earliest attestation

[Sarah Benor]

Dear JL scholars,

We're working on a graphic that presents the date of earliest attestation for each documented Jewish language variety. Here's what we've come up with, based on many sources. If you have concerns about any of this, please let me know.

Thanks,

Sarah

Sarah Bunin Benor

Director, Jewish Language Project

Professor of Contemporary Jewish Studies and Linguistics

Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion

Ancient Hebrew	900 BCE
Judeo-Aramaic	530 BCE
Judeo-Greek	3rd century BCE
Judeo-Arabic	7th century
Judeo-Persian	8th century
Jewish Malayalam	849
Judeo-French	10th century
Judeo-Italian	1073
Judeo-Provencal	11th century
Western Yiddish	11th century
Judeo-Georgian	12th century
Judeo-Czech	13th century
Judeo-Portuguese	1262
Judeo-Catalan	13th century
Ladino	14th century
Eastern Yiddish	14th century
Jewish Amharic	14th century
Krymchak	15th century
Haketia	16th century
Karaim	16th century
Jewish Brazilian Portuguese	16th century
Jewish Neo-Aramaic	1600
Juhuri	1647
Jewish English	17th century
Jewish Papiamentu	1767
Judeo-Marathi	18th century
Jewish German	18th century
Jewish Swedish	19th century
Bukharian	19th century
Judeo-Tamazight	19th century
Jewish Hungarian	1865
Jewish Russian	1880
Modern Hebrew	1881
Algerian Jewish Sign Language	19th century
Israeli Sign Language	1930
Jewish Latin American Spanish	20th century
Jewish French	1950

[Ghil'ad Zuckermann]

It is wonderful to hear from you, Sarah. 

One little comment: 'Israeli' ought to be 1886 (rather than 1881) for the following 2 reasons:

1. 1886 is when Itamar Ben-Avi (born Ben-Zion Ben-Yehuda), the symbolic first native speaker of Israeli, began to speak. 

2. I take it that by 'Modern Hebrew' you refer to the *native vernacular* that I call 'Israeli'. (Otherwise, you could also add 'Maskilic Hebrew'; literary 'Modern Hebrew', which is much earlier than 'Israeli'; etc.)

Keep up the good work. 

Warm wishes, Ghil‘ad 

Professor Ghil'ad Zuckermann, D.Phil. (Oxon.); Chair of Linguistics and Endangered Languages; School of Humanities; The University of Adelaide; Adelaide SA 5005; Australia;

gzuck...@gmail.com ; +61 423 901 808 ;

http://www.zuckermann.org/  http://www.facebook.com/ProfessorZuckermann  http://www.twitter.com/GhiladZ

• Revivalistics: From the Genesis of Israeli to Language Reclamation in Australia and Beyond. Oxford University Press, 2020, ISBN 9780199812790 (pbk), ISBN 9780199812776 (hbk), https://global.oup.com/academic/product/revivalistics-9780199812790 (Special 30% Discount Promo Code: AAFLYG6)
• 多源造词研究 (A Study of Multisourced Neologization). East China Normal University Press, 2021, ISBN 9787567598935, https://shop502733.m.youzan.com/wscgoods/detail/3ep8pxijft9xx
• Language Revival: Securing the Future of Endangered Languages (Massive Open Online Course), https://www.edx.org/course/language-revival-securing-future-adelaidex-lang101x

On 9 Aug 2023, at 05:08, Sarah Benor <sbeno...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[David M. Bunis]

Dear Sarah,

A great idea!

As to Judezmo, or Judeo-Spanish as you call it: if one considers the Ibero-Romance zaxal in the Hebrew muwaššaḥat (composed mostly of elements of Ibero-Romance and Ibero-Arabic) a kind of proto-Judezmo (or Iberian Jewish La'az), then the date could be moved back to the 11th century. To save time, I'll just cite a few line from the Wiki article:"

The corpus of muwaššaḥs is formed by pieces in Hebrew and Andalusi Arabic.^[2] Tova Rosen describes the muwaššaḥ as "a product and a microcosm of the cultural conditions particular to al-Andalus.^[2] The linguistic interplay between the standard written languages—Arabic and Hebrew—and the oral forms—Andalusi Arabic, Andalusi Romance, Hebrew, and other Romance languages—reflect the fluidity and diversity of the linguistic landscape of al-Andalus."

Best wishes,

David

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David M. Bunis

Professor Emeritus, Center for Jewish Languages,

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus Campus, Jerusalem

Co-Editor, Massorot: Studies in Language Traditions and Jewish Languages

Advisor, National Authority for Ladino and Its Culture, Israel

Member, Ladino Academy of Israel

Académico Correspondiente Extranjero, Real Academia Española

e-mail: david...@gmail.com; david...@mail.huji.ac.il

https://sites.google.com/site/davidbunis/; https://huji.academia.edu/DavidBunis;

http://pluto.huji.ac.il/~msladino

Office tel. 972-2-588-0255

[Alexandre Beider]

Sarah,

Remarks by both Ghil'ad and David both reveal one general element that is currently absent from your table: a column that defines what do you exactly mean by various linguistic terms appearing in the left column. You write that you compiled data for the second column (date/period) from multiple sources. Yet, the authors who provided these dates surely used different definitions for the idioms they described. To take just Western Yiddish as an example. By "the earliest attestation" (11th century in the table), do you mean:

1. A source indicating the existence of a Jew having (most likely) as his, at least second, vernacular language a German-based idiom (this would be roughly equivalent to the earliest attestation of the Jewish presence in the territories where the Christian majority was speaking High German dialects)

2. A document in which at least one German lexeme (common noun/ adjective/verb etc.) or German-based given name appears in Hebrew characters?

3. A sentence, or a text in German spelled using Hebrew characters?

4. A text (in Hebrew or Latin characters) written in a German-based language in which at least one lexeme or one given name used by Jews but unattested in German dialects spoken by local Christians is present?

5. A system-level element phoneme [revealed either by spelling, or rhyme, or explicit statement] or morpheme limited to the speech by Jews and still found in Western Yiddish dialects (Alsace, Switzerland) attested in the 20th century.

All these definitions are conventional and one can surely add others, but the answer to your question heavily depends on the definition (and, "11th century" fits, to the best of my knowledge, to definitions #2 and #4;, while definition #3 would yield 13th century and definition #5 (used, for example, in my texts for my specific purposes dealing with linguistic links between various Judeo-German/Yiddish varieties) would point to a more recent period. To be honest, I don't see which one of the definitions would indicate the 14th century as the earliest attestation of Eastern Yiddish.

Or, to take another example that can illustrate another aspect: Judeo-Georgian. Surely, in the 19th-20th century Georgian Jews had some linguistic peculiarities in comparison to their Christian neighbors and this idiom can be conventionally called Judeo-Georgian or Jewish Georgian. Is it this one that is thought to be attested already in the 12th century, as it written in the table? Without the explicit definition of what is "Judeo-Georgian", we cannot know. Yet, we are not even sure that there is any genetic link between Jews who lived in Georgia during the Middle Ages and since at least the 16th century: there is no formal evidence that could refute the theory about the interruption of the Jewish history in the area, with the ancestors of modern Georgian Jews coming to the territory of modern Georgia from the territories of modern Iran and Turkey after the end of the Middle Ages). In this way, it could be, perhaps, more appropriate (exactly as you separate medieval "Judeo-French" and modern "Jewish French") to speak about two Georgian-based idioms spoken by local Jews at different periods.

I say all this not to criticize your general idea: it is great. Surely, taking into account the above aspects in their totality would yield a book-size text. But, hopefully, the consideration of my remarks can contribute to a more nuanced approach and provide additional value to your table/graph. From my perspective, definition #2 seems to be the easiest to be applied to various idioms spoken by Jews before the 20th century.

Best,

   Sasha

https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/jewish-languages/CAOM0y-nuwJ5ybxdyoacsOQR388psx1qRgy_bcS8_JbmkZwH3rA%40mail.gmail.com

.

[David M. Bunis]

Dear Sarah,

I think Sasha has raised some very important criteria here.

Perhaps, as he suggests, take his second criterion as the starting point. The writing in Hebrew letters of a word used by non-Jews does not necessarily mean that that word was distinctively Jewish. As you and I found, English words as used by non-Jews were transcribed in Hebrew letters in the responsa literature of the American rabbis. But still, at least it would give us a solid criterion for dating. And probably also for considerable expressions of opposing opinions amongst scholars and others interested in Jewish languages.

To quote Judezmist Sam Levy of Salonika: "Let them speak about Judeo-Spanish for good or for ill - but let them speak about it." Mutatis mutandis, about the other Jewish languages.

All good wishes,

David 

 

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[Hayim Sheynin]

Dear David, 

I think the mixt of Romance and Arabic  in the kharadjat of Hebrew muwashahat has nothing to do with Judesmo. It is only earliest testimony for faimiliarity of Jews of Andalucia

who spoke Arabic with the Romance language of their Christian neighbors. If you analyse

entire corpus of the preserved kharjas with Romance words you will see that this Romance element is not yet Spanish. For this reason, moving the beginnings of Judezmo to the 11th century will be incorrect. Even the14th century is problematic. In the 14th century we have only testimonies that the Jews of Christian Spain spoke Castilian, Aragones and Asturiano and read Meghillat Esther in Castilian. The notes in Siddurim and Mahzorim written in Hebrew letters were Hebrew transcriptions of Castilian and Portuguese that testify

to the use of these Romance languages by the Jewish people. If we would like to attribute to Judezmo the earliest date it is probably not earlier than the period of 1420-1430 when the first Sephardi takkanot of the communities appeared in Spanish. Tell me if I am wrong.

Hayim Y. Sheynin  

Virus-free.www.avast.com

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[Ilil Baum]

Dear Sarah,

This is a great idea, and the discussion around the matter is also very interesting.

A quick comment regarding Judeo-Portuguese, 'The Book on How to Make Colors' is probably from 14[62] rather than 12[62]. In any case, the first Judeo-Portuguese specimens are from the instructions for the Passover Seder (late thirteenth-early fourteenth century).

*What would you do with "Judeo-Latin" texts?

All the best,

ilil

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[David M. Bunis]

Dear Sarah - and this relates to the important issues raised by Hayim Sheynin:

I think the origins of what the rabbis of Iberia called La'az, i.e., Ibero-Romance, are to be found in the period leading from popular Latin to earliest popular regional Romance. In the xardjas of the Hebrew muwashshahat by the Jewish poets of Iberia we find specimens of early Ibero-Romance in Hebrew letters. I have never taken the time the examine "all" the texts in an attempt to determine if there is anything distinctive in the Jewish xardjas (which do not amount to a very large corpus), but even if there is not, I think they demonstrate interaction between the Iberian Jews and Ibero-Romance in Muslim Iberia. The Jewish writers had to understand the xardjas in order to build their poems around them. I think we do not know how the Jews interacted with Christians in Muslim Iberia, but we do know that Ibero-Romance survived the Muslim conquest and then developed into the Iberian languages of post-Muslim Iberia in each region, and thus the Jews would presumably have had the opportunity, and perhaps were motivated throughout this period, to interact with Christians in Ibero-Romance, despite the fact that they presumably spoke kinds of Arabic with Muslims and probably amongst themselves. I ask myself questions like: during the time of the xardjas, would Jews have used forms like Dyos, sabado, and domingo within their own communities, despite the problems for the Jews which their Judezmo forms point to, or were at least el Dyo and shabad used in their earliest Ibero-Romance. If so, that would be the beginning of earliest distinctive Jewish Ibero-Romance. It's possible that the few extant texts, and the difficulty of their interpretation, especially because the earliest ones are written according to Semitic (CCC) rather than Romance (CVCVCV) orthographic principles, make it difficult or impossible to determine. But what we call Judezmo today, and what the Sephardic rabbis have called La'az from the earliest days of Ibero-Romance to the modern era, had to start at some point. I tend to think that it started with the earliest documentation of Ibero-Romance in the Hebrew alphabet.

In short, Hayim, you've given us some important things to think about.

All the best,

David

    

[Sarah Benor]

I'm not surprised that my query yielded this smart, rich conversation. It's a fraught topic, as any definition or criterion of "a Jewish language" necessarily reflects an ideology and often has political implications. Ghil'ad, Sasha, David, Hayim, and Ilil - and everyone who emailed me individually - thank you for your insightful comments, questions, and suggestions. We were using a modified version of Sasha's criteria 1, combined with elements of 2 and 3: A) a document by a Jew written at least partially in the language (not necessarily in Hebrew letters, not necessarily with distinctive features) and B) evidence that there was a Jewish community (not just an individual) speaking that language. For languages that were rarely written, just B would suffice. Based on these definitions, Sasha, would you suggest an alternative date for Western Yiddish? What would you suggest for Eastern Yiddish?

Thanks all,

Sarah

[Alexandre Beider]

For the criterion formulated by you (my #1 but applied to communities rather than individual Jews), I would suggest:

- 10th century for both Western Yiddish and Judeo-Czech

- 14th century (as in your table) for Eastern Yiddish (if we consider that communities in Prague and Silesia can be linked to Eastern Yiddish)

I would also suggest several other amendments:

- Jewish communities in France speaking French (with specifically Jewish repertoire coming from other idioms or even created using French elements) surely existed well before 1950. Peter Nahon is the expert in this domain and he should be able to provide a good estimation.

- Small Jewish community of St. Petersburg surely mastered Russian decades before 1880

- Jews of Castile mastered Castilian well before the 14th century (I think your line for "Ladino" actually means "Judeo-Castilian" / "Judeo-Spanish"

- The Karaite community of Troki is known since the 14th century, while in Crimea the Karaite community is attested already at the end of the 13th century. Little doubt exists about the Turkic basis of their vernacular idioms, the ancestors of modern dialects of the Karaim idiom

Best,

 Sasha

[Ora Schwarzwald]

Dear Sarah,

It is certain that there is evidence for JS from the 13^th century.

Ora

 

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Prof. Ora R. Schwarzwald

Hebrew and Semitic Languages

Bar-Ilan University

Ramat Gan, Israel 52900

Tel: 972-3-5325021 (home), 5318226/667 (office)

Fax: 972-3-7384192 (department)

e-mail: ora.sch...@biu.ac.il, ora.sch...@gmail.com

http://sites.google.com/site/oraschwarzwald

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[Marion Aptroot]

Dear Sasha, dear all,

The 11th century glosses regarded as Western Yiddish weren’t just Germanic words written in Hebrew characters. They were written by Jews for Jews to explain concepts with words that were part of their vocabulary. That still leaves the question when there was a full-fledged linguistic system which you can call the Yiddish language open for discussion. However, when we speak about other (Germanic) languages, we stress continuities and that is helpful when we discuss Yiddish, too. A discussion about migration, diglossia and language contact should be part of the discussion when we look at Yiddish (and other Jewish languages), but the fact that Yiddish was spoken by a minority doesn’t mean that we should treat their use of language differently from that of majorities. 

When we aim to provide information about Jewish languages for a wider audience, it is helpful to use the same criteria as are generally used for other languages, otherwise we cannot communicate successfully. I think the website on Jewish languages is a great idea and that the criteria used are well chosen in this context. 

Best wishes,

Marion

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