Ladino

n., pl. -nos.

1. A nearly extinct Romance language, descended from medieval Spanish, spoken by Sephardic Jews especially in the Balkans, Turkey, and the Near East. Also called Judeo-Spanish.
2. also ladino In Central America, a Spanish-speaking or acculturated Indian; a mestizo.

[Spanish ladino, from Latin Latīnus, Latin. See Latin.]

Various forms of Judeo-Spanish spoken and written by the Sephardim - Jews who came to the Ottoman Empire and the Maghrib (North Africa) after their expulsion from Spain in 1492.

Ladino is also called Spanyol or Judezmo; in Northern Morocco, it is called Haketía. It is at base Old Castilian (Spanish, a Romance language). Like all Diaspora Jewish languages, it is written in Hebrew characters and has a significant Hebrew and Aramaic vocabulary. It also - depending upon the region - has assimilated loanwords from Arabic, Greek, Turkish, Italian, and French.

Ladino was the language of Jewish merchants throughout much of the Islamic Mediterranean region from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries. Except for folk songs and ballads (cantígas and romances) and some rabbinical writings, there was only a limited Ladino literature until 1730, when Jacob Culi published his popular encyclopedic Me'am Lo'ez in Istanbul. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Ladino became the primary medium of modern learning among Jews in the Ottoman Empire. Hundreds of novels and plays were translated from French, Hebrew, and Yiddish writers. There was a flourishing Ladino press in Turkey, Greece, the Balkans, Palestine, and Egypt.

The language policies of the post - World War I Republic of Turkey, the destruction of much of Balkan Jewry during World War II, and the migration of most of North African and Levantine Jews to Spain, South America, France, and Israel has led to the near disappearance of Ladino as a living language.

Bibliography

Lida, Denah. "Ladino Language and Literature." In Jewish Languages: Theme and Variations, edited by Herbert H. Paper. Cambridge, MA: Association for Jewish Studies, 1978.

— NORMAN STILLMAN

Dansk (Danish)
n. - ladinsk (romansk sprog)

n. - et gammelt kastiliansk sprog der tales af jøder i den østlige del af Middelhavet

Français (French)
n. - (Ling) ladino

n. - Ladino

Deutsch (German)
n. - Ladino (span. Dialekt der sephardischen Juden), spanischsprechender Weißer (in Lateinamerika), Mestize

n. - Ladino (Sprache der sephardischen Juden), Mischling (in Zentralamerika)

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - εξευρωπαϊσμένος λατινοαμερικάνος, σεφαρντίμ, εβραϊκά της ισπανικής διασποράς

Italiano (Italian)
ladino

Português (Portuguese)
n. - ladino (m)

Русский (Russian)
метис, норовистая лошадь, разновидность клевера, язык части сефардских евреев

Español (Spanish)
n. - variedad de trébol cultivado como forraje

n. - lengua romance de los judíos sefaradíes, mestizo, mañoso

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - slug person

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
拉地诺语

拉地诺语

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 拉地諾語

n. - 拉地諾語

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 이탈리아에 분포하는 흰토끼풀

n. - 중미에서 스페인어를 사용하는 사람, 유대어의 일종

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - ラディノ, ラジノクローバー, ユダヤ系スペイン語, 古代スペイン語, ラディノ語

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮סוג של תילתן לבן המשמש כמזון לבהמות‬
n. - ‮לדינו (שפה), לבן או בן-תערובת לבן-אינדיאני במרכז-אמריקה‬

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