Jewish Languages from A to Z Jewish Languages from A to Z provides an engaging and enjoyable overview of the rich variety of languages spoken and written by Jews over the past three thousand years. The book covers more than 50 different languages and language varieties. These include not only well-known Jewish languages like Hebrew, Yiddish, and Ladino, but also more exotic languages like Chinese, Esperanto, Malayalam, and Zulu, all of which have a fascinating Jewish story to be told. Each chapter presents the special features of the language variety in question, a discussion of the history of the associated Jewish community, and some examples of literature and other texts produced in it. The book thus takes readers on a stimulating voyage around the Jewish world, from ancient Babylonia to 21st-century New York, via such diverse locations as Tajikistan, South Africa, and the Caribbean. The chapters are accompanied by numerous full-colour photographs of the literary treasures produced by Jewish language-speaking communities, from ancient stone inscriptions to medieval illuminated manuscripts to contemporary novels and newspapers. This comprehensive survey of Jewish languages is designed to be accessible to all readers with an interest in languages or history, regardless of their background— no prior knowledge of linguistics or Jewish history is assumed. Aaron D. Rubin is the Malvin E. and Lea P. Bank Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, Jewish Studies, and Linguistics at Penn State University. Lily Kahn is Professor of Hebrew and Jewish Languages at University College London. Jewish Languages from A to Z Aaron D. Rubin and Lily Kahn First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Aaron D. Rubin and Lily Kahn The right of Aaron D. Rubin and Lily Kahn to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Rubin, Aaron D., 1976- author. | Kahn, Lily, author. Title: Jewish languages from A to Z / Aaron D. Rubin, Lily Kahn. Description: New York : Routledge, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references. Identifiers: LCCN 2020014146 (print) | LCCN 2020014147 (ebook) | ISBN 9781138487284 (hardback) | ISBN 9781138487307 (paperback) | ISBN 9781351043441 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Jews—Languages—History. Classification: LCC PJ5061 .R83 2021 (print) | LCC PJ5061 (ebook) | DDC 809/.933529924—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020014146 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020014147 ISBN: 978-1-138-48728-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-48730-7 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-351-04344-1 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC Contents Acknowledgements viii Introduction ix 1 Amharic 1 2 Arabic, Medieval 4 3 Arabic, Modern 10 4 Aramaic, Ancient and Medieval 13 5 Aramaic, Modern 18 6 Armenian 21 7 Catalan 25 8 Chinese 29 9 English 33 10 Esperanto 40 11 French 43 12 Georgian 48 13 German 52 14 Greek 59 vi Contents 15 Hebrew, Inscriptional 64 16 Hebrew, Biblical 68 17 Hebrew, Rabbinic and Medieval 75 18 Hebrew, Enlightenment 82 19 Hebrew, Modern 89 20 Hungarian 93 21 Israeli Sign Language 99 22 Italian 102 23 Karaim (and Krymchak) 110 24 Ladino (and Spanish) 117 25 Latin 125 26 Malay 131 27 Malayalam 135 28 Maltese 139 29 Papiamentu (and other creoles) 143 30 Persian 148 31 Polish (and Czech) 153 32 Portuguese 160 33 Provençal 164 34 Russian 169 35 Tajik (Bukhari) 173 36 Tat (Juhuri) 178 Contents vii 37 Turkish (and Uzbek) 183 38 Urdu (and Marathi) 189 39 Yiddish, Old and Early Modern 194 40 Yiddish, Modern Standard 202 41 Yiddish, Modern Hasidic 209 42 Zulu (Fanagalo) 214 Bibliography 219 Acknowledgements In our search for Jewish-language books and manuscripts, we have benefited greatly from the help of numerous librarians around the world. In particular, we would like to thank Jordan Finkin (Hebrew Union College), Rebecca Jefferson (University of Florida), and Ben Outhwaite (Cambridge University) for their gen- erous assistance. For answers to questions and other help with various issues, we are very grateful for the time and expertise of Sima Beeri, Zoë Belk, Dario Burgaretta, Riccardo Contini, Reuven Enoch, Steve Fassberg, Jami Fisher, Ophira Gamliel, François Guesnet, Nancy Hawker, Brad Sabin Hill, Geoffrey Khan, Agnes Korn, Julia Kriv- oruchko, Michael Legaspi, Deqi Liu, Magdalena Luszczynska, John McWhorter, Georgia Panteli, Claudia Rosenzweig, Kriszta Eszter Szendrői, Wheeler Thackston, Riitta-Liisa Valijärvi, Ben Whittle, and Sonya Yampolskaya. Special thanks go to Gary Rendsburg for reading and giving invaluable com- ments on portions of the book. Finally, we would like to express our deepest gratitude to James Holz and Kim Rubin for their endless support and encouragement, as well as for their many insightful suggestions for improvement. James also contributed the drawings of Proto-Sinaitic symbols that appear in Chapter 15. Introduction What is a Jewish language? The first Jews, about whom we read in the Bible, spoke Hebrew. This was the language of ancient Israel, the language in which the Bible was written, and the language of the earliest rabbinic texts. Hebrew is thus the first and most impor- tant Jewish language, with a history spanning three millennia. But already in the biblical era, Jews migrated outside of the Land of Israel—either forcibly or by choice—and over a period of more than 2000 years have spread across the globe. In the course of their wanderings, Jews have almost always retained Hebrew as a language of scholarship and prayer, but in their everyday lives, they have adopted new languages that they have acquired along the way. In many cases, however, the languages of the Jews around the world were not exactly the same as those of their non-Jewish neighbours. And so we can say that Jews used specifically Jew- ish language varieties, and it is these that we can call Jewish languages. Broadly speaking, then, a Jewish language is any language used by Jews that has identifi- able features distinguishing it from other related languages or dialects. Jewish languages have one or more of the following defining characteristics: • The use of the Hebrew alphabet for writing • The incorporation of Hebrew elements, especially vocabulary • The incorporation of loanwords from other sources • Distinctive features of pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. Some languages, like Yiddish and Ladino, have all of the these features, and to a degree that makes them quite substantially different from their closest non- Jewish counterparts (German and Spanish, respectively). Others exhibit just one or two of the defining characteristics, and thus are far more similar to their non- Jewish counterparts. Medieval Judeo-French, for example, was likely to have been almost indistinguishable from the French spoken by Christians in the same period, except for the presence a small number of Hebrew words (connected to Jewish religious practices) and the fact that it was written with the Hebrew alphabet. Other Jewish languages vary considerably when it comes to just how distinctive they actually are. x Introduction Each of the chapters in this book will include some reference to one or more of the characteristic features of Jewish languages. But it is worthwhile to provide some general discussion of them here first. The use of the Hebrew alphabet Until the modern era, Hebrew was the primary written language of nearly all Jewish communities. Despite what language they might have been speaking at home—be it Greek, Arabic, Persian, French, or whatever—Hebrew was the lan- guage that most young Jewish children would have learned to read and write first. Hebrew is the language of the Bible and other classical texts, such as the Mishnah and Midrashim, the language of the famous commentaries of great medieval schol- ars like Rashi and Naḥmanides, and the language of nearly all the daily prayers. Hebrew was thus an enormous part of the life of any observant Jew, even one who may not have been particularly well educated. Given their intimate familiarity with the Hebrew alphabet, coupled with the fact that until the modern era Jews almost always remained somewhat outside the mainstream system of education— in places where there even was such a thing—it is not surprising that Jews very often used the Hebrew alphabet to write down whatever language they were speak- ing. Thus, we find Hebrew-letter texts in which the language is actually Arabic, Greek, French, Persian, or something else. All told, there are at least three dozen languages that have been written down at least once using Hebrew letters. The fact that a language was written in the Hebrew alphabet does not always mean that, when read aloud or spoken, it sounded any different from the non-Jewish variety of that language, but it does mean that on the page the language looked completely different and was recognizably Jewish. For some languages, such as Malay, Urdu, and Zulu (Fanagalo), we have only just one or some very small number of texts written in Hebrew letters.