schematic representation of the history of continuglossia in Judeo-Arabic. The exact position of Literary Written Judeo-Arabic

(Bn) can never be fixed, even within a specific period, not only because of the countless lectal possibilities involved, but also because it may

42 JUDEO-ARABIC WITHIN THE JEWISH LINGUISTIC SPECTRUM shift along the continuum, depending on the nature of the texts involved, their writers and readers, and other variables. The diagram does, however, attempt to show the relative positions of average or typical texts of

Bn in the different periods of Judeo-Arabic. Thus, it is clear from the diagram that the number of dialectal elements in Literary Written Contemporary Judeo-Arabic, for example, is greater than in Literary Written Later Judeo-Arabic, because the contemporary variety is generally located closer to the continuum’s colloquial or right end. The same holds true for the relation of Literary Written Later to Classical Judeo-Arabic, in that the dialectal elements in the Later period are more extensive than those of the Classical period. There are several possible explanations for why the dialectal components in Judeo-Arabic became more conspicuous with the passage of time. First, as mentioned above, the two major changes in the history of Judeo-Arabic occurred during the fifteenth century, at the end of Classical Judeo-Arabic and the beginning of Later Judeo-Arabic; and during the twentieth century, at the end of Later Judeo-Arabic and the beginning of Contemporary Judeo-Arabic. During both of these transition periods, more dialectal elements began to appear in the texts. This linguistic situation was coupled with a conscious desire on the part of Jews to distance themselves from Arabic culture and its written expressions. Because of this separation, or perceived separation, Jews may have cared even less for preserving Classical Arabic, and thus may have allowed more dialectal components to enter their writings. In addition, they started to write more in Hebrew. Moreover, in Later Judeo-Arabic a Hebraized orthography began to develop, heavily influenced by Hebrew/Aramaic. In other words, rather than mechanically transferring Arabic letters into Hebrew characters or imitating Classical Arabic spelling as represented in the Arabicized orthography devised in the tenth century, Jews from the fifteenth century onward developed a Hebraized orthography and allowed much greater Hebrew/Aramaic influence on the spelling of Judeo-Arabic. Finally, the increased dialectal components in Later and Contemporary Judeo-Arabic may represent

43 CHAPTER TWO a decline in the level of education in the Muslim world in general and in the Arabic-speaking Jewish world in particular, which started at the end of the Middle Ages, in the fifteenth century. The diachronic development of Judeo-Arabic is comparable in some ways to the history of Maltese. Like Judeo-Arabic, Maltese is used by “non-Muslims,” Christians in this case. More importantly, Maltese, like Judeo-Arabic, is also not written in Arabic characters; it uses the Latin alphabet (chapter 1, pp. 19–20). Maltese, unlike Judeo-Arabic, however, has been more isolated from the main body of Arabic speakers, and thus the vernacular has moved even further away from the center. Consequently, many features of Maltese are further removed from standard Arabic than are those in Judeo-Arabic. The phonemes /∞/ and />/ both disappeared, although both are still reflected in the conservative orthography. In addition, /x/ merged with /˙/ (/˙obz/ ‘bread’; /a˙na/ ‘we’). Third, emphatic phonemes became nonemphatic, although the vowels sometimes indicate where an emphatic phoneme existed earlier. Finally, numerous Italian and Sicilian loanwords have been fully integrated into Maltese, resulting in a major morphological restructuring of the language (Versteegh 1997:209–11). The investigation of marginal, minority religiolects or language varieties such as Judeo-Arabic and Maltese makes it easier to understand the diachronic development of Arabic in general. In fact, such investigations open a small window onto Arabic continuglossia in general and can explain some of its historical developments, as well as the development of Arabic dialects throughout history, since the periphery (in these cases, Judeo-Arabic or Maltese) so often points to the center (in this case, Arabic in general).

The Current State of Judeo-Arabic As mentioned in the previous chapter, Judeo-Arabic is one of the more significant Jewish religiolects. However, Yiddish and Judeo- Spanish enjoy greater recognition and prestige in both Jewish and “non-Jewish” circles. There are several reasons for this. The dominance

44 JUDEO-ARABIC WITHIN THE JEWISH LINGUISTIC SPECTRUM of Ashkenazi Jewry throughout the twentieth century in two influential Jewish societies, in the United States and in Palestine/Israel, has advanced the prestige of Yiddish over other Jewish religiolects and varieties. In the United States, a special organization, YIVO (˘È„ÈÈ ËÂËÈËÒȇ ¯ÚÎÈÏ˻ً‡˘ÒÈ ‘The Institute for Jewish Studies’), was re- established to support the teaching and study of Yiddish. Despite competition from Hebrew, especially in twentieth-century Palestine, Yiddish continues to enjoy greater prestige than any other Jewish religiolect (except Hebrew). The tragedy of the Holocaust, coupled with Stalin’s crackdown on Yiddish and the consequent loss of a large number of Yiddish speakers and a fair number of Judeo-Spanish speakers, also helped to increase nostalgic interest in these two religiolects during the twentieth century. In 1996 the Knesset, the Israeli legislature, adopted two laws, the Law of the National Authority for Yiddish Culture (1996) and the Law of the National Authority for Ladino Culture (1996), that established national agencies for the study of Yiddish and Ladino, respectively. Moreover, the Film Industry Regulations of 2001 state specifically that “a film is considered Israeli if the main language in the original copy of the film is either Hebrew, Arabic, Yiddish, or Ladino or some combination of them.” Although the regulations recognize Arabic, as it is one of the two official languages used in the State of Israel, they do not recognize Judeo-Arabic as such. The omission of Judeo-Arabic from the regulations may have adverse consequences because the designation of a film as Israeli entitles its producers to receive grants from the Ministry of Culture. Of course, a movie filmed in Judeo-Arabic could well be recognized as Israeli, since Judeo-Arabic is a variety of Arabic. But symbolically, the fact that Judeo-Arabic is not mentioned in the official regulations of 2001 is very telling. In yet another example, in December 2001 the Israeli Postal Service (ȇÏ·‰ ˙¯˘‰) issued stamps recognizing the Yiddish and the Ladino legacies. All these measures constitute clear symbolic signs of the relative importance of Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish in Israeli society. However,

45 CHAPTER TWO in none of the above examples is recognition given to the Judeo-Arabic linguistic heritage: the Knesset has not adopted a law establishing a national authority for the study of Judeo-Arabic; Judeo-Arabic is not regarded as an officially recognized language in the definition of an Israeli film; and the Israeli postal service has not issued commemorative stamps recognizing Judeo-Arabic culture.2 1 The Israeli public has at most a limited acquaintance with the term “Judeo-Arabic.” An average high-school or university graduate in Israel would likely recognize the words “Yiddish” or “Ladino,” but would be puzzled if confronted with the term “Judeo-Arabic.” Even within the Judeo-Arabic speech community in Israel there is little awareness of the linear link between Medieval, Late, and Modern Judeo-Arabic, or of the connection between the various varieties of Arabic. For example, the famous Israeli soccer player Haim Revivo, who played several years in the Spanish professional soccer league and was very popular there, was asked in an interview about his extensive knowledge of languages. In addition to Hebrew and Spanish, he was asked if he spoke Arabic as well. “No, no, I don’t speak any Arabic,” answered Revivo. “But I thought that you spoke Arabic with your grandmother who came from North Africa,” continued the interviewer. “Oh, that’s very different,” answered Revivo: “I only spoke Moroccan with her.” There are probably several reasons for the Israeli public’s lack of familiarity with the term “Judeo-Arabic,” as exemplified in Revivo’s failure to see the connection between his grandmother’s native tongue, Moroccan Judeo-Arabic, and other varieties of Arabic. One reason is that Israeli Jews may wish to avoid the term “Arabic” because of its connotations in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict; another reason may be the fact that the various Judeo-Arabic geographical varieties are markedly different from one another, and thus differ also from the

2 1 I thank my student, Gidon Tikotski, who complained about this in early 2002 to Mr. Yitshaq Granot, Director of Stamp Production and Issuance at the Israeli Postal Company; however, nothing has been done as of yet to rectify the situation.

46 JUDEO-ARABIC WITHIN THE JEWISH LINGUISTIC SPECTRUM familiar local Palestinian dialect (Myhill 2004:122). Avoidance of the word “Iraq” in the term by which the Iraqi Jewish community in Israel designates itself may be another possible example. The community is called Ï·· ˙„‰È Babylonian Jewry. However, this term has a long history in the Babylonian Talmud, in Benjamin of Tudela’s writings, in the respon sa literature, and in the contemporary Jewish community in Mumbai, India,2 2 which may explain the avoidance of the word “Iraq” in the community’s name.2 3 In the Israeli academic community, however, a number of scholars of Medieval and Later Judeo-Arabic have gained prominence, among them many of Arab descent (Avishur, Bar-Asher, Chetrit, Toby, and more). But even in the academic world the situation is embarrassing, since Israeli universities have not created new positions for the teaching and study of Judeo-Arabic in more than a decade. The current “politically correct” attitude towards “Sephardi/Mizrahi” culture in Israel and the United States may have dictated greater recognition of Judeo-Spanish, but so far has not reached Judeo-Arabic. For example, in recent years a “Sephardi/Mizrahi” caucus has been established through the commendable efforts of Aviva Ben-Ur of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Norman Stillman of the University of Oklahoma. This caucus meets annually as part of the annual conference of the Association for Jewish Studies. At a recent meeting, one of the panels discussed the incorporation of “Sephardi/Mizrahi” elements into the Jewish Studies curriculum. One of the participants proudly outlined new proposals that had been initiated at his institution to include what he termed “Sephardi and Mizrahi” components of the curriculum. While some Sephardi materials were presented, nothing about Judeo-Arabic or the culture of Arabic-speaking Jews was even

2 2 I thank Shalom Goldman for his remarks on this matter. 2 3 In a markedly different mode, in May 2008 Tel Aviv University organized an academic congress entitled “The Iraqi Conference,” on the acculturation of Iraqi Jews into Israeli society. The organizers specifically used the term “Iraq” and avoided the traditional term “Babylonian Jewry.”

47 CHAPTER TWO mentioned. Furthermore, Jewish scholarship on Bible translation, although recognizing Saadia Gaon’s tenth-century Judeo-Arabic translation of the Bible, often ignores the huge range of Judeo-Arabic biblical translations. Frederick Greenspahn has quoted Joseph Hertz, the British Chief Rabbi of the first half of the twentieth century, saying that “the history of Jewish Bible translations would summarize the history of the Jews,”2 4 adding that “it is particularly striking to note those languages in which there are several Jewish translations. These include Greek, Aramaic, Yiddish/German, and English, which constitute the major centers of diaspora Jewish life, further illustrating the intimate connection between the history of Jewish Bible translation and of the Jews” (2006:181). It is disappointing to see Greenspahn ignore the plethora of Judeo-Arabic biblical translations as well as the Arabic-speaking Jewish diaspora that for many centuries consisted of more than half of the Jewish population in the world. One very positive development deserves to be mentioned, however. The publishing house Brill, thanks to the great efforts on the part of an editorial team headed by Norman Stillman of the University of Oklahoma, is in the last phases of publishing an Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, in which Judeo-Arabic has a prominent place. The Judeo-Arabic religiolect today is endangered and close to becoming extinct. The extensive emigration of Arabic-speaking Jews from the late 1940s through the 1960s is the main reason for this situation. Most of these Arabic-speaking Jews came to Israel (although some also immigrated to France, North America, and other places), where they were under great pressure to drop Judeo-Arabic and adopt Hebrew. Today there are still sizeable Jewish communities in Tunisia and in Morocco.2 5 In Morocco, though, most of the Jewish speech community uses French rather than Moroccan Judeo-Arabic. There

2 4 Hertz 1936, 2:74, quoted in Greenspahn 2006:181. 2 5 According to www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org, and based on American Jewish Year Book, as of 2006 there were 1,100 Jews in Tunisia and 3,000 in Morocco.

48 JUDEO-ARABIC WITHIN THE JEWISH LINGUISTIC SPECTRUM are still speakers of Judeo-Arabic in Israel (and elsewhere) and a show in Moroccan Judeo-Arabic has been broadcast weekly on Israeli radio. According to the SIL International Ethnologue project, as of the mid- 1990s there were close to 500,000 speakers of Judeo-Arabic, and I assume that the number has declined today to just under 400,000 speakers (see also Spolsky and Shoahamy 1999:3). This population, however, is aging, so that Judeo-Arabic’s use as a native religiolect will likely disappear in the near future. Consequently, there is an urgent need to encourage research on Judeo-Arabic.

49

CHAPTER THREE THE TRANSLATION OF SACRED TEXTS INTO JUDEO-ARABIC (THE ¡ar˙)

This chapter begins with a general inquiry into the translation of sacred religious texts, mostly liturgical in nature, into Jewish religiolects. It considers the perceived sanctity of the translated texts and demon- strates how translators dealt with the constant linguistic tension between their desire to provide as literal a translation of the original sacred text as possible, and the need to make this translation from Hebrew or Aramaic fit the linguistic parameters of the target religiolect so that the reader could comprehend the texts. The chapter also analyzes the reasons why such translations were made and traces the evolution of this genre, called ¡ar˙ (pl. ¡ur¥˙) in Judeo-Arabic, especially in North Africa, including Egypt, beginning in the fifteenth century, while also taking into account Saadia’s earlier translation of the Bible in the tenth century. This is followed by a review of previous scholarship on the ¡ar˙ and a discussion of the Cairo Collection, from which several manuscripts relevant to this book are taken. The chapter then offers a linguistic model for the analysis of the translations of sacred texts, based on scanning the text in descending units of grammatical structure, from the phrase level down through the lexical, morphosyntactic, and segment levels, and employing a continuum of least-to-most-literal translations. Examples are provided of various categories and linguistic features. The chapter concludes with a description of two mechanisms which translators/interpreters, called ¡ar˙anim in Judeo-Arabic, used when performing translations of sacred texts. CHAPTER THREE

Translation and Issues of Sacredness1 Jewish sacred texts are written primarily in Hebrew and Aramaic and are used, among other things, for liturgy and for study. As mentioned in chapter 1 (p. 25), these texts include the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, the Siddur or prayer book, the Passover Haggadah, Midrashic literature, and Pirkei Avot, “Ethics of the Patriarchs,” a tractate of moral and religious teachings dating from Second Temple times and the period following the Second Temple’s destruction. The first translations of sacred texts into Jewish religiolects date back to the Gaonic period in Babylonia in the early Middle Ages. In Late Judeo-Arabic the genre is known as ¡ar˙ (pl. ¡ur¥˙), in Judeo- Neo-Aramaic it is termed ¡ar> or ¡ar˙, tavsili in Judeo-Georgian, tefila in Judeo-Italian, tamsir in Jewish Malayalam, ladino in Judeo-Spanish, and taytsh in Yiddish; the genre is also documented in Judeo-Provençal, Judeo-Persian, Judeo-Berber, and other Jewish religiolects. Ladino religious literature had its beginnings in pre-expulsion Spain. However, it ripened and flourished only after the expulsion. Three main texts were continuously translated, especially in Constantinople and Salonika, but also in other Sephardi Jewish centers such as Amsterdam, Livorno, Venice, Vienna, and elsewhere. These texts were the Hebrew Bible, the Passover Haggadah, and the tractate of Pirkei Avot, which Sephardi Jews read on Saturdays between Passover and Pentecost (Schwarzwald 1992:12). Sephardi Jews put these texts to both liturgical and pedagogical use. They were taught to students in religious schools and were read in the synagogue and at home (haf†arot, Bible, Pirkei Avot). Some were read on specific Jewish holidays (biblical megillot, Passover Haggadah). In general, a Jewish religiolect draws from and is influenced by both Hebrew and Aramaic. However, the texts of the ¡ar˙, the Ladino religious literature, tefila, and other translations of sacred texts into Jewish varieties are extreme forms of their respective religiolects, since

1 Some of the issues in this section have also been discussed in Hary 2004.

52 THE TRANSLATION OF SACRED TEXTS INTO JUDEO-ARABIC they not only draw from Hebrew and Aramaic, but are in fact based on and dependent on them. This makes the genre unique; its investigation clearly reveals the connection between language, religion, and culture. In other words, the intricacies of the ¡ar˙ and other translations of Jewish religious literature demonstrate how a Jewish religiolect operates in a minority Jewish society living under specific linguistic tensions, as will be shown later in the chapter. The translation of sacred texts into different Jewish languages, religiolects, and varieties has been widespread throughout the Jewish world. As we have seen in chapter 1, the occurrence of this genre is a common feature of many Jewish languages. Most Jews learn some Hebrew and Aramaic, but their competence in these languages can vary greatly. When they consult a sacred text, many Jews thus rely not only on the original Hebrew or Aramaic version, but also on a translation in their local variety. Significantly, although numerous Jewish authorities have come out against Bible translations,2 “Jewish tradition has not merely tolerated [these] translations, but on occasion accorded them with a degree of authority approaching that of the Hebrew” (Greenspahn 2006:181). Thus, the British Chief Rabbi of the first half of the twentieth century, Joseph Hertz, has claimed that “translations of the Bible share in the sacredness of the Original” (1936, 2:71), and German Jewish theologian and philosopher Franz Rosenzweig (1886– 1929) has argued that the “Bible must surely be the first book to be translated and then held equal to the original translation” (1971:366).3 It has been claimed that the ¡ur¥˙ translations were composed primarily for the use of women and children, whose Hebrew was not up to par (Bar-Asher 1988:29–30). However, the translations were not meant to replace the Hebrew Bible, just to complement it. In fact,

2 See Greenspahn 2002:61 n. 104: ‰Î¯ˆ ÏÎ Ì‚¯˙‰Ï ‰ÏÂÎÈ ‰¯Â˙‰ ‰˙ȉ ‡Ï (Soferim 1:7) ‘The Torah could not be adequately translated’ and ˘„˜‰ ȯÙÒ ·Â˙ÎÏ Â¯È˙‰ ‡Ï ˘„˜‰ ÔÂ˘Ï· ‡Ï‡ (Nahmanides) ‘It was only permitted to write the sacred books in the holy language.’ 3 Both of these quotations appear in Greenspahn 2006:181, including n. 15.

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Jews continued to read the Bible in Hebrew all over the world, no matter what their linguistic limitations were, and therefore “the Talmud mandates that the Bible be translated at the time that it is read” (Greenspahn 2006:187). Moreover, the ¡ur¥˙ translations still required some knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic, and thus the claim that the translations were done because of a lack of Hebrew competence is not as accurate as it may seem at first sight. In fact, the translations were written mostly in Hebrew characters, as was customary in Jewish varieties. At times they also incorporated Hebrew and Aramaic words and elements, frequently translating the Hebrew etymologically “so that Hebrew connotations will be more apparent” (Greenspahn 2002:44). Finally, these translations occasionally closely followed the syntactic structures of the Hebrew or Aramaic original, rather than those of the target language, i.e., the Jewish religiolect. The target language in these cases was thus augmented in an effort to translate the original text as literally as possible (Hary 1995). Greenspahn was therefore correct in asserting that the claim that “these translations are evidence of and adjustment to Jewish assimilation” is inaccurate (Greenspahn 2000:6). According to him, “Jewish versions of the Bible are not simply accommodations to linguistic necessity, but also an expression of communal identity and an assertion of ownership of the Bible” (idem, 2006:195). In fact, these translations “reflect the communities which produce them” (ibid., 194). The sacredness in which these translations are held is not uniform. Indeed, the degree of sanctity of holy texts within the Jewish tradition varies, depending on the text, the place, and the time. For example, all of the Hebrew Bible is considered sacred, but its holiest part is the Torah, or the Five Books of Moses. Further, the Ten Commandments are more sacred than other parts of the Torah. Similarly, Genesis, the first book of the Torah, is more sacred than the Song of Songs, but the Song of Songs is still part of the Hebrew Bible, and so derives its sanctity from its inclusion in the sacred canon. In postbiblical sacred texts, the question of the degree of sanctity arises as well. For example,

54 THE TRANSLATION OF SACRED TEXTS INTO JUDEO-ARABIC different Midrashim4 may possess different degrees of sanctity. Thus Halakhic Midrashim are considered more sacred, because they are more closely linked to the Torah than Aggadic Midrashim are.5 The notion of sacredness is therefore best understood as occupying a continuum. On one end there is the Hebrew Bible, usually considered the ultimate sacred text in Jewish tradition. Other texts and phenomena then can be located along the continuum, at varying distances from the Hebrew Bible, each in accordance with its specific degree of sacredness. Texts such as translations of the Hebrew Bible or Halakhic Midrashim that are strongly connected to the Hebrew Bible will be found closer to the sacred end of the continuum than texts that are not connected directly to the Hebrew Bible.6 But not only texts reside along this continuum, which can accom- modate other cultural elements as well—orthography, for example. As shown above in chapter 1 (pp. 19–21), writing systems often serve as religious symbols. The Arabic alphabet is a marker for Islam in languages such as Persian, Urdu, and Osmanli. The Cyrillic alphabet used in Serbian is a marker for the Eastern Orthodox Church, just as the Latin alphabet, in which Croatian is written, is a marker for Catholicism. Jewish languages are most often written in Hebrew characters; consequently, the Hebrew alphabet, as the marker of Hebrew/Jewish religious culture, may itself be considered sacred. Texts written in Jewish religiolects using Hebrew characters may thus be sacred, although

4 The terms Midrash (sg.) and Midrashim (pl.) refer to a specific rabbinic literature of homilies, interpretations, and biblical exegesis. Midrashim offer commentaries on some books of the Hebrew Bible. 5 The issue in rabbinic literature concerns the status of Aggadic Midrashim, which were the subject of some controversy in the Middle Ages. In other words, the rabbis were not sure how literally to take them. See R. Abraham ben Ha-Rambam’s lengthy essay (reprinted in most editions of >Ein Ya>aqov), where he discusses the many categories of the Aggadic Midrashim. I thank Michael Berger, personal communication. 6 I thank Gordon Newby for several of the ideas expressed here, due to a number of extended conversations we had on this topic.

55 CHAPTER THREE the degree of sanctity is determined primarily by the sacredness of the text. For example, translations of the Bible into Jewish varieties are particularly sacred because, in addition to using Hebrew characters, they are closely associated with the most sacred end of the continuum. I call this relationship “sanctity by association.”7 Thus, translations of sacred texts such as the Bible into Jewish varieties are more sacred than other writings in Jewish varieties, whose sanctity derives merely from their use of the Hebrew alphabet—a marker of Jewish religion and culture; the translations are not sacred to the same degree as the Hebrew original itself. Saadia’s tenth-century translation of the Bible (tafs•r) raises an interesting question with regard to the concept of “sanctity by association,” particularly in relation to the ¡ur¥˙ translations of the fifteenth century and beyond (see below, pp. 60–63). Saadia translated the Bible into Classical Judeo-Arabic, with few colloquial elements, using an idiomatic, nonliteral style of translation; but the ¡ur¥˙ translations were composed in Later Judeo-Arabic, frequently in a verbatim style. Which of these translations was considered more sacred? According to the concept of “sanctity by association,” the ¡ur¥˙ translations and the tafs•r would both be expected to be located near the sacred end of the continuum because they are translations of the Hebrew Bible. But the ¡ur¥˙ translations are indeed considered more sacred than the tafs•r because of their verbatim style. Saadia’s translation was widely read throughout the Arabic-speaking Jewish world and was certainly considered “sacred.” However, as mentioned below (pp. 61–62), Rabbi Issachar ben Susan criticized Saadia in the introduction to his sixteenth-century ¡ar˙ to the Bible for having written in a language that was difficult to understand, adding that therefore the tafs•r was ignored and neglected. This is a clear indication that Issachar

7 In Hary 2004:234 I called this “guilt by association.” I now prefer to call it “sanctity by association.” For example, since a translation of the book of Genesis is associated with the original sacred Hebrew text, this association makes the translation sacred as well. I thank Nick Fabian for his suggestion.

56 THE TRANSLATION OF SACRED TEXTS INTO JUDEO-ARABIC ben Susan may have considered Saadia’s tafs•r to be less sacred than scholars had previously thought. For this reason Issachar ben Susan thought that a new translation was needed.8

The Translator’s Dilemma The texts of the ¡ar˙, the Ladino religious literature, tefila, and translations of sacred texts into other Jewish varieties exhibit a constant linguistic tension between the translator’s desire to retain the original sacred text word for word and the need to produce a translation that readers could understand. Greenspahn was correct in arguing that “translations that preserve the sound, syntax, and etymological relationships of the original … are unlikely to read smoothly in their target languages. It is, therefore, not surprising that numerous Jewish renderings have been criticized for being overly literal and wooden” (2002:51). This is one of the reasons why many translators sought to balance their literal translations with interpretations. In the ¡ar˙, for example, we find Judeo-Arabic verbatim translations that result in “un-Arabic” structures which imitate the Hebrew source and deviate from standard Judeo-Arabic. On the other hand, in order to produce an easily comprehensible translation, the text must be interpreted from time to time; this is done through the use of word substitution, paraphrase, and the addition of flavor from the local dialect. At times the translation is uncompromisingly literal: every Hebrew word is equivalent to exactly one word in Judeo-Arabic, in order to preserve the Hebrew syntactic structure. In these cases the Judeo-Arabic trans- lation seems strange to native speakers, because the Arabic words become subject to the grammatical rules that govern their Hebrew equivalents and the translator risks creating structures that are unac- ceptable in Arabic. For example, in the Egyptian Judeo-Arabic Passover Haggadah the following example appears: ÈÎÁÏ ‰ÈÏÚ ‰ÈȈ ‘we are

8 I thank Geoffrey Khan for helping me pose these questions.

57 CHAPTER THREE duty-bound to tell.’9 This is a verbatim translation of the Hebrew ‰ÂˆÓ ¯ÙÒÏ ÂÈÏÚ. The reason given in the literature for this method of translation is pedagogical. In teaching Jewish sacred texts, one or several words were read aloud in Hebrew, and these were immediately followed by the Judeo-Arabic equivalent from the ¡ar˙. Therefore, the latter had to maintain a word order which exactly followed the Hebrew text. Students were taught to recite after the teacher, first in Hebrew and then in Judeo-Arabic, as follows: ‰ÂˆÓ - ‰ÈȈÂ; ÂÈÏÚ - ‰ÈÏÚ; ¯ÙÒÏ - ÈÎÁÏ.1 0 Through such rote repetition they were also indirectly taught Hebrew grammar. For example, in Arabic there is no equivalent to the Hebrew particle ˙‡ /et/ which marks the definite direct object; in Egyptian ¡ur¥˙ it was usually rendered with the Judeo-Arabic word ‰Ï‡ /ila/, so that the latter became the marker for the definite direct object:1 1 Ï·‚ ‰Ï‡ ÂÈ˘ÚÏ ˙ËÚ ÂÈ˘Ú ‰Ï‡Â ·Â˜ÚÈ ‰Ï‡ ˜ÁˆÈÏ ˙ËÚ ˜ÁˆÈ ‰Ï‡ ÂÏ ˙ËÚ ¯ÈÚ˘ ‘and I gave him Isaac, and I gave unto Isaac Jacob and Esau, and I gave unto Esau Mount Seir.’1 2 This is the translation of the Hebrew, ¯ÈÚ˘ ¯‰ ˙‡ ÂÈ˘ÚÏ Ô˙‡Â ÂÈ˘Ú ˙‡Â ·˜ÚÈ ˙‡ ˜ÁˆÈÏ Ô˙‡Â ˜ÁˆÈ ˙‡ ÂÏ Ô˙‡Â. By learning to correlate the Hebrew /et/ with the Judeo-Arabic equivalent /ila/, students would eventually understand the syntactic function of /et/. It was for such didactic purposes that a Judeo-Arabic word order which exactly followed the Hebrew text was considered necessary. The requisites of teaching, however, were not the only reason for word-for-word translation. A tradition of literal biblical translation had prevailed for centuries before the development of the ¡ar˙. This method of translation, already used in the Targums, no doubt played a key role in shaping the ¡ar˙. Indeed, the desire for literal translation

9 This sentence is taken from an Egyptian Judeo-Arabic Haggadah, ms. 3 3,6. See the critical edition in Hary 2009. 1 0 Read from left to right: /mitzva/ - /wißiyya/ (in Egyptian Judeo-Arabic), etc. 1 1 See Hary 1991, 1992:300–303 and chapter 8 of this volume, pp. 257–64. 1 2 Taken from an Egyptian Judeo-Arabic Haggadah, ms. 3 6,7–9. See the criti- cal edition in Hary 2009. I underlined /ila/ in the Judeo-Arabic and /et/ in the Hebrew.

58 THE TRANSLATION OF SACRED TEXTS INTO JUDEO-ARABIC was so compelling for Judeo-Arabic authors that they were willing to violate rules of Arabic linguistic structure, to the point of assigning new functions to prepositions (/ila/ ‘to,’ for example) in order to produce a text that imitated the sacred Hebrew original as literally as possible. This willingness to violate Arabic grammar may have been connected to the role that Judeo-Arabic played in maintaining Jewish identity in Diaspora minority communities. The demand for verbatim translations of Hebrew sacred texts into Judeo-Arabic may well reflect a strong desire to connect to Jewish heritage in a foreign environment (Muslim in this case). Because of their tight connection to the Hebrew sacred texts, the ¡ur¥˙ gained acceptance as holy texts themselves. As such, they were not updated and eventually became unintelligible as the distance between the language of an old ¡ar˙ and contemporary users became greater. Nevertheless, the ¡ar˙ exhibits numerous examples of nonliteral translations or the use of local dialectal elements in the texts. Thus, the ¡ar˙ demonstrates the constant tension between literal translation and the need to interpret the text and adapt it to the standard Judeo-Arabic style. The same type of linguistic tension is also found in the Ladino religious literature. The translations in this literature are also typically quite literal, but here and there one finds examples of interpretation in them. The Hebrew phrase ¯ÓÂÁ Ϙ ‘an inference from minor to major (a minori ad majus)’ is literally rendered in all the Saloniki versions of the Ladino translations of Pirkei Avot as Ò‡„‡‚ÊÈ٠‡ Ò‡‡ÈÈ»·ÈÏ livianas o pesgadas ‘lightness or heaviness’ (Schwarzwald 1989:7). The root ‰‡¯ ‘see,’ although often translated literally as ‰¯È»· vera ‘see,’ is also interpreted in other places as temera ‘fear’ (ibid., 13). This tension may be exasperated because the paradigms of ‰‡¯ and ‡¯È may overlap (Exod 32:25), causing a possible ambiguity. Furthermore, as a manifestation of the linguistic tension, it is common to find stylistic variations in the literature. For example, the phrase ı¯‡ ͯ„ ‘good (or basic) manners’ may be translated in three different ways: ‰¯ÈÈË È„ Âʇ uso de tierra, ‰¯ÈÈË È„ ȯ·ÓÂËÒ˜ costumbre de

59 CHAPTER THREE tierra, ‰¯ÈÈË È„ ‰Ò‡Ê‡ usança de tierra (Schwarzwald 1989:15). Stylistic variation may also arise in cases where writers wished to elevate the language to what they perceived to be a more respectable literary level. Furthermore, Ladino religious literature is also character- ized by archaisms,1 3 few Hebrew words, and homophony. For example, archaic participial forms are common: ÔÈÈÊÈ„ dizien ‘say’ and Ô‡Ó‡ aman ‘love’; also, the verbal forms ‘I will come, he will come’ are commonly translated with the archaic forms ‰¯È»· ¨È¯È»· verné, verná instead of vendré, vendrá. In addition, the few Hebrew words that do appear in the Ladino literature are drawn from a limited cultural and religious vocabulary. Other Hebrew words such as ÂÏÈÙ‡ ‘although’ and ω˜ ‘public’ are regularly used in Judeo-Spanish, and are therefore not perceived by speakers as Hebrew words. Finally, the choice of words in Ladino reflects homophony, an attempt to adhere as much as possible to the sound of the Hebrew original: the word Ò¯Ù ‘wage’ is rendered by the similar-sounding ÂÈÈÒȯ٠precio rather than by salario; ˘ÙÁÏ and ˘˜·Ï, both meaning ‘seek,’ are rendered by ¯‡˜˘Â· buscar, and ÈÚ and ÔÎÒÓ are both translated as ÂȘÒÈÓ ‘poor’ (ibid., 10–12). The linguistic tension discussed here has been mentioned by other scholars as well. Greenspahn, for example, has mentioned that the “attachment to Hebrew [in Jewish translations of the Bible] would seem to contradict the very enterprise of translation, while incorporating Jewish tradition can jeopardize the literalistic approach to the Bible long associated with Jews. And indeed, such tensions are manifest in the very nature of these renderings” (2002:61).

The Development of the ¡ar˙ In the long Judeo-Arabic tradition of translating sacred texts, two historical “breaks” from previous traditions took place. In the tenth century, Saadia Gaon, who was more committed to the Arabic text

1 3 The use of archaisms is common to many Jewish religiolects. See chapter 1, pp. 23–24.

60 THE TRANSLATION OF SACRED TEXTS INTO JUDEO-ARABIC

than to the Hebrew, departed from the tradition of verbatim translation that had been the norm since the days of the Septuagint and the Targum. His Judeo-Arabic translation of the Bible closely followed the model of post-Classical Arabic; it became a popular text that was widely used and read throughout the Arabic-speaking Jewish world. Furthermore, Saadia’s translation marks the beginning of the period of Classical Judeo-Arabic, and its orthography, imitating Classical Arabic, served as the basis for Classical Judeo-Arabic or Arabicized orthography.1 4 The second break came in the fifteenth century, when the literary genre of the ¡ar˙, or the literal translation of Hebrew and Aramaic religious sacred texts into Judeo-Arabic, began to develop and flourish locally in different communities (Bar-Asher 1988:29–30). The ¡ar˙ was meant to replace Saadia Gaon’s work in the spirit of a previous tradition, by reviving the literal translation pattern of Onqelos. According to Bar-Asher, the ¡ur¥˙ were composed to provide basic education to young students and to the general public, whose knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic was considered inadequate. This was also the case in other Jewish religiolects. For example, Judeo-Italian tefilot latini or tefilot vulgar were written for the use of women, as reflected in the Judeo-Italian translations of prayer books. In these translations, adjectives and nouns referring to those who pray are in the feminine gender. This may suggest that women were less likely than men to know Hebrew and Aramaic (Jochnowitz 2001). However, as demonstrated above, the motivation behind these trans- lations may have been more complex. In fact, there were several reasons why new translations of religious sacred texts were needed. In the sixteenth century Rabbi Issachar ben Susan wrote a ¡ar˙ to the Bible in whose Hebrew introduction he wrote that “Saadia wrote [his trans- lation] in Classical Arabic … and [his] language is difficult for anyone

1 4 See Blau and Hopkins 1984; Hary 1992:82–85, 1996c; see also chapter 2, pp. 35–36.

61 CHAPTER THREE unaccustomed to it, even if he is a native speaker” (Sasson 1932:64, my translation). In addition, Ben Susan noted that, because Saadia translated the Bible in proper Arabic style, students, and even some teachers, found that their knowledge of Arabic, some six hundred years later, was not adequate for understanding his translation. This is the reason, so Ben Susan claimed, that Saadia’s translation had been neglected, ignored, and sometimes even criticized. Ben Susan in fact reported overhearing an important old rabbi saying that he had “no pleasure from our Rabbi Saadia’s translation because we do not understand what he says” (ibid., my translation). In addition, Ben Susan specifically indicated that Saadia’s translation required more interpretation. Furthermore, women, children, and uneducated people were in need of comprehensible texts for their liturgical and educational use (ibid., 65, 67). All of these considerations led Ben Susan to his conclusion that a new translation of the Bible was needed, which he termed ¡ar˙. He then composed the ¡ar˙ in the Arabic of his time (the sixteenth century) and place (the Maghreb). Avishur (1988:45) has summarized Ben Susan’s arguments and concluded that Saadia’s translation was not suitable for teaching purposes. Because Saadia’s translation was not verbatim, it did not suit the teaching method used by Jews, in which students learned by reciting Hebrew and Aramaic texts together with their Judeo-Arabic equivalent. Piamenta (1988:76) has added that the vocabulary Saadia used in his translation was not understood by the average educated speaker of later periods, and therefore the need for new ¡ur¥˙ arose. Moreover, there may be an additional reason for the development of the ¡ar˙. As I have mentioned elsewhere,1 5 in the fifteenth century the Jewish world began to sever its contacts with Arab Muslim culture. Jewish authors and translators found a way to reconnect to their Jewish identity via the translation of sacred texts. As more elements from the original Hebrew and Aramaic texts were embedded into the

1 5 Hary 1995:75 and chapter 2 of this volume, pp. 33–34, 36.

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Judeo-Arabic translations (and not just Hebrew or Aramaic words per se), the reader could feel closer to the original texts. Thus, the ¡ar˙, with its literal adherence to the Hebrew and Aramaic original, opened a small window that allowed Jews to reconnect to sacred Jewish texts even in a language other than Hebrew. Saadia’s translation, which was not literal, did not make this possible (Hary 1994b:25–26). Saadia’s tenth-century translation thus eventually led to a number of distinct results. First, it motivated the genesis and development of the ¡ar˙ as the old translation became less accessible. Second, the fact that Saadia’s translation was not literal forced the ¡ar˙anim to compose verbatim translations that could be used for teaching according to the customary method of repetition. Finally, as Saadia’s tafs•r was no longer understood five hundred years after it was written, the ¡ar˙anim realized that sometimes they had to break away from literal translation and interpret the Hebrew text to some extent. In short, for linguistic and pedagogical reasons as well as for purposes of identity, the ¡ar˙ began to develop in the fifteenth century and eventually replaced Saadia’s translation of the Bible. As of now the various ¡ur¥˙ produced from the fifteenth century to the present are still being collected from three sources: manuscripts, printed versions, and recordings (Avishur 1988:40, 1991:141). In Egypt, unlike most of North Africa, very few ¡ur¥˙ exist in print; there are even fewer recordings, and not many manuscripts. For these reasons, the ¡ur¥˙ from the Cairo Collection, some of which are analyzed in this volume and in Hary 2009, in addition to other manuscripts, stand out as an especially rare and valuable source of information on the development of the Egyptian Judeo-Arabic ¡ar˙.

The Cairo Collection The Cairo Collection consists of more than one hundred photocopied manuscripts, mostly from Egypt, dating from the eighteenth century through the twentieth. In the 1980s this collection was brought from a synagogue in Cairo to the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts

63 CHAPTER THREE in the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem.1 6 The manuscripts contain mainly Jewish liturgical texts written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Judeo-Arabic. The large number of noteworthy documents in the collection has made it possible to reconstruct many features of Egyptian Judeo-Arabic of the eighteenth century and later, and to give us a better understanding of Jewish life in premodern and modern Egypt. The collection is organized in ten boxes. Most of the manuscripts in Hebrew and Aramaic contain piyyu†im; others consist of Shabbat laws, seli˙ot or penitential prayers, ritual slaughter laws, and divorce laws. A number of Hebrew manuscripts contain commentaries on several books of the Bible, and documents addressing liturgical issues such as prayers for the New Year and prayers for Shavuot evening. Most of the manuscripts in Judeo-Arabic are ¡ur¥˙: translations of Passover Haggadot and of the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah (including the haf†ara for the ninth of Av), Ezekiel, the twelve Minor Prophets, Psalms, Job,1 7 Ecclesiastes, and Ruth. Additional Judeo-Arabic manuscripts include isråa¡ar ˙axam•m ‘The Story of the Ten Rabbis.’ The local flavor of the Egyptian dialect comes through in many of the Judeo-Arabic manuscripts.1 9 One whole manuscript,

1 6 In consultation with the staff, I named this collection The Cairo Collection. 1 7 In 2005 my graduate student, Ms. Noa David, completed her master’s thesis, consisting of a critical edition and a linguistic analysis of ten chapters of the ¡ar˙ manuscript of the book of Job in Egyptian Judeo-Arabic from the Cairo Collection. See David 2005. 1 8 I am currently preparing this text for publication. 1 9 See chapter 4 for a treatment of the Egyptian Judeo-Arabic dialect. Even in the titles mentioned above, one feature of this dialect stands out: a preference for the vowel /u/. In standard Egyptian Arabic the word /

64 THE TRANSLATION OF SACRED TEXTS INTO JUDEO-ARABIC interestingly enough, consists of letters and different personal lists, all in Yiddish. In addition, several manuscripts are written in more than one language: some are in Hebrew and Aramaic (such as a commentary on Maimonides’ ‰¯Â˙ ‰˘Ó, ritual slaughter laws, and midrashim); others are in Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic (such as bilingual editions of Passover Haggadot). One manuscript, written in 1906 by the Ashkenazi Rabbi of Cairo, Ô‰ÂΉ Ô¯‰‡ Ï„ÚÓ Ô¯‰‡, comprises testimonies, agreements, and requests for divorce agreements in four languages (Hebrew, Arabic, Yiddish, and French). In sum, this collection warrants a great deal of scholarly interest. The corpus for the present study (see preface) includes four manuscripts from the Cairo Collection (mss. 3, 74, 91 and 93—all variants of the Egyptian Judeo-Arabic Passover Haggadah).

Previous Studies on the ¡ar˙ In recent years there has been a growing interest in Jewish varieties in general, and in the phenomenon of literal translations of sacred texts from Hebrew and Aramaic into the various Jewish varieties and religiolects in particular. Such translations have been studied in Avishur 2001; Avrahami 1994; Bar-Asher 2001, 2002; Ben-Oren 2000; Chetrit 2007; Cuomo 2000; Doron 1979; Hary 2000a; Kaplan and Mulugetta 2000; Kasher 2000; Maman 2000; Sabar 2000; Schwarzwald 1989; Sephiha 1988; Tedghi 1994; Timm 2007; Tirosh-Becker 2006; Toby 1996; Turniansky 2007; Yerushalmi 2000 and Zafrani 1988.2 0 Although many of the above-mentioned publications specifically address Judeo- Arabic ¡ur¥˙, there have been a number of other recent studies on translations of the Bible into Arabic in general. The most notable study of translations composed in a minority society is by Polliack (1997), which analyzes the Karaite tradition of biblical translations into Arabic in the tenth and eleventh centuries C.E.

2 0 This is by no means exhaustive: it is just a sample of recent studies on the translation of sacred texts into Jewish religiolects and varieties.

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These studies on the ¡ur¥˙ have created a general framework for understanding the nature of the ¡ar˙ and the verbatim character of such translations. Bar-Asher, for example, has characterized Maghrebi ¡ar˙ as basically verbatim with some deviations. Citing Job 1:6 Ìȉχ‰ È· ‡·È ÌÂȉ ȉÈ ÌÎÂ˙· Ôˢ‰ Ì‚ ‡Â·È ’‰ ÏÚ ·ˆÈ˙‰Ï ‘one day the divine beings came before God, and the devil came along with them,’ he demonstrated how the verse was literally translated in a Moroccan ¡ar˙ as ÂȇµÂ ¯‡‰ Ô‡∑ Ì‰ËÒÂÙ ·‚‚ÒÓÏ ‡˙Á ‡µÂ ‰‡Ï‡ ˙Ï·‡˜Ó ÂÙ˜ÂÂ˙È ‡∑ÈȇÏÓÏ „‡Ï (Bar-Asher 1988:10–11). According to Bar-Asher this verbatim translation imposes a “syntactic strangeness” or a “syntactic anomaly,” which sounds discordant to speakers of Judeo-Arabic. A simple verse such as ¯·„È ¯Ó‡Ï ‰˘Ó χ ’‰ (Exod 6:10) ‘And God spoke unto Moses, saying’ is translated as ®Ï˜ÈÏ Â‡© ÔÏȇ˜ ‰˘Ó ‡Ïȇ ‰‡Ï‡ ÌÏÏ∑˙Â. Bar-Asher has claimed that instead of ‡Ïȇ ‰‡Ï‡ ÌÏÏ∑˙Â, we would have expected ‡ÚÓ ‰‡Ï‡ ÌÏÏ∑˙ (the preposition with rather than unto) and instead of ÔÏȇ˜ (or ϘÈÏ), we would have expected ÂÏ Ï‡˜Â ‘and told him’ (Bar-Asher 1988:11). Tedghi has provided other examples of the verbatim method of translation in a Moroccan Siddur (1994:93–94), two of which, both from the Amidah prayer, are especially worth noting: (i) ¯ÙÚ ÈÈ˘ÈÏ Â˙ÂÓ‡ ÌÈȘÓ ‘And keeps His faith to those who sleep in the dust,’ itself influenced by Dan 12:2, is translated ˙·‡˙Ó ·‡¯˙ ÔÈÒÚ‡Ï Â˙‡Ó‡ with the strange and unclear phrase /l-na>s•n t-tråb/. (ii) ‰˙‡ Â˙ω˙ ÈÎ ‰Ú˘Â ÂÚÈ˘Â‰ ‡Ù¯ ’‰ Â‡Ù¯ ‘heal us, O Sovereign, and we will heal; save us and we will be saved, for You are our glory,’ which forms the eighth blessing of the Amidah, is translated word for word: ÔÈ˙ ‡‡¯ÎÒ Ôȇ Â˙‡‚ ‡˙È‚ ‡‡„ ‰‡Ï‡ ‡È ‡ȇ„ ‘heal us O God; deliver us and we will be delivered, for You are our gratitude.’

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The studies also point to deviations from verbatim translation in the ¡ar˙. For example, Bar-Asher has shown this with respect to uses of the definite article. The sentence ‰È· ȯӇ ÔÈ·‰Ï ¯ÒÂÓ ‰ÓÎÁ ˙Ú„Ï (Prov 1:2) ‘for learning wisdom and discipline; for understanding words of insight’ is translated in the Tafilalt tradition thus: ·‡„‡Ï ‡Ò‡ÈÈ∑Ï Û¯ÚÈ ‡Ó‡‰ÙÏ Ï‡Â˜ ̉‰ÙÈ (1988:12). In other words, although the definite article is not used in the Hebrew source, it is used in the ¡ar˙, reflecting also dialectal use. Tedghi has examined differences in gender, number, tense, and definiteness, as well as examples of free translation. For example, in the sentence ÌȯÂÒ‡ ¯È˙Ó ’‰ ÌÈ·Ú¯Ï ÌÁÏ Ô˙Â ÌÈ˜Â˘ÚÏ ËÙ˘Ó ‰˘ÂÚ Ìȯ‚ ¯Ó¢ ’‰ ÌȘȄˆ ·‰‡ ’‰ ÌÈÙÂÙÎ Û˜ÂÊ ’‰ ÌȯÂÚ Á˜ÂÙ ’‰ (Ps 146:7–9) ‘who conducts justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry; the Sovereign who sets prisoners free, the Sovereign who restores light to the blind; the Creator who straightens up the bent, loves the righteous, and protects the strangers,’ which is translated as ÔÈÓÂÏ„ÓÏ Ú¯Ò ÏÓÚÈ ÔÈÈÁÓÏ Ê‰È ‰‡Ï‡ ÔÈÈÓÚÓÏ ÏÁÈ ‰‡Ï‡ ÔÈË·¯ÓÏ ˜ÒÙÈ ‰‡Ï‡ ÔÈ‡ÚÈÊÏ Ì‡ÚË ÈËÚÈ ÌÈ¯È‚Ï È„ÁÈ Â‡Ï‡ ÔÈÁÏ‡Ò ·ÁÈ ‰‡Ï‡, the ¡ar˙an translated all the Hebrew active participles using the Judeo-Arabic imperfect, thus deviating from a verbatim translation; for example, the Hebrew participle ‰˘ÂÚ is translated by the Judeo-Arabic imperfect ÏÓÚÈ (Tedghi 1994:101).2 1 In sum, as Bar-Asher has put it so clearly, “In general, the ¡ar˙ is a peshat [i.e., straightforward and literal] verbatim translation, but with specific deviations from it toward the syntax of the spoken dialect and even a few referrals to the derash.”2 2 Tedghi has noted deviations in several lexical and morphosyntactic categories, as mentioned above (1994:94–104), and he concluded that although the ¡ar˙an “chose the verbatim translation, … he does not reconstruct the Hebrew text blindly”

2 1 Of course, the ¡ar˙an may have thought, with some reason, that the Hebrew active participle and the Arabic imperfect serve the same function. If so, the translation is verbatim functionally but not grammatically. 2 2 Bar-Asher 1988:15, my translation. Bar-Asher has cited examples such as Onkelos or Saadia’s translations (1988, paragraph 17b).

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(ibid., 104, my translation). In the example from the end of the Amidah, ÌÈÓÁ¯Â ‰˜„ˆ „ÒÁ ÔÁ ÌÈÈÁ ‰Î¯·Â ‰·ÂË ÌÂÏ˘ ÌÈ˘ ‘Lay peace, goodness, blessing, life, grace, mercy, righteousness, and compassion,’ the translation in the Moroccan Siddur is ‡ÁÓÏ ÒÈÚÏ ‡Î¯‡·ÓÏ ‡ÁÈÏÓÏ ‡ÈÈÙ‡ÚÓÏ ÏÚÊ ˙‡ÓÁ¯Â ‰˜„ˆ Ï„ÙÏ (Tedghi 1994:104). The sentence is translated literally as is easily seen in the verbatim word order, but Tedghi has characterized it as a deviation in definiteness, because most of the Judeo-Arabic nouns receive the definite article, which is not the case in the Hebrew original. Both Bar-Asher and Tedghi have made it clear that literal translation and deviation from it are in opposition; they can therefore be presented as the two ends of a scale. Although Tedghi did not use the concept of a scale, it is clear that on a continuum of the definiteness category, his example mentioned above would approach the deviation side:

Deviation Literal ˙‡ÓÁ¯Â ‰˜„ˆ Ï„ÙÏ ‡ÁÓÏ ÒÈÚÏ ‡Î¯‡·ÓÏ ‡ÁÈÏÓÏ ‡ÈÈÙ‡ÚÓÏ ÏÚÊ Figure 4. The deviation/literal continuum of definiteness

The Framework for the Linguistic Analysis of the ¡ar˙ In a number of previous publications I took the approach discussed above and extended it somewhat from a linguistic point of view. I attempted to address the phenomenon of the ¡ar˙ through the eyes of the ¡ar˙anim and their work. The translators’ struggle between literal translation and interpretation can be plotted on a literal/ interpretive scale or continuum in each of the different categories listed below. On the one hand, ¡ar˙anim felt impelled to follow the long tradition of verbatim biblical translation, as found in the Septuagint, Onqelos, and the like. They were also committed to deliver a text that would fit the pedagogical needs of word-for-word translation. Furthermore, as mentioned above, literal translation helped both the ¡ar˙an and the text’s readers/users reconnect to and strengthen their Jewish identity.

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This method of translation, however, created many “un-Arabic” sentences that may have been nearly incomprehensible to average native speakers. Speakers and readers of the religiolect may have found the resulting Judeo-Arabic structure strange, and consequently the ¡ar˙an ran the risk of inserting grammatical structures into the translations that were not usual in Arabic. However, the ¡ar˙anim of the fifteenth century and later also felt the need to interpret certain points in the text, and so they did not blindly follow the model of literal translation. Instead, they would substitute words, formulate paraphrases, and add flavor from their local dialect. They wanted to ensure that their translations would be understood, and not become merely a flat reflection of the Hebrew/ Aramaic text. In sum, the ¡ar˙anim were dealing with a constant literal/interpretive linguistic tension (Hary 1995:84). I have demonstrated how this tension operates in each of the following nine linguistic categories: word order, paraphrase and changes in word order, the definite direct object, prepositions and particles, tense-mood-aspect (T-M-A), the definite article, negation, gender and number, and Hebrew elements. For example, in the T-M-A category, the ¡ar˙an translates the Hebrew participle in ÔÈÏ· Â‡ ‘we eat’ (from the Passover Haggadah) literally as ‰Á‡ ÔÈÏ· (ms. 3 2,12), using the Judeo-Arabic participle as well. In other manuscripts, though, he translates the same phrase as ÂÏ· ‰Á‡ (ms. 74 1,7) and as ÂÏ· ÔÁ (ms. 93 13,3–4), using the Judeo-Arabic imperfect form, as in colloquial Cairene Judeo-Arabic;2 3 this use shows a tendency toward interpretive translation which backs away from the literal mode (Hary 1995:86–92). In figure 5 the above-mentioned examples are shown on a scale along the interpretive/literal continuum in the T-M-A category:

2 3 Note that the Cairene Judeo-Arabic dialect possesses the “western” feature of /niktib-niktíbu/ in the verbal conjugation. See chapter 4 of this volume, pp. 118–19, 2.2.2.2, and Hary 1992:278, 2.2.2, as well as the references there.

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Interpretive Literal ÂÏ· ‰Á‡ ÔÈÏ· ‰Á‡ Figure 5. The interpretive/literal T-M-A continuum But the analysis is not always so straightforward. For instance, Exod 18:19, ͈Úȇ ÈϘ· ÚÓ˘ ‰˙Ú ‘now listen to me, I will give you counsel,’ is translated by ¬¯Â˘‡ ÈϘ È¥ ÚÓÒ‡ È˙˜ÂÂÏ„ (ms. 15 57a,19) ‘now hear my words, I will give you advice.’ At first glance this translation appears to be rather literal: each word in Hebrew has a Judeo-Arabic equivalent in the same order. Figure 6 shows the three middle constituents of the translation along the continuum:

Interpretive Literal ÈϘ È¥ ÚÓÒ‡ Figure 6. The interpretive/literal continuum A closer analysis of this example, however, reveals traces of both verbatim and interpretive tendencies in the translation. Figure 6 does not reflect the complexity of the interpretive/literal tension in this case, because it does not show how elements in the phrase pull it in opposite directions on our continuum. The translation ÈϘ È¥ ÚÓÒ‡ follows the word-for-word technique, pointing to a verbatim translation (figure 7-1); however, this translation also has an interpretive character (figure 7-2), since instead of the exact meaning of the Hebrew phrase ÈϘ· ÚÓ˘ ‘listen to me,’ it is rendered as ‘hear my words,’ adding an interpretive mode to the translation. This tendency is also evident in the Protestant Arabic translation of the Hebrew Bible: wðu????Bà l?L???Ý« ‘hear my voice’ or wÃu????Ià l?L???Ý« ‘hear my words.’ In Saadia’s tafs•r, however, the literal tendency predominates, as Saadia tried to capture the original Hebrew meaning in his translation ÈÓ Ï·˜‡ ‘take it from me’ (see table 2). Furthermore,

70 THE TRANSLATION OF SACRED TEXTS INTO JUDEO-ARABIC if the word Ϙ ‘voice’ is carefully observed, the verbatim nature of the translation can be seen, for the ¡ar˙an copied the Hebrew word into the Judeo-Arabic translation. This word exists in Arabic as well, but with a different meaning, ‘word, speech.’ The ¡ar˙an preferred to use a Hebrew word in Arabic dress in order to preserve the original form of the Hebrew text by using a similar-sounding word (figure 7-3). As mentioned in chapter 7 (feature 3-2), this is common in Judeo-Arabic ¡ur¥˙ as well as in many other Jewish-defined religiolects (Greenspahn 2002:46). In other places (see tables 1 and 2 below), however, the ¡ar˙an did not use a similar sounding word, but rather ÒÁ or ˙ˆ ‘voice.’ Moreover, the Hebrew preposition · ‘in’ is translated into Judeo-Arabic È¥, in keeping with common Arabic use. Whenever the ¡ar˙an refrained from using the Arabic preposition bi, which is similar to its Hebrew cognate, he moved toward the interpretive end of the continuum (figure 7-4). In sum, the complexities due to the literal/interpretive tension are best unraveled by not only examining the phrase as a whole, but also studying its parts. Figures 7-1 through 7-4 demonstrate such an analysis:

Interpretive Literal (word-for-word translation) ÈϘ È¥ ÚÓÒ‡ Figure 7-1. The phrase continuum

Interpretive Literal (the meaning of the phrase) ÈϘ È¥ ÚÓÒ‡ Figure 7-2. The lexical continuum I

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Interpretive Literal (choice of word) Ϙ Figure 7-3. The lexical continuum II

Interpretive Literal (choice of preposition) ȥ Figure 7-4. The morphosyntactic continuum

Table 1 below shows a number of occurrences of the Hebrew Ϙ in various Arabic translations of Genesis and Exodus, while table 2 illustrates various translations of the example cited above, ÈϘ· ÚÓ˘:

Hebrew Citation Egyptian Saadia Protestant Original ¡ar˙ Translation

·˜ÚÈ Ï˜ Ϙ‰ Gen 27:22 ÒÁ ˙ˆ u% ¯Ù¢‰ Ϙ ȉÈ Exod 19:19 ÒÁ ˙ˆ u% ¯Ù¢‰ Ϙ ˙‡Â Exod 20:14-15 ÒÁ ˙ˆ u% „Á‡ Ϙ ÌÚ‰ ÏÎ ÔÚÈ Exod 24:3 Ϙ ˙ˆ u% 2 4 … ‰ÓÁÏÓ Ï˜ … ÌÚ‰ Ϙ Exod 32:17-18 ÒÁ; Ϙ ˙ˆ u% … ˙ÂÚ Ï˜ Ôȇ ˙ÂÚ Ï˜ … Ϙ Ôȇ ‰ÁÓ· Ϙ ¯ȷÚÈ Exod. 36:6 ÒÁ ˙ˆ u% Table 1. The translation of Hebrew Ϙ in Genesis and Exodus

2 4 Hebrew Ϙ in Exod 32:17–18 is translated into Judeo-Arabic ÒÁ ‘voice.’ However, ‰ÓÁÏÓ Ï˜ ‘the voice of war’ is translated intoJudeo-Arabic Ϙ in ms. 15 73b,1, but in the margin the ¡ar˙an changed it back to ÒÁ.

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Hebrew Citation Egyptian Saadia Protestant Original ¡ar˙ translation

ÈϘ· ̉¯·‡ ÚÓ˘È Gen 26:5 È˙ˆ· ÈϘ ÆÆÆ Ï·˜ wÃuIà ÆÆÆ lLÝ ÈϘ· ÚÓ˘ Gen 26:5 È˙ˆ È¥ ÚÓÒ‡ ÈÓ Ï·˜‡ wÃuIà lLÝ« ÈϘ· ÚÓ˘ Gen 27:13 È˙ˆ È¥ ÚÓÒ‡ ÈÓ Ï·˜‡ wÃuIà lLÝ« ÈϘ· ÚÓ˘ Gen 30:6 È˙ˆ È¥ ÚÓÒ È˙ˆ ÚÓÒ wðuBà lLÝ« ÈϘ· ÂÚÓ˘È ‡Ï Exod 4:1 ÈϘ È¥ ÂÚÓÒÈ ÈÓ ÔÂÏ·˜È wÃuIà ÊuFL&¹ ÈϘ· ÚÓ˘ Exod 18:19 ÈϘ È¥ ÚÓÒ‡ ÈÓ Ï·˜‡ wðuBà lLÝ« ÈϘ· ÂÚÓ˘˙ Exod 19:5 ÈϘ È¥ ÂÚÓÒ˙ ÈȯӇ Ì˙Ï·˜ wðuBà r²FLÝ Table 2. The translation of Hebrew ÈϘ· ÚÓ˘ in Genesis and Exodus

Our analysis of ÈϘ È¥ ÚÓÒ‡ reveals the complexity of the literal/ interpretive tension in the ¡ar˙. Clearly the framework used in the past is insufficient. Using previous methods of analysis, the arrow in figure 6 obviously approaches the literal end. In figure 7, on the other hand, using the new approach, the arrow changes its placing on the continuum from 7-1 through 7-4. In other words, if the phrase ÚÓÒ‡ ÈϘ È¥ is treated only as a whole, as was done in previous analyses, we will lose the linguistic traces left by the ¡ar˙anim when they were translating the text and coping with the dilemma posed by the contrast between the literal and the interpretive tendencies. In the past, scholars who wrote on this issue have provided different examples in each category (tense, definiteness, number, etc.); however, never has an analysis of different categories in the same example been published. In the framework adopted for this volume and exemplified in much detail in part 2, I take each example and show how the above-mentioned linguistic tension is evident simultaneously at different linguistic levels. For instance, at the phrase level,2 5 ÈϘ È¥ ÚÓÒ‡ can be placed both closer to the literal end (figure 7-1) and closer to the

2 5 Here the term phrase refers to elements of sentence structure above the word level, including clauses and syntactic phrases, in accordance with the general meaning of phrase.

73 CHAPTER THREE interpretive end (figure 7-2), depending on which linguistic level and component (phrase level and syntactic structure or lexical level and meaning, respectively) we examine. Further down on the lexical level, ÈϘ is closer to the literal end (figure 7-3), while on the morphosyntactic level, the preposition È¥ is closer to the interpretive end (figure 7-4).

Head-to-Toe Scanning Building on my previous work, I show in this study how each word and phrase in the ¡ar˙ must be scanned from head to toe at four basic linguistic levels: the phrase level, the word level, the morphosyntactic level, and the segment level. The purpose of the scan is to reveal traces of the ¡ar˙an’s work, as these are the data at our disposal. From such traces one can make inferences about the linguistic dilemmas which had to be resolved during the process of translation. For example, the Hebrew word ‰¯Â˙ ‘Torah’ in the Haggadah is variously translated by three different words: ‰¯Â˙ (for example in ms. 74 22,13), ‰¯ÂË (for example in ms. 93 90,12), and ‰Úȯ˘ (for example in ms. 3 16,22). The Judeo-Arabic word ‰Úȯ˘ in the translation is a trace which points to a decision concerning the choice of a word from the lexicon, as the ¡ar˙an could have chosen one of the other words (‰¯ÂË ¨‰¯Â˙), which can be found elsewhere in the ¡ar˙.2 6 The choice of ‰Úȯ˘ then bears witness to an interpretive tendency (figure 8-1). A different choice of word is Judeo-Arabic ‰¯Â˙, which is an exact copy of the Hebrew ‰¯Â˙, indicating a literal tendency (figure 8-1). Similarly, the word ‰¯ÂË also points to the literal tendency at the word level (figure 8-1). At the segment level, the word ‰¯Â˙ is also on the literal side of the scale, because it uses the sounds of the Hebrew equivalent ‰¯Â˙ (figure 8-2). In comparison, in the translation ‰¯ÂË, the letter Ë constitutes a trace which may refer to regressive emphatization (/t/ > [†] preceding the [r¢]). This by itself is an indication of an interpretive tendency, since the ¡ar˙an here used a phonological variant to change the original

2 6 Table 4 below should be consulted in order to follow this example.

74 THE TRANSLATION OF SACRED TEXTS INTO JUDEO-ARABIC sound of the Hebrew ˙ into Judeo-Arabic /†/ (figure 8-2).

Interpretive Literal (word level/ ‰Úȯ˘ ‰¯Â˙ choice of word) ‰¯ÂË Figure 8-1. The word level continuum

Interpretive Literal (segment level/ ‰¯ÂË ‰¯Â˙ regressive assimilation) Figure 8-2. The segmental continuum In the same way, other linguistic features can be found and analyzed at the appropriate linguistic levels. The reader may think that such an analysis would have to assume that different translations were created by the same ¡ar˙an, in order to demonstrate the complexities of the literal/interpretive linguistic tension. Different ¡ur¥˙ were indeed composed by the same ¡ar˙an; however, it also happened, of course, that various ¡ur¥˙ were written by different ¡ar˙anim. But even if the translations were composed by different ¡ar˙anim, the literal/ interpretive tension is still there to be analyzed, because the ¡ar˙anim appear to have all belonged to one “school of translation,” even if there was no established formal institution. The ¡ar˙anim did not work in isolation, but rather they were part of a group of people, some very learned and others less so, who composed translations of sacred texts and worked within the same modes and principles.2 7 The following example from the Passover Haggadah illustrates the framework for this linguistic analysis of the ¡ar˙. Table 3 represents a

2 7 I thank Gunvor Mejdell for alerting me to this point. See also Bar-Asher 1988:8–10 and below in this chapter, pp. 89–90 and chapter 6, p. 165.

75 CHAPTER THREE sentence from the Haggadah in four different manuscripts and thus can be used as a good example for comparison. The example also contains several features from all the linguistic levels and many categories. Part 2 of this volume is an expansion of the analysis of the following sentence. It includes examples of all levels, categories, and features based on table 4.

‡¯˜ ‡Ï ÍÂÙ˘Í˙ÓÁχÌÈ‚‰¯˘‡‡ÏÍÂÚ„ÈÏÚÂ˙ÂÎÏÓÓ¯˘‡ÍÓ˘· ‰‰„„‚‚‰‰ 2 8¬ÓÒ‡ È¥  ÌÏ È≤χ‰„ ‰Ëψ χ ≤χÌϬ¥¯Ú‰ÏÚÂ Ï‡È ¬˙˜‡ÓÁ‰ÏÚ·ÂÚ˘ ·ÂÎÒ‡ ± 2 9‰„ ÌÏ ¬ÓÒ‡· È≤χ ‰Ëψ χ ÌϬ¥¯Ú‰ÏÚ È≤χ ·ÂÚ˘ χ ·ÂÎÒ‡¬˙‡ÓÁ‰ÏÚ ≤ 3 0‰„ ÌÏ È≤χ¬ÓÒ‡· ≤χÌϬÂÙ¯ÚȉÏÚÂÔÈˇψ Ï‡È ¬˙ÈÈÓÁ‰ÏÚ·ÂÚ˘ ·ÎÒ‡ ≥ 3 1‰„ ÌÏ È≤χ¬ÓÒ‡· ÔÈˇψ χ ≤χÌϬ¥¯ÚȉÏÚÂ Ï‡È ¬˙˜‡ÓÁ‡ÏÚ·ÂÚ˘ ·ÂÎÒ‡ ¥

Translation: ‘Pour out your wrath upon the nations that did not know you and upon the kingdoms that did not call your name.’

Table 3. The example from the Passover Haggadah

The analysis of the linguistic features is performed as follows, using the model provided in table 4: (1) ÍÂÙ˘ > ·Î҇طÂÎÒ‡: (i) Level: morphosyntactic; Category: TMA; Feature: tense/ aspect (11-1). Judeo-Arabic ·Î҇طÂÎÒ‡ ‘pour’ translates the Hebrew imperative ÍÂÙ˘ literally, using an imperative form in Judeo-Arabic as well. (ii) Level: word; Category: lexicon; Feature: root choice (consider- ations of sound/appearance) (3-2). The decision to use the Judeo- Arabic root s-k-b was interpretive, since another choice was available to the ¡ar˙an, one which would have been closer to

2 8 Ms. 3, folio 23,4. 2 9 Ms. 74, folio 13,1. 3 0 Ms. 91, folio 10b,4. 3 1 Ms. 93, folio 63,10.

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the sound or appearance of the Hebrew original (Õ · ”). (2) Í˙ÓÁ > ¬˙˜‡ÓÁ/¬˙‡ÓÁ/¬˙ÈÈÓÁ (i) Level: word; Category: lexicon; Feature: root choice (consider- ations of sound/appearance) (3-2). The decision to use the Judeo- Arabic roots ˙-m-q and ˙-m-y was literal, since the ¡ar˙an chose Judeo-Arabic roots with sounds close to those of the Hebrew: WÁULŠ ‘anger’ (‚  Õ) and WOLŠ ‘ rage’ (Ë Â Õ). (3) χ > ‰ÏÚ/‡ÏÚ (i) Level: morphosyntactic; Category: prepositions/particles; Feature: prepositions (5-1). The choice of the Judeo-Arabic preposition >ala represents the interpretive tendency, since the resulting translation is not literal. In fact, in a verbatim translation we would expect the Judeo-Arabic preposition ila. (ii) Level: segment; Category: orthography/phonology; Feature: Hebrew-influenced orthography (13-6). The spelling ‰ÏÚ with a word-final he to mark the vowel /a/ is probably in imitation of Hebrew orthography, and the final alef in ‡ÏÚ probably represents the influence of the orthography of the Babylonian Talmud, as part of the Hebraized orthography tradition of Judeo-Arabic,3 2 and should therefore be considered literal. (4) ¯˘‡ > È≤χ (i) Level: morphosyntactic; Category: pronouns; Feature: relative pronouns (6-3). The Judeo-Arabic relative pronoun È≤χ is commonly used throughout the texts of the ¡ur¥˙ to modify all nouns, regardless of their gender and number. This is an indication of literal translation, since it accords with the rules of Hebrew syntax. (5) ÍÂÚ„È > ¬Â¥¯Ú/¬ÂÙ¯ÚÈ/¬Â¥¯ÚÈ (i) Level: morphosyntactic; Category: TMA; Feature: tense/aspect (9-1). Judeo-Arabic ¬ÂÙ¯ÚÈ/¬Â¥¯ÚÈ ‘know you’ translates Hebrew ÍÂÚ„È in a literal way, since the same tense/aspect (imperfect) is

3 2 See Hary 1996c:732, 1999a:77–79, and 2009.

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used in both. However, the translation ¬Â¥¯Ú is interpretive, since it makes use of the perfect tense/aspect, whereas Hebrew uses the imperfect form. The latter also represents a possible hypocorrection that has been standardized in Later Egyptian Judeo-Arabic.3 3 (ii) Level: segment; Category: orthography/phonology; Feature: diacritic marks (13-5). On the one hand, the spelling of Ù without the supralinear dot in ¬ÂÙ¯ÚÈ may represent a literal tendency, as it could be an imitation of the Hebrew letter fe (Ù). On the other hand, the spelling of ¥ with a supralinear dot in ¬Â¥¯Ú/¬Â¥¯ÚÈ represents the fricative pronunciation of [f] rather than the stop [p], so it could denote the interpretive tendency, as this is part of the orthographic tradition of standard Arabic, indicating the få< with a supralinear dot (·) (see chapter 9, p. 311, 13-5.3). (6) ˙ÂÎÏÓÓ ÏÚ > ÔÈˇψ χ ‰ÏÚÂ/ÔÈˇψ ‰ÏÚ (i) Level: morphosyntactic; Category: definiteness; Features: adding the definite article when needed (9-1), and deleting the definite article when not needed (9-4). In ÔÈˇψ χ ‰ÏÚ ‘upon the kingdoms,’ the ¡ar˙an added the definite article in the Judeo- Arabic text in order to conform to Arabic structure, even though the definite article is lacking in the Hebrew text. This represents the interpretive side of the scale (9-1). On the other hand, in ÔÈˇψ ‰ÏÚ the translation is verbatim, as the definite article is absent both in the Hebrew and the Judeo-Arabic text, although it is required by Arabic grammar (9-4). The ¡ar˙an’s translation in this case follows the Hebrew text slavishly. (7) ˙ÂÎÏÓÓ > ‰Ëψ/ÔÈˇψ (i) Level: word; Category: lexicon; Feature: word choice (semantic considerations) (3-1). The choice of ÔÈˇψ ‘sultans’ represents the interpretive tendency, since Hebrew ˙ÂÎÏÓÓ ‘kingdoms’ does

3 3 See chapter 4, pp. 126–27, 3.3.3; chapter 5, pp. 141–43; and chapter 8, pp. 215–17, 4-2.1; as well as Hary 1992:294–95 and 314.

78 THE TRANSLATION OF SACRED TEXTS INTO JUDEO-ARABIC

not mean the rulers themselves. On the other hand, the choice of ‰Ëψ ‘sultanate, kingdom’ represents a literal translation. (ii) Level: morphosyntactic; Category: number and gender; Feature: number: plural (10-2). The choice of the singular ‰Ëψ ‘sultanate, kingdom’ represents the interpretive tendency, since the Hebrew ˙ÂÎÏÓÓ ‘kingdoms’ is in the plural form. (iii)Level: segment; Category: orthography/phonology; Feature: emphatization and deemphatization (13-2). The regressive partial assimilation (emphatization) /s/ > [ß] in ‰Ëψ/ÔÈˇψ, triggered by /†/, represents an interpretive tendency. (8) ÍÓ˘· > ¬ÓÒ‡·/¬ÓÒ‡ È¥ (i) Level: morphosyntactic; Category: prepositions/particles; Feature: prepositions (5-1). The choice of the Judeo-Arabic preposition bi represents the literal tendency, since it slavishly copies the Hebrew preposition ·, but the choice of the Judeo- Arabic preposition f• is interpretive wherever it better fits Arabic prepositional use. (9) ‡¯˜ > ‰„ (i) Level: word; Category: lexicon; Feature: root choice (semantic considerations) (3-1). The choice of the Judeo-Arabic root ‰„ is taken from colloquial Egyptian Arabic, pointing to an interpretive mode. (10) ‡¯˜ ‡Ï ÍÓ˘· > ¬ÓÒ‡ È¥ ‰„ ÌÏ/‰„ ÌÏ ¬ÓÒ‡· (i) Level: phrase; Feature: word-for-word translation (1-1). This sentence represents another good example of the literal/ interpretive linguistic tension. The sentence ‰„ ÌÏ ¬ÓÒ‡· ‘they did not call your name’ is a verbatim translation of ‡¯˜ ‡Ï ÍÓ˘·, and the word order is the same in both languages. But in the translation ¬ÓÒ‡ È¥ ‰„ ÌÏ the Judeo-Arabic word order is different and was chosen to accommodate its structure: this translation thus leans toward the interpretive side of the scale.

79 CHAPTER THREE

To conclude, the sentence analyzed above from head to toe reveals a complex literal/interpretive linguistic tension, in which the components move back and forth along the continuum in a multidimensional manner according to various linguistic levels, categories, and features. Table 4 below illustrates these levels, categories, and features, which form the basis of a linguistic model for analyzing the literal/interpretive linguistic tension, as demonstrated in great detail in part 2 of this study, using examples from various Egyptian Judeo-Arabic ¡ur¥˙.

80 THE TRANSLATION OF SACRED TEXTS INTO JUDEO-ARABIC 213–15 215–19 244–48 237–38 248–50 200–205 188–92 250–56 240–44 199–200 238–40 192–98 183–88 256 231–34 234–37 219–31 Analysis on pp. ¥˙ UR ¡

THE

OF

NALYSIS suffixes A THE

OF

ODEL 4-1 Nominal 4-2 Verbal 3-1considerations semantic choice: root) (or Word 3-2sound/appearance of considerations choice: root) (or Word 205–12 6-5particles and pronouns Interrogative 6-3 Relative pronouns 6-4pronouns Demonstrative 6-2 Pronominal 2-3 Numerals 2-2 Adverbs 1-1translation Word-for-word 7-2 Finite verbs 5-3 Conditional particles 6-1pronouns personal Independent 5-2 Coordinating particles and conjunctions 2-1adaptation Syntactic Feature M INGUISTIC L HE T 5 Prepositions/Particles 5-1 Prepositions 3 Lexicon 7 Verb Conjugation 7-1 Infinitives 1 Category 6 Pronouns 2Order Word Morphosyntactic 4 Negation Word Level Phrase

81 CHAPTER THREE 295–98 270–71 271–72 305–6 272–73 266–70 287–93 310–11 274–80 280–87 299–302 293–95 304 306 257–64 264–65 274 307–10 311–27 Analysis on pp. marking of the glides

plural

9-1needed where article definite the Adding 11-2 Mood 12-1 With counted nouns 9-3needed where article definite the Deleting 11-3passive Voice: 10-3 Gender 11-1 Tense/Aspect 9-4needed not where article definite the Deleting 9-2needed not where article definite the Adding 13-3 Elision 13-4 Orthographic 8-2 Directional 13-5marks Diacritic 13-6orthography Hebrew-influenced Feature 13-2deemphatization and Emphatization 10-1dual Number: 8-1 Accusative 10-2 Number: ur¥˙ ¡ Numerals 11 TMA 12 8 Cases Category 13 Orthography/Phonology 13-1 Assimilation 9 Definiteness 10 Agreement The linguistic model of the analysis of the Segment Table 4. Level 82 THE TRANSLATION OF SACRED TEXTS INTO JUDEO-ARABIC

The Translation Continuum A translation as a whole can also be placed on a theoretical literal/ interpretive continuum (see figure 9). In a given aspect, a certain translation may be more literal or more interpretive than another. For example, the translation of names within a literal tradition can be placed on a continuum from more to less literal:3 4 (i) There are biblical names that are copied into the Judeo-Arabic ¡ur¥˙ unchanged in a clear literal translation: χÏÏ‰Ó (15 0-1,1) ‘Mahalalel’; „¯È (15 0-1,2) ‘Jared’; ÍÂÁ (15 0-1,3) ‘Enoch’; ÁÏ˘Â˙Ó (15 0-1,6) ‘Metushelah’; ÍÓÏ (15 0-1,10) ‘Lemech’; ÁÂ (15 0-1,10) ‘Noah’; Ì˘ (15 0-1,17) ‘Shem’; ÌÁ (15 0-1,18) ‘Ham’; ˙ÙÈ (15 0-1,18) ‘Jephet’; ¯ÂÁ (15 2b,8) ‘Nahor’; ‰˜·¯ (15 2b,15) ‘Rebecca’; χÂ˙· (15 2b,16) ‘Bethuel’; ‰ÎÏÓ (15 2b,16) ‘Milcah’; ̉¯·‡ (15 2b,16) ‘Abraham’; ‰¯Â˘ (15 4b,11) ‘Keturah’; ‡·˘ (15 4b,13) ‘Sheba’; ¯¥Ú (15 4b,15) ‘Epher’; Ú„È·‡ (15 4b,15) ‘Abida’; ‰Ú„χ (15 4b,15) ‘Eldaah.’ These names appear in the translation in their original form, although the ¡ar˙an could have changed some of the spellings to reflect the Judeo-Arabic phonetics, as was done elsewhere in a more interpretive translation (see below). (ii) Further along the continuum toward the interpretive side is the translation of the Hebrew name of (possibly) the Hittites ˙ÕÁ (Gen 23:16). It is translated into Judeo-Arabic ˙ÈÁ (15 2a,4), with a spelling that is not identical. Here the ¡ar˙an made sure that the short /e/ vowel in the Hebrew name ˙ÕÁ was expressed in the Judeo-Arabic translation by adding the yod.3 5 A similar example is ÌÈȯ‰ ̇¯‡ (15 2b,7) ‘Aram-Naharaim,’ where the Judeo-Arabic

3 4 For a more exhaustive treatment of this issue, see chapter 9, pp. 320–27, 13-6.8. 3 5 Although the representation of short /i/ or /e/ in Later Egyptian Judeo-Arabic is not as common as the representation of short /u/ (Hary 1992:249, 2.1.2), it is quite prevalent in later Egyptian ¡ur¥˙ (David 2005:73, 2.1.3) as well as in the orthography of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Judeo-Arabic letters from the Geniza (Wagner 2007:68).

83 CHAPTER THREE

spelling is not identical to the Hebrew, probably due to phonetic issues, such as a possible long /å/ pronounced in ̇¯‡ and a possible /u/ in ÌÈȯ‰. Vowel lengthening /a/ > /å/ may also explain the alef in Ô‡¯ÓÊ (15 4b,12) ‘Zimran,’ Ô‡˘˜È (15 4b,12) ‘Yokshan,’ and more.3 6 The consonant /w/ is expressed in the personal name Á¢ (15 4b,13) /¡uwa˙/ ‘Shua˙’ by writing two vavs. (iii)Moving still further along the continuum, the following examples are found: ı¥¯Î /karfaß/ (74 21,2) ‘Karpas’ (greens for the Passover Seder), ¯∂Ú Èχ /eΩer/ (93, 15,9) ‘Eliezer,’ and ‰È¯∂Ú />aΩarya/ (93 15,9) ‘Azarya.’ Here a Hebrew common noun and two Hebrew personal names were copied into the Judeo-Arabic translation, but with a phonetic modification. The spellings suggest Judeo-Arabic emphatization of /s/ > [ß] and /z/ > [Ω]3 7 respectively, an indication of a slightly more interpretive translation. (iv)The translation of the name of the cave ‰ÏÙÎÓ‰ ‘the Machpela’ into Judeo-Arabic ‰È˙Ó Ï‡ (15 2a,9), literally ‘the doubled,’ although clearly a case where the ¡ar˙an chose a literal translation, is still less literal than the previous example. Indeed, the ¡ar˙an translated the Hebrew root k-f-l ‘double’ verbatim into Judeo-Arabic t-n-y ‘double,’ and also copied the Hebrew locative initial mem into Judeo-Arabic locative m•m, even though he did not use the same root in the Judeo-Arabic translation. (v) Much closer toward the less literal side of the continuum, one finds the translation of the biblical Hebrew place name ‡¯ÓÓ ‘Mamre’ (Gen 23:17). In the ¡ar˙ its translation is ‚¯Ó (15 2ba,6) ‘meadow.’ This is the ¡ar˙an’s attempt to describe a place with a field and vegetation. The various examples, organized in the above groups, are reflected in figure 9:

3 6 See chapter 4, p. 102, 1.1.5, and chapter 5, pp. 148–49, 1.1. 3 7 See also chapter 5, p. 149, 1.4.2 and p. 150, 1.4.3.

84 THE TRANSLATION OF SACRED TEXTS INTO JUDEO-ARABIC

Least Literal (v) (iv) (iii) (ii) (i) Most Literal

Figure 9. The less literal/more literal continuum

The usefulness of the continuum can be observed in the following examples: (i) Whereas ˙¯ƒÁ È¥ (15 2a,4) ‘in the presence of,’ which translates Èʇ· ‘in the hearing of’ (Gen 23:16), is a clear interpretation of the Hebrew, ˙¯ƒÁÏ (15 2a,7) ‘in the presence of’ is less obvious. The latter translates ÈÈÚÏ ‘in the eyes of’ (Gen 23:18), and is still interpretive, but less so than the previous example, as it is closer to the Hebrew meaning (see chapter 7, pp. 203–4, 3-1.12). (ii) Despite the fact that ı‡¯ /r¢åß/ (91 2b,10) ‘head’ and ı¯Á‡ /u˙r¢uß/ (15 2a,19) ‘beware’ are literal translations of Hebrew ˘‡¯ and ¯Ó˘‰ respectively, the Judeo-Arabic spellings, with the emphatic [ß], are examples of Judeo-Arabic assimilation in the environment of emphatic [r¢], and so indicative of a more interpretive translation.

The Work of the ¡ar˙an The detailed theoretical framework laid out here provides for the analysis of the linguistic features in the ¡ar˙. In the course of defining this framework, I attempt to understand how the ¡ar˙an undertook the translations of the Hebrew or Aramaic text. I assume that he was in possession of the original Hebrew or Aramaic text, or at least that he was competent in the text. The ¡ar˙anim of that period memorized the Bible and other sacred texts, so that even if they did not have the actual text in front of them, they remembered it as if it were. The ¡ar˙an quite likely intended to make a literal translation. In other words, he would attempt to find a Judeo-Arabic equivalent for every Hebrew or Aramaic word. Although throughout the ¡ar˙ both literal and interpretive tendencies are seen at each level of the translation, the

85 CHAPTER THREE literal tendency seems to have dominated, since it is more frequently encountered than the interpretive tendency. Furthermore, a literal translation gave rise to “un-Arabic” sentences, which could not have existed in the ¡ar˙ if the guiding principle had been interpretive. In Saadia’s tafs•r, the guiding principle was interpretive, and indeed such “un-Arabic” sentences are not to be found there. In fact Saadia’s tafs•r obeyed, for the most part, the rules of Classical Arabic. In other words, the ¡ar˙an intended to translate the text verbatim, for the various reasons enumerated above (pp. 53–54, 58–59, 61–63). However, the ¡ar˙ includes nonverbatim traces as well. How did these traces find their way into the ¡ar˙ if they were in conflict with the guiding principle of verbatim translation? Was there a separate mechanism that enabled these interpretive traces to find their way into the final product, the ¡ar˙? What happened on the way from the original Hebrew/Aramaic input to the moment the ¡ar˙an wrote down the Judeo-Arabic output of the ¡ar˙? Figure 10 illustrates these questions:

input output (original text) ?! (the ¡ar˙)

Figure 10. What happens in the process of translation?

Two kinds of mechanisms are assumed to operate inside the rectangle (figure 11). Mechanism A represents the guiding principle of verbatim translation, according to which a ¡ar˙an put a Judeo-Arabic equivalent in place of each Hebrew or Aramaic component. This is the way the ¡ar˙an intended to render the text. In other words, Mechanism A is a deliberate process. Its output, an “intermediate product” (IP), is not

86 THE TRANSLATION OF SACRED TEXTS INTO JUDEO-ARABIC attested regularly; however, it can be assumed that it would be a rather complete literal translation with many “un-Arabic” sentences and structures that would make comprehension difficult, if not impossible. Mechanism B then takes the IP and allows the interpretive tendencies to find their way in. Mechanism B manipulates the text by way of change, addition, and deletion,3 8 in order to facilitate compre- hension. The end result is a complex output, the ¡ar˙, which contains a mixture of both literal and interpretive traces. Figure 11 illustrates these mechanisms: Mechanism B Mechanism A Mechanism

input output *IP (original text) (the ¡ar˙)

Figure 11. The ¡ar˙an’s work

We may safely assume that a ¡ar˙an was more aware of using Mechanism A than Mechanism B. Furthermore, it could even be supposed that he may have been unaware of the existence of Mechanism B, and that he was in fact convinced that he did indeed translate the text verbatim. We may also assume that a ¡ar˙an would have used a different linguistic competence for each of the mechanisms. For Mechanism A he would find an equivalent for the Hebrew component in his store of Judeo-Arabic linguistic knowledge. For Mechanism B he would use his knowledge of other linguistic traditions, such as standard Arabic, colloquial Arabic, or the language of previous transla- tions, such as those of Saadia (Classical Judeo-Arabic) or Onqelos

3 8 Tedghi mentions “broadening,” “narrowing,” and “free translation” (1994: 96–100).

87 CHAPTER THREE

(Aramaic). Moreover, it may well have been the case that translators/interpreters had not just the Hebrew text in front of them, but also Saadia’s translation, either in a physical copy or in their mind, since that text was so authoritative. But translators may also have consciously discarded Saadia’s translation, and yet unconsciously consulted it occasionally in order to resolve translation difficulties. Some, of course, may have lost their knowledge of Saadia’s translation altogether. Furthermore, many translators may have realized that a totally verbatim translation was impossible, and therefore considered the use of calculated compromises in the interests of intelligibility and readability. As mentioned above, the IP is not attested regularly, since the end product usually includes Mechanism B. However, a good illustration of an IP and the process of the ¡ar˙an’s work can be shown in two different translations of a clause from the Haggadah, Ú„ÂÈ Âȇ˘ „Á‡Â χ˘Ï ‘and the one who does not know how to ask.’ In ms. 93 16,7 the ¡ar˙an translated this sentence as χÒÈÏ ¥¯ÚÈ ÂÒÈÏ È≤χ „Á‡ÂÂ. This is a verbatim translation which would have sounded strange to native speakers of Arabic for a number of reasons. First, the translation’s word order strictly follows the Hebrew original. Second, ÂÒÈÏ is a hybrid form of the negative particle /lays/ and the third pronominal suffix /-o/, in imitation of the Hebrew negative Ôȇ and the third pronominal suffix Â≠. Finally, χÒÈÏ translates the Hebrew infinitive construct χ˘Ï with the Arabic particle /li/, which is phonetically equivalent to the Hebrew preposition Ï, although in Arabic the particle /an/ would have been expected. It seems that the source text Âȇ˘ „Á‡Â χ˘Ï Ú„ÂÈ went through Mechanism A (figure 11) to result in a possible IP of χÒÈÏ ¥¯ÚÈ ÂÒÈÏ È≤χ „Á‡ÂÂ. This IP then went through Mechanism B, which did not produce any change. Had Mechanism B caused any changes, interpretive traces would have been detected in the output. Thus, we assume that in this case the IP was the same as the final output (the ¡ar˙).

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Ms. 3 4,10, however, offers a different translation of the same Hebrew clause: χÒÈ ˘¥¯ÚÈ ‡Ó „Á‡Â ‘and the one who does not know how to ask.’ Clearly, this translation leans more toward the interpretive side of the scale and is formulated in standard Egyptian Judeo-Arabic. As in the first translation, the Hebrew clause χ˘Ï Ú„ÂÈ Âȇ˘ „Á‡Â went through Mechanism A to produce an IP, perhaps ¥¯ÚÈ ÂÒÈÏ È≤χ „Á‡Â χÒÈÏ as in the previous example. In the example in ms. 3, however, Mechanism B did cause the ¡ar˙an to employ his linguistic knowledge of colloquial Egyptian Arabic to arrive at the output ˘¥¯ÚÈ ‡Ó „Á‡Â χÒÈ, which indeed includes several features of colloquial Egyptian Arabic: the negative /ma -¡/, as in [majI?rafS] ‘does not know,’ and the asyndetic clauses [w¶wa:©Idma] ‘the one who does not’ and [jI?rafSjIsal] ‘does not know how to ask.’ To conclude, both translations of χ˘Ï Ú„ÂÈ Âȇ˘ „Á‡Â would appear to result in the same IP after going through Mechanism A. We assume that the difference between the two translations is the result of Mechanism B. In the first example, χÒÈÏ ¥¯ÚÈ ÂÒÈÏ È≤χ „Á‡ÂÂ, Mechanism B does not operate and therefore the IP and the output are the same. In the second example, χÒÈ ˘¥¯ÚÈ ‡Ó „Á‡ÂÂ, however, Mechanism B does operate, and therefore the output is different than the IP. The main manipulations that Mechanism B performs on the IP in the second example are the following: omission of the relative pronoun È≤χ, adaptation of ¥¯ÚÈ ÂÒÈÏ to the Judeo-Arabic negation, and use of the asyndetic clause χÒÈ ˘¥¯ÚÈ. Since a number of different ¡ar˙anim each composed ¡ur¥˙, many different manuscripts of the same text may exist. When two different versions of a translation from two different manuscripts are compared and analyzed, as is the case here with the versions from mss. 3 and 93, we do not necessarily assume that one and the same ¡ar˙an composed them, although we do consider it likely that they are copies of one earlier prototype ¡ar˙. However, it certainly may also be the case that two manuscript versions of a text were written by two different ¡ar˙anim. How, then, can the same analysis be assigned to

89 CHAPTER THREE both? In fact, even if the ¡ur¥˙ in question were composed by two or more different ¡ar˙anim, they can still be analyzed as texts that share a tradition of translation. It is probable that the tradition of the ¡ar˙ was unified, at least in Egypt, if not elsewhere. Consequently, the same analysis, using the two mechanisms A and B, can be assigned to examples from different manuscripts. Throughout this study, I assume the existence of such a tradition of translation and analyze examples from various Egyptian Judeo-Arabic ¡ur¥˙ accordingly.3 9 To summarize, Mechanism A and Mechanism B scan the text differently and use different working methods. Mechanism A scans the text horizontally, i.e., word by word, and for each Hebrew word substitutes a Judeo-Arabic equivalent to produce the IP. Mechanism B then scans the latter from head to toe all the way from the phrase level through the word level and the morphosyntactic level, down to the segment level, while performing interpretive manipulations where needed. Part 2 of this book illustrates these mechanisms in detail.

3 9 See p. 75 above, including n. 27, and chapter 6, p. 165.

90 CHAPTER FOUR SPOKEN EGYPTIAN JUDEO-ARABIC: THE EVIDENCE FROM THE ¡arh¢¢ ¢¢ TEXTS

This chapter introduces the methodological considerations for recon- structing the spoken Judeo-Arabic variety used by Egyptian Jews, as extracted from the texts of the ¡ur¥˙. It examines the various linguistic levels in the texts, emphasizes the connection between the orthography and phonetics/ phonology, including its limitations, and points out similar orthographical trends in today’s published modern Egyptian dialect. It then analyzes selected characteristics of dialectal features of spoken Egyptian Judeo-Arabic in phonetics and phonology, morphology, syntax, and the lexicon. The chapter concludes with a summary which highlights the characteristics of spoken Egyptian Judeo- Arabic, as reflected in the texts of the ¡ur¥˙, that set it apart from spoken Egyptian Arabic used by Christians and Muslims.1

Spoken Egyptian Judeo-Arabic — An Introduction Nada Tomiche was the first to document Egyptian Jewish speech. In 1968 she highlighted several features in Egyptian Judeo-Arabic speech, distinguishing them from the Christian and Muslims dialects in pho- netics, morphology, and lexicon. Haim Blanc followed suit, laying the foundation for research on Egyptian Judeo-Arabic in three important

1 It is likely that most of the data presented here refer to the religiolect spoken in Cairo by Jews in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. However, it is also probable that Jews in Alexandria and elsewhere had similar linguistic traits (see Tomiche 1968:1179–80; Rosenbaum 2002c:118). I use “Egyptian” and “Cairene” Judeo-Arabic interchangeably to refer to these features. CHAPTER FOUR articles (1974, 1981, 1985). In 1979, despite the limited data collected on the speech of Egyptian Jews, Blanc argued that the dialect spoken by Cairene Jews was not distinct from the dialect spoken by Christian and Muslims, as opposed to spoken Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic, which was distinct in many ways from Christian and Muslims Baghdadi dialect (Rabin et al. 1979:49–52).2 With the recordings of contemporary Egyptian Jews conducted by Gabriel Rosenbaum and the collection and publication of Egyptian Judeo-Arabic material, including ¡ur¥˙, done by me (Hary 1992, 2009), there are now ample data to trace the development of spoken Egyptian Judeo-Arabic from the sixteenth century until today. These data have confirmed several of Tomiche’s discoveries and all of Blanc’s findings about the dialect, which in 1974 he termed “non-standard Cairene.” Moreover, Rosenbaum (2002b, 2002c)3 has identified new dialectal features of Egyptian Judeo-Arabic, a process that is continued in this chapter. Rosenbaum has rightly asserted that had Blanc seen the new materials, he would have been convinced that the term “Egyptian Judeo-Arabic” was justified (2002c:118).

2 Likewise, S. Morag (Rabin et al. 1979:53) has claimed that modern Egyptian Judeo-Arabic does not include any independent linguistic features. 3 Rosenbaum (2002c:118) has claimed that in Egypt the Christians (Copts) and the Muslims speak the same variety. Recent research on religiolects (chapter 1 of this volume; Benor 2008; Hary and Wein 2008) has not supported this claim. There are simply not enough data available. Had there been systematic recordings of Christians and Muslims, using corpus linguistics methodology, and had there been a comprehensive analysis of Egyptian Christian and Muslim texts from the premodern eras, both of these varieties would have been identified as distinct to some degree. Moreover, Tomiche (1968:1180) has alluded to this issue by noting that “[d]ans sa phonétique, il se caractérise par une absence de vélarisation qui contraste avec les dialectes des Musulmans, mais qui le rapproche du language des Coptes.”

92 SPOKEN EGYPTIAN JUDEO-ARABIC

Methodology The texts of the ¡ur¥˙ contain several levels and elements, including those of colloquial speech. Through a careful examination of the texts, these elements can be extracted in order to reconstruct, at least in part, the dialect used by Egyptian Jews during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the period of the composition of the ¡ur¥˙. The texts of Judeo-Arabic ¡ur¥˙ include a mixture of several layers:4 (i) Classical and post-Classical Arabic; (ii) Pseudocorrections; (iii) Standardized pseudocorrections; (iv) Verbatim or direct translations from Hebrew and Aramaic into Judeo-Arabic; (v) Traces from earlier translations of sacred texts, especially that of Saadia Gaon; and (vi) Dialectal components. The tracing of the dialect, then, can be conducted by isolating elements (i) through (v), thereby allowing elements of the spoken dialect (vi) to surface. The findings should then be compared with the modern dialects,5 as well as with documentation from premodern Cairene Arabic, to confirm the evidence. This comparison, of course, has to be done carefully and meticulously to avoid the many complications that may arise. For example, standardized pseudocorrection phenomena (element [iii] above) may pose a special difficulty. It is not easy to discern whether standardized pseudocorrections have become part of the dialect or have just been standardized in the written texts and become productive in them. In order to exemplify this methodology, consider the following sentence: ÔÈÚ Ï‡ ˙ÏÊ ‡‰¥¯Ú ÌÏ Ï‚‡¯Â ‰È¯Î· Ș ¯∂Ó Ï‡ ˙ÒÂÁ ‰È·ˆ χ ˙ÚÏË ‡‰˙¯‚ ˙ÏÓ (15 2b,17–18) ‘and the girl (was) very good looking, a virgin, and no man had known her. She went down to the spring,

4 See Blau 1991 for the different layers in Classical Judeo-Arabic. 5 See Blau in Rabin et al. 1979:47–48 for a similar discussion.

93 CHAPTER FOUR filled her jar, and came up,’ which is the translation of ‰‡¯Ó ˙·›Ë ‰¯Ú‰Â ÏÚ˙ ‰„Î ‡ÏÓ˙ ‰ÈÚ‰ „¯˙ ‰Ú„È ‡Ï ˘È‡Â ‰ÏÂ˙· „›‡Ó (Gen 24:16). In this translation Classical and post-Classical components (element [i] above) are clear: the i∂åfa \ayr ˙aq•qiyya in /˙usnat al-manΩar/ ‘good looking’ and the use of Judeo-Arabic perfect verbs. The latter does not constitute a verbatim translation, since the Hebrew uses the imperfect followed by the vav consecutive. The verbatim translation elements (element [iv] above), on the other hand, are also evident: lack of /wa-kånat/ ‘and (she) was’ at the beginning of the sentence in the ¡ar˙, in order to mirror the Hebrew; lack of vav conjunctive before ‰È¯Î· ‘virgin,’ again, to meticulously copy the Hebrew; the use of the Judeo-Arabic noun ÔÈÚ ‘spring’ to imitate the Hebrew ÔÈÚ, as other Arabic nouns could have been chosen; and more. It is also possible that the choice of ÔÈÚ ‘spring’ may have been indirectly influenced by Saadia’s translation (element [v] above), which was so prevalent among Arabic-speaking Jews. Furthermore, the choice of ¯∂Ó Ï‡ ˙ÒÂÁ ‘good looking’ by the ¡ar˙an may also be connected to the influence of Saadia’s work. The use of /lam/ before the perfect verb in ‡‰¥¯Ú ÌÏ ‘(he) did not know her’ may reveal a standardized pseudocorrection (element [iii] above), which became part of Egyptian Judeo-Arabic dialect. As a pseudocorrection becomes prevalent in a variety—spoken or written—it reaches a point where it ceases to be a pseudocorrection and becomes an accepted form of the variety. It thus becomes stan- dardized and productive. In Later Egyptian Judeo-Arabic in general, and in the texts of the ¡ur¥˙ in particular, there are countless examples where the negative particle /lam/ is followed by the perfect: ÏÒ¯ ÌÏ (15 27a,16) ‘(he) did not send’; ˙˙‡‚ ÌÏ (1302 2a,3) ‘(she) did not come’ (p. 120, 2.2.5.1.2); ‰·¯˜ ÌÏ (3 16,20) ‘(he) did not bring us near’ (chapter 8, pp. 215–17, 4-2.1, pp. 293–95, 11-2). These and other examples may stem from hypocorrected forms6 that have been

6 For a detailed discussion of hypocorrections, hypercorrections, and other phenomena of pseudocorrections, see Blau 1970:12–15; Hary 2007.

94 SPOKEN EGYPTIAN JUDEO-ARABIC standardized in the variety and become productive. In the dialect, the regularly used particle to negate the past is /ma/. The writer does not choose the latter construction because it is an unmarked form, dominant in the dialect, and thus not prestigious. Instead, he chooses the prestigious marked Classical Arabic negation particle /lam/. The writer, however, “corrects” the construction only halfway: although he changes the negative particle /ma/ to /lam/, he does not change the perfect form following it to the jussive, as required by Classical Arabic. This example follows the criteria for hypocorrections (Hary 2007:277–78). However, because these forms have been regularly used in Later Egyptian Judeo- Arabic, they have been standardized in writing, as evident in various manuscripts from that period, and have become productive. The question remains, however, whether the use of /lam/ followed by the perfect has become part of the spoken dialect. Rosenbaum has argued (2002a) that it has, producing evidence for its existence in the dialect. He has noted that “the negative particle lam in colloquial Arabic texts derives from the negative particle lam in common use in standard Arabic” and commented that it “is also possible that they are the result of pseudo-corrections which became productive” (ibid., 591), but he has not supplied the above-mentioned analysis in detail. Wagner, who has traced the development of the language used in eleventh- to nineteenth-century Judeo-Arabic letters from the Cairo Geniza, disagreed, claiming that the use of /lam/ in late Egyptian Judeo-Arabic dialect “is a very unlikely scenario” (2007:177). Arnold, on the other hand, has reported on the use of /lam/ in the spoken Arabic of the Jews of Iskenderoun in the northeastern Mediterranean and speculates that it comes from the combination of /lå/ and /må/ (2006–2007:11), and not necessarily from Classical Arabic /lam/. To conclude, the standardized and productive use of /lam/ as a negative particle in Judeo-Arabic ¡ur¥˙ may reflect living usage and may be part of the dialect of the Jews in Egypt, although this has not been fully proven (see also chapter 5, pp. 141–43).

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To return to the example presented on pp. 93–94, after the isolation of the above elements, several characteristics that are part of the spoken dialect remain: the Egyptian adverb /

/g/ /g/, /g’/, /≠/ /≠/ /≠/, /g/ /g/ 6th–7th cent. 8th–11th cent. 12th–17th cent. 17th–18th cent. 19th–20th cent.

Figure 12. The development of the ≠•m in urban Egyptian Arabic

The following notes, however, demonstrate the intricate and complex relationship between orthography and phonetics/phonology: (i) There is clear evidence that the uvular stop /q/ has shifted to /

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and probably earlier.7 The orthography in the texts of the ¡ur¥˙, for the most part, does not reflect this shift and uses qof (˜) in such cases. Only infrequently does the orthography in the ¡ur¥˙ mark the reflex of old Arabic /q/ as alef (‡) (see below, p. 106, 1.7.1). Nonetheless, based on other evidence, the shift /q/ > /aßf¥r/ Bird’s Milk by Y¥suf al-Qa>•d was published in 1994 and —uÞ Áœ p?¹bë /id-d•k da †ør/ This Rooster Is an Ox by °mån Bakr• as recently as 2007.8 In such books the glottal stop that clearly shifted from the uvular stop /q/ is spelled with an Arabic qåf, reflecting standard Arabic spelling and not dialectal pronunciation, along the lines of a similar orthographic practice used in Egyptian Judeo-Arabic.

7 See Grotzfeld 1967; Hary 1992:263. 8 Bird’s Milk is the literal translation; the idiomatic translation is That’s Impossible. See also Rosenbaum (2008:391): “One of the significant results of this activity is the publication of several prose texts written completely in the colloquial, thus eliminating the traditional stylistic distinction between narration and dialogue.” Furthermore, in n. 3 he has provided a list of additional novels. Since then, in addition to Bakr•’s novel, the following were also published in Cairo: ‰“UÐ /båzil/ Puzzle by Óusayn >Abd al->Al•m in 2005, and “u??&« …e?¹U??Ž />åyza atgawwez/ I’d Like to Get Married by |åda >Abd al->Ål in 2007.

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(ii) The spelling of ˘‡ (3 2,8) ‘what,’ which, surprisingly enough, appears more than twenty times in ms. 3 of the Passover Haggadah from the Cairo Collection and several times in ms. 91,9 may indicate that this interrogative pronoun was pronounced with a short /e/ (/e¡/), another variant of ˘È‡ /∑¡/. There is, however, no confirmation for this pronunciation in any other source.1 0 The same orthograph- ical analysis applies to ˘Ï (3 23,10) and ˘ÈÏ /l∑¡/ (15 3a,17; 5b,4; and more) ‘why.’ Lacking any other supporting evidence, it is safe to assume that the vowel in these interrogative pronouns is indeed long /∑¡/ and /l∑¡/ and that the spelling is simply defectiva.1 1 (iii)Although there is ample evidence in the orthography of Late Judeo- Arabic in general and Late Egyptian Judeo-Arabic in particular for the appearance of an alef where a short /a/ is expected, it is not a solid proof for the lengthening of /a/ into [å]. This spelling usually occurs in one-syllable words:1 2 ȇ˘1 3 /¡ay/ (93 1,2) ‘thing’; Ô‡Ú />an/ (93 2,11; 11,18a) ‘about’; χ¡ /xall/ (74 21,2) ‘vinegar’; ˇ˘ /¡a††/ (91 3a,1) ‘shore’; È‡Ê /zayy/ (91 2b,8) ‘like.’1 4 Interestingly, Khan has considered this alef to mark the long vowel /å/: “This spelling reflects, indeed, the fact that in these words the vowel is lengthened in the spoken language” (1991:226, my translation). However, it has not been proven that the vowel had shifted to

9 In mss. 15, 1302, 74, and 93 the spelling is always with a yod, ˘È‡ /∑¡/, indicating a long vowel. See the reference to these manuscripts in the introduction to this volume. 1 0 Tomiche 1968:1180; Blanc 1974:216; Rosenbaum 2002c:126. See also pp. 114–15, 2.1.6.1. 1 1 See the scriptio defectiva described in Wagner 2007:76 for ‰Ù /f•h/ ‘in it.’ 1 2 See also Hary 1992:249, 2.1.3; 1994b:377; Khan 1991:226, although Wagner (2007:70) has cited several examples of multisyllabic words: ‰¯‡Ó ‘time,’ ‡‰˙·‡˙Î ‘I wrote to her.’ 1 3 For a similar spelling in Tunisian Judeo-Arabic, see Doron 1995:134. 1 4 ̇Π/kåm/ (91 7a,17; 8a,5; 93 31,14; 37,14) ‘how much’ is probably long, as is the case in standard Egyptian Arabic, although there is also a variant with a short vowel /kam/.

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become long, because there is no supporting evidence for this phenomenon elsewhere. This issue then demonstrates that the orthography cannot be used as the only tool to trace the dialect. It is more probable that the alef was added to “create” a longer word, as a word with only two letters may have seemed too short to the ¡ar˙ånim. In sum, these three cases demonstrate the need to consider the orthography cautiously and not as a solid proof for phonetic or phonological structure. Therefore, in this chapter, if the orthography is not supported by additional evidence, then it is not taken as proof of a phonetic or phonological feature. Below are several notes on the descriptive linguistic analysis of spoken Egyptian Judeo-Arabic, as extracted from the texts of the ¡ur¥˙, that use the methods outlined above. The examples cited in this chapter are only a small selection from the texts of the ¡ur¥˙; many are not unique to Egyptian Judeo-Arabic dialect, but are also found in standard Egyptian Arabic. Each example appears in the Judeo- Arabic orthography, followed by a conjectured transcription when deemed necessary and plausible. Then appears a reference to the manuscript(s) from which it is cited, followed by a translation into English.

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1. Phonetics and Phonology 1.1 Vowel shifts 1.1.1 /å/ > [a]: È˙¥ÈÈË /†ayfeti/ (15 3b,9) ‘my family’; ¬˙Èȯ‚ /garyetak/ (74 14,13; 93 67,13) ‘your (masc.) maid.’ 1.1.2 /a/ > [i] or [e]/[E], sometimes as part of imåla process: Ô‡ÚÈ‚ /gi>ån/ (3 2,4; 74 1,1; 93 12,5) ‘hungry’; ÏÈÁÓ /ma˙Ell/ (93 1,8) ‘place’; Â˙ȯ¥Âˆ /ßufrito/ (93 2,14) ‘his table’; ˙ÂˆÓ ˙È˙‡Ï˙ /talåtit maßøt/ (93 11,12) ‘three matzot (unleavened bread).’ 1.1.3 /a/ > [u]: ˙˜Â Ï„ /dulwaåla/ (91 2b,15; 93 16,4) ‘exalt’; ·Ú¢ /¡u>b/ (93 22,9; 22,10) ‘people’; ¯Â¡‡ /åxur/ (15 6b,16 and more; 3 11,12 and more) ‘another’; Ôȯ¡Â‡ /uxr•n/ (91 9b,14; 93 45,5) ‘other (pl.).’1 6 1.1.4 /i/ > [u]: ̇Ê¡ /xuzåm/ (15 3a,5) ‘nose ring’; 1 7 ‰‡È¯ÂÚ />uryåna/ (3 8,15) ‘naked’;1 8 ‰ƒÂ¯ /ru∂a/ (3 21,10) ‘contentment, acceptance.’1 9 Furthermore, note the /u/ in /a¡ar ˙axam•m/ ‘The Story of Ten Rabbis.’

1 5 It is possible that the shift comes from standard Egyptian /dilwa /u/); however, the shift /håƒa/ > /da/ > /du/ is presented here. 1 6 Note that in standard colloquial Egyptian Arabic these examples do not undergo the shift, as they do in Egyptian Judeo-Arabic: /dilwaåla/ (ibid., 598); /¡a>b/ (ibid., 466); /åxar/ and /åxar•n/ (ibid., 11); although /råxar/ and its plural form /ruxr•n/ also exist. 1 7 In standard colloquial Egyptian Arabic, both /xuzåm/ and /xizåm/ exist (ibid., 249); however, in Egyptian Judeo-Arabic the preference is for /xuzåm/. 1 8 In standard Egyptian Arabic this shift does not occur: />iryåna/ (ibid., 574). 1 9 Hinds and Badawi have not recorded the shift in standard colloquial Egyptian Arabic; they wrote /ri∂a/ (1986:340). However, my Egyptian consultants have told me that /ru∂a/ exists in standard Egyptian as well. 2 0 In standard Cairene /

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The following examples exhibit the same shift of /i/ > [u] in standard colloquial Egyptian Arabic that also occurs in Egyptian Judeo-Arabic dialect: ϘÂ˙ /tu /u/ from standard /mråt-/ ‘wife of’ (Hinds and Badawi 1986:815). Even in the less likely case that the word has come from Hebrew, it still has the vowel /u/, reflecting the preference in Egyptian Judeo-Arabic.2 2 1.1.4.1 In sum, there is a clear preference in spoken Egyptian Judeo- Arabic for the vowel /u/.2 3 Sometimes standard Cairene dialect features both /u/ and /i/ for certain forms; however, Egyptian Judeo-Arabic demonstrates a consistent preference for /u/. For example, the verbal pattern /fu>ul/ (see below, p. 117, 2.2.1.1) occurs both in standard Egyptian dialect and in Egyptian Judeo-Arabic dialect; however, Muslims prefer /fi>il/ and Jews prefer /fu>ul/. Furthermore, Jews opt for /xuzåm/ ‘nose ring’ and /¡ubbåk/ ‘window,’ whereas /xizåm/ and /¡ebbåk/ respectively are more common in the standard spoken variety in Cairo. In addition, Jews use the vowel /u/ even in cases where the standard variety calls for /e/ or /i/ or even /a/: />uryåna/ (3 8,15) ‘naked,’

2 1 See also Khan 1991:226. 2 2 See 1.1.4.1 below and the examples from Hebrew, /kupp¥r/ ‘Yom Kippur’ and /kutubbå/ ‘marriage contract.’ 2 3 Already in 1991 Khan (p. 226 n. 10) had noticed this phenomenon, but he did not have the same extensive data that exist today.

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/†u¡t/ ‘washtub,’ and /muxadda/ ‘pillow’2 4 appear in Egyptian Judeo- Arabic as opposed to />iryåna/, /†i¡t/, and /mexadda/ in the standard variety. Along the same lines, /dulwaåla/ (91 2b,15)2 6 ‘exalt’ appear in Egyptian Judeo-Arabic vs. /tabårak/ and /ta>åla/ in standard Egyptian. In the Egyptian Judeo-Arabic Haggadah the negation particle ˘ÂÓ /mu¡/ (3 1,4) appears, whereas standard Cairene employs both /mi¡/ and /mu¡/. Rosenbaum (2002b:37) has reported that words taken from Hebrew undergo a similar shift: /kupp¥r/ vs. Hebrew /kipp¥r/ ‘Yom Kippur’ and /kutubbå/ vs. Hebrew /ketubbå/ ‘marriage contract.’ 1.1.5 /a/ > [å] This shift occurs in Hebrew words borrowed into the ¡ar˙ (chapter 5, 1.1): ‰‡ÏË· /ba†alå/ (93 1,6) ‘in vain’; Ô‡ÁÏ¢ /¡ul˙ån/ (74 21,17; 91 10a,11) ‘table,’ and is consistent with Rosenbaum’s finding: /koh∑n/ ‘priest’ and /kohenå/ ‘daughter or wife of a priest’ (2002b:36). This shift also occurs in personal names adopted from the Hebrew: Ô‡¯ÓÊ /zimrån/ (15 4b,12) ‘Zimran’; Ô‡˘˜È /yok¡ån/ (15 4b,12) ‘Yokshan’; Ô‡„Ó /mEdån/ (15 4b,12) ‘Medan’; Ô‡È„Ó /mEdyån/ (15 4b,12) ‘Midian’; ˜‡·˘È /yi¡båq/ (15 4b,13) ‘Yishbak’; Ô‡„„ /dEdån/ (15 4b,14) ‘Dedan.’ The same process occurs in place names: Ô‡˙„ /dotån/ (15 22a,8) ‘Dotan’; ‰˙‡Ó˙ /timnåta/ (15 23a, 15 and 16) ‘to Timnah’ (chapter 7, 3-2.5 and chapter 8, 8-2.1). 1.1.6 /å/ > /a/ preceding />/, /˙/, or /h/: ˙‡Ú¯„ /dira>åt/ (15 37a,9) ‘arms’; Ú˙· /bEta>/ (91 7a,11) and ˙ÈÚ˙· /bEta>et/ (91 8b,2; 10a,12) ‘genitive marker, of (masc., fem.)’; ˙‡‰Ï‡ /ilahåt/ (93 19,2) ‘gods’; ‰Ïȇ /ilah/ (91 9b,7) ‘God’ and ‡‰Ï‡ /ilahna/ (91 9b,10) ‘our God.’

2 4 The last two examples are taken from Rosenbaum 2002b:37. 2 5 Behnstedt and Woidich (1985, 2:178–80) have recognized about forty variants for /dilwaA∂åyma. 2 6 See above, p. 100, 1.1.3, for a complete reference to these examples.

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This shift occurs regularly in Maghrebi dialects2 7 but is unusual in standard Egyptian dialect.2 8 This feature, then, is an example of migrated or displaced dialectalism, discussed in chapter 1 (pp. 22–23). Sometimes this vowel shortening occurs elsewhere:2 9 ‰ÈÈˈ /wa߆a-niyya/ (74 21,3; 91 11,12) ‘middle’; ˙‡ÒÎ /kasåt/ (74 21,6; 91 11,18) ‘cups’; ÔÈÎÒÓ /masak•n/ (93 12,4) ‘poor (pl.).’ 1.1.7 /i/ or /e/ > [•] or [∑] in words borrowed from the Hebrew: ıÈÓÁ /˙am∑ß/ (93 1,3; 1,6 and more) ‘unleavened’ (chapter 5, p. 149, 1.2). 1.2 The diphthongs The diphthongs contracted to become monophthongs in Egyptian Judeo-Arabic dialect, certainly by the nineteenth century (Blanc 1981:195). 1.2.1 /aw/ > /ø/: ÂÓ˜ /<ømo/ (3 4,7) ‘his people’; ‰ˈ /ßø†na/ (3 9,17) ‘our voice.’ Sometimes, however, the contraction has not happened: „‚ÂÂÓ /mawg¥d/ (15 3b,12 and many other occurrences) ‘present, in attendance (masc. sg.)’; ‰„‰ /hawda/ (15 3b,12 and many other occurrences) ‘indeed.’ These forms may reflect classicisms, but in some instances the monophthongization has yet to be firmly established. 1.2.2 /ay/ > /∑/: Ëȵ /∞∑†/ (15 2a,5) ‘field’; ‡‰ÈÏÚ />al∑ha/ (15 3b,19 and more) ‘on her’; ÔÈ˙‡ /itn∑n/ (15 5b,6) ‘two’; ˙ÈÏÈÏ /l∑lit/ (93 1,1) ‘the night of’; ÒÈÁ /˙∑s/ (93 1,3) ‘since’; ËÈËÚ‡ /a>†∑†/ (91 3a,2) ‘I gave.’ 1.3 The disappearance of the hamza 1.3.1 As is common in Arabic dialects in general, the hamza frequently

2 7 See Khan 1991:228 (for example, ‰ÚÓ‚ /gama>a/ ‘group’) and the reference there (n. 19). The same occurs in Classical Maghrebi Judeo-Arabic: ÚÓ˙˘‡Ï‡ /al-i¡tima>/ ‘the meeting’ (Blau 1995:23–24). 2 8 The shortening of this vowel in standard Egyptian can occur when /bEtå>/ appears before an element that begins with a consonant, such as in /bta>kullo/ ‘know-all,’ although the variant /btå>kullo/, with the long vowel /å/, also exists. 2 9 There is, of course, the possibility that this is only a spelling variation, not indicating a change in the phonetics.

103 CHAPTER FOUR disappears: ÔÏȇ˜ /qåylan/ (15 0-1,13 and more) ‘saying’; ‰¯Ó /mara/ (15 2a,17) ‘wife’; ¯È· /b•r/ (15 22a,14) ‘well’; Ô‡„Ó /madån/ (1302 2a,1) ‘nations’ (madå /madån/).3 0 This shift is clearer in ˙ËÈÁ ¬Á·„Ó /˙∑†at madba˙ak/ (3 21,10) ‘the wall of your altar,’ where the shift /å /∑/, including the disappearance of the hamza, is evident. 1.3.2 The disappearance of the hamza is seen in the orthography of the alif mamd¥da and vowel shortening, /å /a/, either by spelling with a he: ‰Ò¯ /ruasa/ (1302 1b,16) ‘officials, leaders’; ‰Ó‰Â¥ /fuhama/ (3 3,5) ‘wise people’; ‰„˙·‡ /ibtida/ (3 5,17) ‘beginning’; ‰ÓÒ /sama/ (3 24,6) ‘heavens’; ‰Ë·ÂÚ />uba†a/ (3 24,16) ‘imbecile (pl.)’; or with an alef: ‡¯Ê /wuzara/ (1302 1b,5) ‘ministers, nobles’; ‡Ò‡Â¯ /ruasa/ (1302 1b,5 and many other occurrences) ‘officials, leaders’/; \‡ena/µ ( 1302 1b,6) ‘wealth’; ‡ÏΠ/wukala/ (1302 2a,13) ‘deputies.’ This spelling is also part of the Hebraized orthography (Hary 1999:79). 1.4 The shift of the interdentals This shift is common in urban Arabic dialects; therefore, it is not surprising to see it in colloquial Egyptian Judeo-Arabic as well. The interdentals frequently become stops. In some cases, however, where the affiliation with Classical Arabic is more desired on the part of the ¡ar˙anim, as a language elevation technique, the interdentals become fricatives (Hary 1992:258–60, 3.6; 1994b:378), because fricatives are considered “closer” to interdentals in speakers’ phonemic inventory. 1.4.1 /®/ > /t/:3 1 ϘÂ˙ /tu /s/: ÒÈÁ /˙∑s/ (93 1,3) ‘since’; ˙ү‡ /wi-

3 0 It is possible that a scribal error has occurred and the text should read Ôȇ„Ó, but even so, it could be /madåyin/ along with the disappearance of the hamza. 3 1 Although the orthography in ˙¯ÂÂÈÏ /li-yuwarris/ (3 6,9) ‘to inherit’ features a tav, the shift in the spoken variety is probably to the fricative /s/. See also ˙ү‡ in 1.4.2.

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1.4.3 /ƒ/ > /d/: ·‰„ /dahab/ (15 3a,6) ‘gold’; „È· /nEb•d/ (3 1,1) ‘wine’; ‰¯Â΄ /dEk¥ra/ (3 7,9) ‘males’; Â„ /widno/ (3 24,12) ‘his ear’; Áȇ·„ /dabåyi˙/ (3 25,6) ‘sacrifices.’ 1.4.4 /ƒ/ > /z/: ˙·ÊÚ˙‡ /it>azzebit/ (15 19a,20) ‘(she) was punished’; ÈÊχ /il-lazi/ (1302 2a,11) ‘that’; Ê¡‡È /yåxuz/ (93 11,8) ‘(he) takes’; Â˙‡Ê /zåto/ (3 4,19) ‘himself’; ÊÈÊÏ /laz•z/ (3 27,10) ‘delightful.’3 2 1.5 The realization of Classical Arabic /≠•m/ For the most part, the realization of Classical Arabic /≠•m/ is the velar stop /g/: ¯‚˘ /¡agar/ (15 2a,6) ‘trees’; ÒÂÏ‚ /gul¥s/ (1302 1b,3) ‘sitting’; Ô‡ÚÈ‚ /gi>ån/ (3 2,4) ‘hungry.’ This is in line with Blanc 1981:189–93; Davies 2005:xxxv;3 3 and Hary 1996b (see above, p. 96).

1.6 The realization of Classical Arabic />ayn/ There is a weakening of the voiced pharyngeal fricative />/ in Later Egyptian Judeo-Arabic dialect,3 4 as reflected in ¯˘‡˙‡ /itnaa¡ar/ (15 19b,9; 1302 2b,9) ‘twelve’; ¯˘‡„Á /˙idaa¡ar/ (74 23,17) ‘eleven’ (see below 2.2.7.2);3 5 „‰‡ /ahd/ (91 3a,8) ‘pact.’ This phenomenon is not uncommon in Semitic languages, occurring in other Judeo-Arabic dialects as well, and may be a feature of migrated dialectalism.3 6

3 2 Despite the fact that in an equivalent manuscript „È„Ï (74 20,1) ‘delightful’ appears, there is no supporting evidence for the pronunciation of /lad•d/. Thus, the orthography of „È„Ï may not reflect the shift /ƒ/ >/d/. 3 3 Davies has claimed that the phoneme was pronounced as /g/ by Y¥suf al-⁄irb•n• in seventeenth-century Egypt. 3 4 The orthography is a good indication of this weakening; however, it does not supply us with solid proof in this case. Support for this weakening comes from both modern Egyptian dialects and other Judeo-Arabic dialects. For example, in the modern Judeo-Arabic dialect of Peq•>•n, the “articulation of > is very weak in all positions” (Geva-Kleinberger 2005:47)—for example, /bsa(>)d¥na/ ‘they help us.’ 3 5 The weakening of the voiced pharyngeal fricative />/ appears in words for numbers in many Arabic dialects, and can also be considered consonant deletion. 3 6 For example, in the Judeo-Arabic dialects of Haifa (Geva-Kleinberger 2004:43), of Peq•>•n (idem 2005:47), and of Tiberias (idem 2008:9).

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1.7 The realization of Classical Arabic /qåf/ 1.7.1 As is the case in the modern dialect of Cairo, the shift /q/ > / / /∞/ also occurs: ¯ƒµ /∞i∂ru/ (3 19,16) ‘were able.’ 1.8 The glides The glides occur frequently in the texts, denoted usually by two vavs and two yods. 1.8.1 /w/: Èί /wirki/ (15 2a,14) ‘my thigh’; ÔȄ‚ÂÂÓ /mawg¥d•n/ (1302 1b,7) ‘present, in attendance (pl.)’; ‰Â¯ˆÓ /maßarwa/ (3 8,17) ‘Egyptians.’ 1.8.2 In words borrowed from the Hebrew, the voiced labiodental fricative /v/, which is common in Hebrew but does not exist in Arabic, becomes the glide /w/ to adapt to the Arabic phonetic structure (chapter 5, p. 150, 1.6): Â‡ÂˆÂ /wi-ßiwwånu/ (93 1,14) ‘and He commanded us.’ As reported in Rosenbaum (2002c:123), there is no indication in the ¡ur¥˙ of the use of /v/ in Egyptian Judeo-Arabic. This explains the pronunciation of the letter · in Hebrew words borrowed into Judeo-Arabic as a voiced bilabial stop /b/ (chapter 5, p. 150, 1.6.1). 1.8.3 /y/: ¯Èȇ„ /d åyir/ (15 2a,7) ‘around’; ˙ÈÈÓ /miyyEt/ (1302 1b,6) ‘one hundred’; ‰Èȯ· /barriyya/ (3 16,14) ‘desert.’

3 7 See also chapter 5, p. 150, 1.5, and Rosenbaum 2002c:123.

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1.9 The phoneme /p/ This phoneme appears in Egyptian Judeo-Arabic dialect, borrowed from the Hebrew: ÌÈ˘µÏ٠χ (15 4b,17) ‘the concubines’; ˘„ÏÙ (15 1a,9) ‘Pildash’; ı¯‡Ù (15 23-1a,5) ‘Paretz.’ Rosenbaum (2002c:123) has reported that in modern Egyptian Judeo-Arabic dialect the phoneme /p/ can alternate with its voiced counterpart /b/: /pur•m/ alongside /bur•m/ ‘Purim’ (see also chapter 5, p. 154, 3). 1.10 Assimilation 1.10.1 Partial assimilation is seen in the sound change /d/ > /t/ (devoicing) in Ï¡˙˙ /titxul/ (15 36b,7) ‘enter,’ clearly indicating speech use.3 8 1.10.2 A voicing assimilation is the shift /s/ > /z/ in the environment of voiced segments: ‡‰ÂÊӵȠ/wi-yi\miz¥ha/ (3 22,8) ‘and (they) dip it’; ̉ÂÊӵȠ/wi-yi\miz¥hum/ (3 22,10) ‘and (they) dip them.’3 9 1.11 Emphatization (tafx•m) It is common in spoken Egyptian Judeo-Arabic to find cases of emphatization (tafx•m) or velarization as a partial assimilation that occurs in the environment of other emphatic phonemes. 1.11.1 /t/ > [†]: In the environment of emphatic /ß/: Âˈ /ßø†o/ (15 8b,15) ‘his voice’; ‰ˈ /ßø†na/ (3 9,17) ‘our voice’; and ‰ˈϡ /xalla߆Ena/ (93 78,6) ‘you saved us.’ In the environment of emphatic [r¢]: ¯·ËÚÂ˙ /tu>†abar¢/ (93 11,5) ‘is considered’; ·¯ÂË /†ur¢ab/ (91 9a,14) ‘graves’; and ÔÈ˯˥ /fi†Er¢†∑n/ (91 10a,4) ‘two matzas.’ In the environ- ment of emphatic /†/: ËÈËÚ‡ /a>†∑†/ (91 3a,2) ‘I gave’; È¡ÂÂÁˇ /i†˙wa†¥ni/ (3 24,13) ‘(they) encompassed me’; and Èˇ˷¯ /ruba†å†i/ (74 14,14; 91 11b,6) ‘my bondage’ (Hary 1992:255, 3.3). 1.11.2 /d/ > [∂]: In the environment of emphatic [r¢]: ȃ¯ /r¢a∂i/ (15 0-2,6) ‘bad’; ¯ÿƒ· /ba∂∂ar¢/ (15 Additional Folio-b,1) ‘(he) came early’;

3 8 See chapter 9, p. 304, 13-1.1. See also ÍÁ˙È˙· /bEtit˙ak/ ‘you are laughing’ (TS AS 209.274/7, quoted in Khan 1992:231 and Wagner 2007:36). 3 9 In Egyptian Arabic /\amas/-/yi\mis/ means ‘dip,’ whereas /\ammis/- /yi\ammis/ means ‘eat while dipping the food’ (Hinds and Badawi 1986:630).

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¯ƒÁ„ /da˙∂ar¢u/ (15 10a,13) ‘they caused to roll down’; ¯ƒ˜ /ni<∂ar¢/ (15 10a,20); ¯ƒ˜È /yi<∂ar¢/ (91 2b,10) ‘able’; ‡¯ƒÂ˜ / [ß]: In the environment of the realization of /q/: ‰ÈȈ‡˜ / [ß]: ı¥¯Î /kar¢faß/ (74 21,2) ‘Karpas, greens for the Passover seder,’ although it alternates with nonemphatic /s/: Ò¥¯Î /karfas/ (74 21,2). It may also occur in /z/ > /Ω/: ¯∂Ú Èχ /eli>eΩer¢/ (93 15,9) ‘Eliezer’; ‰È¯∂Ú />aΩar¢ya/ (93 15,9 and more) ‘Azarya’; and ¯∂Ú Ï‡ /el>aΩar¢/ (93 15-b,10) ‘Elazar’ (see chapter 5, p. 149, 1.4.). 1.11.5 In words borrowed from Hebrew into Egyptian Judeo-Arabic, there is evidence that speakers used the emphatic /ß/ for the Hebrew /ßadi/ (ˆ): ıÈÓÁ /˙am∑ß/ (93 1,3) ‘unleavened food’ (chapter 5, 1.3). 1.12 Loss of Emphatization (tarq•q) This phenomenon, which usually occurs in the environment of nonem- phatic segments, is more common in Later Egyptian Judeo-Arabic dialect than in its Muslim counterpart.4 1

4 0 See Doron 1995:133 for the emphatization in Tunisian Judeo-Arabic. 4 1 See Blanc 1974 n. 6. In standard Cairene, deemphatization is more common

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1.12.1 /ß/ > /s/: ÚÒÈÏ /li-yisna>/ (91 3a,17) ‘to do’; ˛Â¸Ò˜¯È /yir<úsu/ (74 11,17) ‘(they) dance’; ÒÂ /nuss/ (91 10a,12) ‘half’ (see also 1.1.4 and 1.14); ¯Ò˜ / /d/: ¯„¡‡ /axdar/ (1302 1b,8) ‘green’; ‰˜È„ (74 17,16) and ‡˜È„ /di /t/: È˙¥ÈÈ˙ /tayféti/ (15 3b,7) ‘my family,’ although È˙¥ÈÈË /†ayféti/ (15 3b,9; 3b,10) also occurs; ¬‡È¯˙ /tar• [\], which reflects a voicing process, may occur: ̇ʵ χ /il-\uzåm/ (15 3a,14; 4a,2) ‘the nose ring,’ although ̇Ê¡ /xuzåm/ (15 3a,5) and ‰ÓÊ¡‡ χ /il-axzima/ (15 18b,19) occur as well.

among women. See Mitchel 1962:24; Tomiche 1964:17, 98. Norlin (1987), in his phonetic study of Egyptian Arabic, does not report deemphatization, but he records only (Cairene) male speakers. Tomiche (1968:1178) has reported the deemphatization in Egyptian Judeo-Arabic dialect and also among the Christians. Compare also with the Judeo-Arabic dialect of Peq•>•n: /sadi

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1.13.2 The opposite shift, reflecting devoicing, occurs as well: /\/ > [x]: ‰ÈÏ‚¯ ÏÒ¡ÈÏ /li-yixsil/ (15 3a,19) ‘to wash his feet’; ÂÏÒ¡‡Â (15 18b,15) ‘and they washed,’ although /\/ occurs in other cases of /\asal/ ‘wash’: ̉ÈÏ‚¯ ÂÏҵ (15 29b,14) ‘and they washed their feet’; ‰‚ Ïҵ (15 30a,3) ‘and he washed his face’; „È· χ È¥ ÏÒµ (15 36b,15) ‘wash in wine.’ 1.13.3 The merger of /∂/ and /Ω/, which is common in Arabic dialects, is also seen in spoken Egyptian Judeo-Arabic. The merger produces /∂/: ‰ÏÈσ /∂ull∑la/ (15 17a,13) ‘shaded area’; √Á /˙a∂∂/ (1302 5a,20) ‘pleasure’; σ /∂ill/ (91 10b,15; 10b,16) ‘shadow’; ¯Âƒ‡ /an∂ur/ (74 15,8; 91 12a,3; 93 70,3) ‘I see.’ 1.13.4 The shift /¡/ > /s/ occurs in Egyptian Judeo-Arabic but is not common: Ò„˜ /-sab>/ (15 6b,20; 7a,16) ‘Beer-Sheba.’4 6 1.14 Deletion of final consonants 1.14.1 In ÒÂ /nuss/ (91 10a,12) ‘half,’ the final consonant /f/ is deleted from the consonant cluster /sf/ (cf. 1.1.4 and 1.12.1). This type of deletion may occur in many dialects; for example, /abßar/ > /baßar/ > /baßß/ ‘see.’ 1.15 The definite article The definite article in the ¡ur¥˙ is written for the most part morpho- phonemically with the separate morpheme χ: √¯‡ χ (15 0-1,14) ‘the land’; ̇Èȇ χ (1302 1b,3) ‘the days’; and ˙È· χ (93 1,1) ‘the house.’ The exception ·ÂÚ˘‡ /i¡-¡u>¥b/ (74 11,12) ‘the nations’ points to the spoken pronunciation of the definite article with the regular full assimilation that usually occurs with coronal phonemes. This phonetic spelling is part of the Hebraized orthography (Hary 1996c:732), although it is not wide-spread. It is possible to assume that, in the

4 6 See Hary 1992:260, 3.7, and chapter 5, p. 151, 1.7. This feature is common in Moroccan Judeo-Arabic (Stillman 1988:31, 3) and may be part of migrated dialectalism (chapter 1, p. 22–23).

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Egyptian Judeo-Arabic dialect, the assimilation rules apply also to definite articles that precede nouns taken from Hebrew (Rosenbaum 2002c:124–25); however, it is not seen in the texts of the ¡ur¥˙ because of the common morphophonemic spelling: ÍÂÙ˘ χ (3 colophon) ‘the (prayer) Pour (Your Wrath)’ (see chapter 5, p. 151, 2.1). 1.16 Complex phonological processes 1.16.1 The /†/ in the noun ¯ÂË4 7 /†or¢/ (93 85,16) ‘ox’ has undergone two phonological processes: first, the interdental became a stop (/®/ > /t/) as is common in urban dialects (see 1.4), and then it underwent emphatization (/t/ > [†]) in the environment of emphatic [r¢] (see above, p. 107, 1.11.1).

4 7 Note that in contemporary written Egyptian dialect, the spelling is similar, as in, for example, the title of the novel —u?Þ Áœ p¹b?ë This Rooster Is an Ox, published in 2007 in Cairo. See also above, p. 97.

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2. Morphology 2.1 The Pronouns 2.1.1 Independent pronouns ‰Á‡ /i˙na/ (15 10a,16; 3 2,12; 3,3; 74 1,6; 10,9; 91 8b,1) ‘we’; Â˙‡ /intu/ (74 14,1; 91 10b,19; 93 65,11) ‘you (masc. pl.).’ The third plural form is a distinct feature of Cairene Judeo-Arabic dialect: ÔÓ‰ /humman/ (15 18a,10; 18a,15 and many more examples; 3 13,16; 17,20; 93 78,12) ‘they,’4 8 as opposed to standard Cairene /humma/, although the former may appear in regional Egyptian dialects as well as among lower socioeconomic speakers. 2.1.2 Possessive pronouns 2.1.2.1 First person singular: The usual /-i/ occurs regularly: È„ÈÒ /s•di/ (15 2a,1) ‘my master’; ÈÈ· /b˙ni/ (15 2a,2) ‘between me’; È·‡ /ibni/ (15 17b,10) ‘my son.’ After a long vowel the pronoun /-ya/ appears: ‰È‡¯Â /waråya/ (15 2a,18) ‘after me’; ‡È·‡ (15 2b,1 and more) and ‰È·‡ /ab¥ya/ (15 7b,15) ‘my father’; ‰È‡ÚÓ /ma>åya/ (15 10a,5 and more) ‘with me’; ‰ÈÏ /liyya/ (15 2b,1) ‘to me.’ 2.1.2.2 Second person masculine singular: The colloquial pronoun /-ak/ occurs regularly: ¬˙ÈÈÓ /mayyetak/ (15 2a,2) ‘your dead’; ¬˙ËÏÒ /sal†antak/ (1302 3a,15) ‘your kingdom’; ¬„È·Ú />ab•dak/ (3 7,19) ‘your slaves.’ 2.1.2.3 Second person feminine singular: The colloquial pronoun /-ik/ or /-ek/ appears: ¬Ë· /ba†nek/ (15 5b,6) ‘your belly’; ¬˙Á‡È¯Ï /li- riyå˙tek/ (3 25,17) ‘to your rest’; however, after a long vowel the pronoun is /-ki/: È·˘Á‡ /a˙¡åki/ (15 5b,7) ‘your womb’; Èη‡ /ab¥ki/ (15 3a,7; 1302 4a,8) ‘your father.’ 2.1.2.4 Third person masculine /-o/ (or /-u/) appears after a consonant. Following prepositions and particles: ÂÈ· /b˙no/ (15 12b,13) ‘between him’; ÂÚÓ /ma>o/ (15 4a,12; 1302 4b,18) ‘with him’; „Ú />ando/ (15

4 8 There is only one example of ̉ in Genesis (15 5a,11), but I suspect it reflects classical use. See also Rosenbaum 2002b:38 and 2002c:126.

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7a,13) ‘with/by him’; ÂÓ /minno/ (15 36a,15; 1302 4a,1) ‘from him’; ÂÓ‡„˜ /alo/ (15 13a,15) ‘(he) let him’; ·Á /˙abbo/ (15 31a,3) ‘(he) loved him’; Â¥„‡ˆÈ /wi-yißådfo/ (15 31a,14) ‘(he) met with it’; ·Ȃ‡ /ag•bo/ (15 31a,20) ‘I bring him.’ The objective pronoun is /-h/ after long vowels: ‰Â„¡‡Â /wi-axad¥h/ (15 22a,18) ‘and they took him’; ‰‡¯˙˘‡Â /wi-i¡taråh/ (15 23-1a,6) ‘and (he) bought him’; ‰ÂÏÊ /nazzil¥h/ (15 23-1a,8) ‘(they) brought him down.’ 2.1.4 Demonstrative pronouns It is not uncommon to find in the ¡ur¥˙ the regular colloquial Cairene demonstrative pronouns /da/ for the masculine and /di/ for the feminine; however, specific Egyptian Judeo-Arabic variants exist in the texts as well: /de/ for masculine singular ‘this’ and /døli/ or /hadøli/ for plural ‘these,’ as opposed to standard Egyptian /døl/. 2.1.4.1 /da/: ¯¡˙¥ÂÓ ‰„ /da muftaxar/ (3 3,7–8) ‘this is praiseworthy’; ‰„ ··Ò· /bisabab da/ (93 17, 5–6) ‘for this’; ‰„ ¯ÈË¥ /fi†•r da/ (3 18, 10) ‘this unleavened bread.’ A variant among Cairene Jews is /de/:4 9 χ ‰È„ ·‡· /de il-båb/ (91 12a,15) ‘this is the gate’; ‰È„ ¯ÈË¥ /fi†•r de/ (91 8b,10) ‘this unleavened bread’; ‰È„ ¯¯ÂÓ /mor∑r de/ (91 8b,8) ‘this bitter herb.’ Furthermore, the pronoun È„ in the sentence ‡ÏÚ Ȅ ˘È‡

4 9 This form is archaic and survived among the Jews in Cairo, a typical feature of Jewish-defined languages. See Blanc 1974:216 and Rosenbaum 2002c:126. See also chapter 1, pp. 23–24.

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È„ ˘È‡ (1302 3b,17) ‘what is this and about what is that?’ may represent Egyptian Judeo-Arabic masculine /de/, since it translates the Hebrew masculine form ‰Ê ‘this’ (Esth 4:5). 2.1.4.2 /di/: È„ ··Ò· /bi-sabab di/ (91 2b, 3–4) ‘for this’; ‰È‡ˆÚ χ È„ /di l->aßåya/ (3 13,2) ‘this is the rod’; È„ ˙‡Î /kånit di/ (3 26,19) ‘this was.’ 2.1.4.3 The Egyptian Haggadah exhibits Cairene Judeo-Arabic /døli/: „‡Ï‡ χ ÈÏ„ (3 10,17) ‘these are the sons’; ˙‡·¯ƒ ¯˘Ú ÈÏ„ (3 13,14) ‘these are the ten plagues’; ÈÏ„ ˙‡ÓÏÎ ˙‡Ï˙ (3 17,18–19) ‘these three words’; ÔÓ‰ ÈÏ„ (3 17,20) ‘and these are.’ Alongside this form, another variant is found in Genesis and Esther, /hadøli/: ÈÏ„‰ ̇ÏΠχΠ(15 3a,13) ‘like these words’; ÈÏ„‰ ̇ÏΠχ (15 24a,5) ‘these words’; ÏÂÎ ‰¯Â˘ „‡Ï‡ ÈÏ„‰ (15 4b,15–16) ‘all of these are the children of Ketura’; ÈÏ„‰ ȃ‡¯‡ χ (15 6a,11) ‘these lands’; ÈÏ„‰ ‰È‡ˆÚ χ (15 23b,18–19) ‘these rods’; ÈÏ„‰ ̇Èȇ χ (1302 1b,7) ‘these days.’ This variant /hadøli/ is a feature of migrated dialectalism (chapter 1, pp. 22–23) as it exists in Christian (/hadøli/) and Judeo-Arabic (/haƒøli/) Baghdadi dialects.5 0 2.1.5 Relative pronouns /illi/ is employed, reflecting dialectal use: ‰È‡ËˆÂ χ ‰¯ÈË¥ χ „¡‡È Ì‰ȥ Èχ (3 1,9–10) ‘and (they) take the middle matza which is inside’; ‰¯˙˘‡ Èχ È„‚ χ Ï· (74 24,14–15 and more) ‘and (he) ate the kid that (he) bought’; ˘¥¯ÚÈ ‡Ó Èχ (91 2b,8) ‘and he who does not know’; ‡˙‡‰·‡Ï ˙È¥˜Â Èχ ‡Èȉ (91 3a,13) ‘it is that (promise), which has stood by our fathers.’ 2.1.6 Interrogative pronouns 2.1.6.1 ˘È‡ /∑¡/ (15 2a,2; 6a,20; and more; 1302 2b,8; 4b,17; and more; 74 2,13; 10,6; and more; 93 17,3; 39,4; and more) and ˘‡ (3 1,13; 2,8; and many other occurrences; 91 8b,8; 10b,2; and more) ‘what’ (see

5 0 See Blanc 1964:138. Muslim Baghdadi Arabic exhibits /h(a)ƒøla/; however, Erwin (2004:290) reports occasional /haƒøli/.

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above, p. 98, ii) are common in Cairene Judeo-Arabic dialect, reflecting the preservation of an older form in standard Cairene.5 1 Furthermore, this pronoun appears at the beginning of the sentence, as opposed to standard Cairene /∑h/, which is usually postposed (/ismak ∑h/ ‘what is your name?’): ˙Ï‚Ú˙Ò‡ ‰„ ˘È‡ (15 8a,6) ‘what is this that you hurried?’; ¬˙·ÏË ˘È‡Â (1302 4a,17; 4b,1; and more) ‘and what is your request?’; ‰„‚‰ χ ‡È‰ ˘‡ (3 1,13) ‘what is the Haggadah?’ From the data in the ¡ur¥˙, it seems that in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Jews in Cairo used the interrogative pronoun /∑¡/ exclusively. Rosenbaum (2002c:126) has shown that in twentieth- century Cairene, Jews used /∑¡/ alongside standard Cairene /∑h/. In the texts of the ¡ur¥˙ there are two instances of ‰È‡ /∑h/ (93 67,2; 70, 2) ‘what,’ indicating the possible beginning of the linguistic change. However, the pronoun is still preposed: ‰ÏÏ‡Ï ·È‡‚‡ ‰È‡ (93 67,2) ‘how shall I repay to God?’; Ô‡Ò‡ χ ÈÏ ÚˆÈ ‰È‡ (93 70,2) ‘what will the man do to me?’ In contrast, the equivalent interrogative pronoun ‡Ó /ma/ in 93 13,1, for example, could be a borrowing from the literary variety or an imitation of the Hebrew ‰Ó and is not a reflection of the dialect. 2.1.6.2 ˘È‡ „˜ /åyil

5 1 Note that in standard colloquial Egyptian, /∑¡/ may appear in the proverbs and frozen phrases: /∑¡>arrafk/ ‘How did you find out?’; /∑¡˙ål law/ ‘What would happen if … ?’; and more (Hinds and Badawi 1986:46). In standard Egyptian /i¡mi>na/ ‘what does it mean?’ the vowel of the interrogative is a short /i/.

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†ayyibåt/ (91 7a,17) ‘how many good deeds?’; ·¯ƒ‡ ̇Π/kåm in∂arabu/ (93 31,14) ‘how many times were they smitten?’ 2.1.6.3 ˘ÈÏ /l∑¡/ (15 5b,20; 9a,6; and many more occurrences; 91 10b,8) and ˘Ï /le¡/ (3 23,10; 74, 13,4) ‘why’ (see above, p. 98, [ii]) are typical in Cairene Judeo-Arabic dialect, preserving an older form of standard Cairene and appearing preposed in the sentence: ÔÓ ¥˜Â˙ ˘ÈÏ ‰¯· (15 3a,17) ‘why do you stand outside?’; ÂÏÂ˜È ˘Ï (3 23,10) ‘why do they say?’ This is in contrast to postposed standard Cairene /l∑h/: /ru˙t l∑h/ ‘why did you go?’ 2.1.6.4 ¥ÈÎ /k∑f/ (15 30b,2; 1302 6a,2) ‘how’ in Cairene Judeo-Arabic also preserves an older form and is preposed as well: ÚÏˇ ¥ÈÎ (15 31,b) ‘how (can) I go forth?’ This is in contrast to standard modern Cairene where /izzåy/ is employed as the postposed interrogative pronoun for ‘how.’ 2.1.6.5 The following are other common interrogative pronouns that are typical to the dialect: ÔÈÓ /m•n/ (15 3a,6) ‘who?’; ÔÈ¥ /f∑n/ (15 22a,6) ‘where?’; ÔÈÓ /min∑n/ (15 10a,16; 3 14,18) ‘from where?’ 2.1.7 Genitive marker The texts of the ¡ur¥˙ reflect at times the Cairene genitive marker /bitå>/ or /bEta>/ (masc. sg.), with some attestation of /bitå>a/ or /bEta>a/ (fem. sg.) but no attestation of /bit¥>/ (pl.).5 2 The following examples from the Haggadah keep the gender and number agreement: ¥ˆ „¡‡È ÔÈÓ˜ȥ‡ Ú‡˙· È·¡Ó ԇΠÈ≤χ ‰¯ËÈÈ¥ χ (93 47,10) ‘(the participants) hold half of the hidden matza of the afikoman’;5 3 ‰¯ÈË¥ χ ¥ˆÂ „¡‡È ÔÈÓ˜ȥ‡ ˙Ú‡˙· ‰ÈÈ·‡¡Ó χ (74 22,1) ‘(the participants) take half of the hidden matza of the afikoman’; ÔÈÓ˜¥ χ ˙ÈÚ˙· ‰¯ÈË¥ χ ÒÂ „¡È

5 2 Note that in Classical Egyptian Judeo-Arabic there is evidence for both the feminine and the plural forms. See Blau 1980:159. 5 3 In the days of the temple, the meal began and ended with the lamb meat of the Passover sacrifice; in the period since the destruction of the temple, the meal begins and ends with the eating of matza; the last bit, whether of the Passover meat or of the matza, is called the afikoman, meaning the “last bit” (David Blumenthal, personal communication).

116 SPOKEN EGYPTIAN JUDEO-ARABIC

(91 10a,12) ‘(the participants) take half of the matza of the afikoman.’ However, in the following examples the marker /bitå>/ (masc. sg.) modifies feminine nouns, which may indicate the frozen use of the marker in Cairene Judeo-Arabic dialect: Ú‡˙· ˙‡Î … ‰·¯ƒÂ ‰·¯ƒ ÏÎ ˙‡·¯ƒ Ú·¯ (3 14, 18–19 through 15,1–2) ‘each plague … was of four plagues’; ˙‡·¯ƒ ÒÓ¡ Ú‡˙· ˙‡Î … ‰·¯ƒÂ ‰·¯ƒ ÏÎ (3 15, 9–10 through 15,11) ‘each plague … was of five plagues’; Ú‡˙· ‡ˆÓ χ „¡‡È ÔÈÓ˜ȥ‡ (3 22,13) ‘(the participants) hold the matza of the afikoman’ (see also chapter 5, pp. 151–52, 2.3). In Á·Âˆ χ Ú‡˙· ÚÓ˘ ˙Èȯ˜ (3 3,15-16) ‘the reading of the morning Shema’ it is possible that /bitå>/ modifies ÚÓ˘ (masc.) and not ˙Èȯ˜ (fem.), but in the following example, the masculine singular marker /bitå>/ modifies two (inanimate) nouns: ÔÈÁ ¯Âη χ¯˘È Ú‡˙· ÍÂ¥˘ χ ȷ¯Ú χ· ‰„‚‰ χ ·‡˙Î ‡≤‡‰ (3 colophon) ‘This is the book of the Haggadah in Arabic and the section pour, both of them of Israel Be˙or Óanin.’ On the other hand, this nonagreement may be connected to the nature of the verbatim translation (see chapter 8, 10-3.16) and does not necessarily reflect spoken use.

2.2 The verb 2.2.1 The perfect 2.2.1.1 The pattern /fu>ul/, typical in Later Egyptian Judeo-Arabic (Hary 1992:280–85), is common in the spoken dialect as well: ˙¯˙ÂÎ /kutret/ (15 0-2,5) ‘(it) grew’; ıÂÏ¡ /xuluß/ (3 5,2) ‘was redeemed’; ϘÂ˙ /tu