Yevanic (Judeo-Greek)

[Stavros Gouros]

My name is Stavros Gouros and I am a student of Linguistics at La
Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. I am attempting to find
information about Yevanic (Judeo-Greek), traditionally spoken by the
Romaniote Jewish Community of Janina, Greece. According to Ethnologue,
there are 35 speakers in Israel and 15 in the US. Unfortunately, as I
understand it, there are no publications in English or Greek on the
subject. Information on the web is little. Thus far, I have not been
able to find any speakers of the language. If anyone is able to pass
information on to me, I would greatly appreciate it.

Kindest regards.

Stavros

sgo...@students.latrobe.edu.au
stavro...@gmail.com

[Julia Krivoruchko]

If you define JG as the traditional Jewish urban dialect of Ioannina, it is dead, as even the few remaining elderly speakers do not produce the features that were mentioned by earlier researchers. The same is true for elderly Israeli speakers of Ianniote descent. I did no field research in the USA, but I doubt there are (m)any left. The estimations of Ethnologue are certainly obsolete, and were probably obsolete when they were first published.
However, this definition of JG is too narrow and synchronic-oriented, since Judeo-Greek was spoken not only in Ioannina, but all over Greece and beyond.
There is an ample bibliography on JG both in English and Greek. My recent article in Language & Communication 31/2 (2011), pp. 119-129 is a good starting point.

Best,
Julia G. Krivoruchko

-- 
Dr Julia G. Krivoruchko
Research Associate
Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit
Cambridge University Library
West Road 
Cambridge CB3 9DR

Tel: +44 (0)1223 33036
email: jg...@cam.ac.uk
web: www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Taylor-Schechter/

-- 
Dr Julia G. Krivoruchko
Research Associate
Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit
Cambridge University Library
West Road 
Cambridge CB3 9DR

Tel: +44 (0)1223 33036
email: jg...@cam.ac.uk
web: www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Taylor-Schechter/

[George Jochnowitz]

There is a Romaniote synagogue on Broome Street in New York.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kehila_Kedosha_Janina

Perhaps they have information about surviving speakers.

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