Those forms of national speech, vernacular, or dialect which Jews have employed in the course of their history. As the language of Divine revelation, of the Bible, Mishnah, and rabbinic scholarship, Hebrew is Judaism's sacred tongue; as the language of the Targum and Talmud, of portions of the Midrash, and of the Zohar, Aramaic enjoys a somewhat lesser degree of holiness. Both were living, spoken languages prior to the Second Exile and, following its modern revival, Hebrew is once more the national language of Israel in the Jewish state. Even before the Temple's final destruction in 70 CE, however, Jews in the Diaspora spoke a variety of other languages. With the expansion of these communities and the creation of others, down to the late medieval period, Jews adapted each language to their own specific needs; in particular, Hebrew and Aramaic terminology was often absorbed while religious considerations motivated the use of Hebrew characters (in preference to the Roman, Greek, or other alphabets) in writing. New Jewish languages thus emerged, and from them several important literatures were to develop. The assumption that these were merely Jewish dialects or jargons is incorrect.
With one possible exception, the Jewish languages of North Africa and the Near East all predate the rise of Islam in the seventh century CE. Judeo-Arabic (Arvic) became widely used after the Muslim conquest of Western Asia, but its origins can be traced to warlike Jewish tribes in sixth-century Hejaz. The Hebrew alphabet was invariably used for writing Judeo-Arabic and this language developed regional forms in Asia and North Africa, from where Jews carried it to Muslim Spain. Little or nothing of Spanish Judeo-Arabic survived the 1492 expulsion from Spain, but elsewhere the language flourished, serving rabbis, preachers, educators, and all the requirements of daily life. Bible translations and commentaries, religious and secular verse, philosophical and mystical writings---from Spain to the Yemen---were composed in a scholarly form of the tongue. Major figures who wrote in Judeo-Arabic included Saadiah Gaon, Baḥya Ibn Pakuda, Solomon Ibn Gabirol, Judah Halevi, and Maimonides.
Judeo-Berber, a language restricted to Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, was also current among some Judeo-Arabic-speaking communities. Its most ancient and important literary product was a translation of the Passover Haggadah.
Judeo-Persian (Parsic) was one of the oldest of these Jewish languages. It had regional dialects in Daghestan (Judeo-Tat) and Bukhara (Judeo-Tajik). Until the 1917 Revolution, Judeo-Tat used the Hebrew alphabet; since 1939, however, as one of Daghestan's official languages, it has been printed in Cyrillic to conform with Soviet russification. A flourishing and creative Judeo-Persian literature developed under the tolerant rulers of 13th-century Persia. Bible translators utilized both Western and Oriental Jewish scholarship, while others either enabled Jews to read the great Persian classics in Hebrew script or wrote outstanding paraphrases of the Bible in verse. Although this process continued on a smaller scale in Bukhara, anti-Jewish repression from the 17th century on in Persia brought the literary "Golden Age" to an end. Thereafter, martyrologies and chronicles occupied the Jewish writer. Until the late 19th century, Judeo-Persian culture (being preserved in the Hebrew alphabet) was virtually unknown to both Iranians and outsiders alike. Its revival, within Jerusalem's Bukharan colony and in modern Iran, stemmed from the religious and national upsurge which this ancient community experienced after 1900.
Two minor Jewish languages were spoken by peripheral groups long settled in the Crimea. Judeo-Tatar developed among the Karaites, while Krimtchak was the native language of their Rabbanite opponents. Both groups, however, laid claim to an old Judeo-Tatar Bible translation, new versions of which appeared in the 19th century.
The origins of Judeo-Greek (Yevanic) probably go back to Second Temple times, when Ezekiel the Poet, a Hellenistic Jew of Alexandria, wrote Exagogé ("The Exodus") and other Greek dramas on biblical themes. Discriminatory laws may have promoted this language's development in the Byzantine Empire. Liturgical hymns with brief Hebrew refrains, Bible commentaries, and a 14th-century Pentateuch were some of its literary monuments. As a spoken and written language, Judeo-Greek remained vital until the Nazi Holocaust.
No fewer than six Jewish languages eventually sprang from an orally transmitted Latin version of the Bible current among the Jews of Rome and southern Italy. Their Hebrew-Aramaic content was slender, however, and (apart from the fact that they were written in Hebrew) there was little to distinguish these Romance tongues from parallel Christian vernaculars in the same areas of Western Europe. Judeo-Italian (Italkic, Latino, or Volgare) was perhaps exceptional in its readiness to assimilate Hebrew roots; from the Middle Ages on, its use spread throughout Italy and as far afield as Corfu. Rabbis of the 13th century deemed their old version of the Bible to be on a par with the Targum, and this explains the development of a flourishing Judeo-Italian literature over the next 500 years. It produced religious hymns and secular verse, as well as translations of biblical and rabbinic texts, the Italian rite prayer book, the Passover Haggadah, and Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed. The Arukh, a lexicon of the Talmud and Midrash compiled by R. Nathan ben Jehiel of Rome (c. 1100), includes 600 Judeo-Italian le'azim---foreign-language glosses in Hebrew transliteration. Jewish poets of the Renaissance later displayed much ingenuity in writing verse that could be read either in Hebrew or in Italian. This Jewish language still survives, mainly within the old "ghetto" of Rome.
Judeo-Spanish (Giudezmo, "Ladino," or "Spaniolish") and Judeo-Portuguese achieved real significance after 1492-97 as Iinguae francae of the Sephardi Diaspora. Until the early 19th century, Judeo-Portuguese was used for official purposes and announcements in the Sephardi congregations of Amsterdam and London. Judeo-Spanish gave birth to a flourishing culture that is still very much alive (see Judeo-Spanish; Sephardim). Glossaries and le'azim in Judeo-Catalan give a strong indication that the language had served the purposes of Bible translation prior to the 14th century.
Judeo-Provenc̣al, spoken throughout the provinces of southern France, was more generally known as Shuadit (Yehudit, "Jewish"). Its earliest written form occurs in 12th-century le'azim by R. Isaac ben Abba Mari of Marseilles; literature included an Esther scroll meant for women who could read the Hebrew alphabet and a prayer book of the Provenc̣al rite, both dating from the 14th century. As a spoken language, Judeo-Provenc̣al flourished much later (until after the French Revolution), but its small Hebrew component underwent drastic phonetic changes and it never amounted to more than the regional tongue in Hebraic dress. Purim songs (Obras) and a drama entitled La Tragediou de la Reine Esther shed light on social and religious conditions in the 17th century.
For all practical purposes, Judeo-French was simply the Old French language spoken by Ashkenazim living in northern France and the Rhineland until their expulsion from the realm in 1394. As both Jewish and Christian documents of the period indicate, the Jews of France and England were culturally part of their environment, spoke French at home, in synagogue, and in the marketplace, and even gallicized their names. Le'azim by the tens of thousands---in the commentaries of Rashi and Samuel Ben Meir (Rashbam), in prayer books, codes of law, responsa, and other medieval works---bear witness to this short-lived process of integration. Six 13th-century glossaries and at least two complete biblical lexicons not only embrace many of the Ie'azim but also prove that the Hebrew Bible must have been familiar to these Ashkenazi communities in Judeo-French. With their departure from Valois lands at the end of the 14th century, this Jewish language died out and was replaced by Judeo-German (see Yiddish).
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