Judeo-Arabic dialects
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Judeo-Arabic | |
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ערביה יהודיה | |
Ethnicity | Mizrahi Jews from North Africa and the Fertile Crescent |
Native speakers | 240,000 (2022)[1] |
Afro-Asiatic
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Early forms | |
Hebrew alphabet | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-2 | jrb |
ISO 639-3 | jrb – inclusive codeIndividual codes: yhd – Judeo-Iraqi Arabicaju – Judeo-Moroccan Arabicyud – Judeo-Tripolitanian Arabicjye – Judeo-Yemeni Arabic |
Glottolog | None |
Judeo-Arabic dialects (
Judeo-Arabic can also refer to Classical Arabic written in the Hebrew script, particularly in the Middle Ages.
Many significant Jewish works, including a number of religious writings by
Characteristics
The Arabic spoken by Jewish communities in the Arab world differed slightly from the Arabic of their non-Jewish neighbours. These differences were partly due to the incorporation of some words from Hebrew and other languages and partly geographical, in a way that may reflect a history of migration. For example, the Judeo-Arabic of Egypt, including in the Cairo community, resembled the dialect of Alexandria rather than that of Cairo (Blau). Similarly, Baghdad Jewish Arabic is reminiscent of the dialect of Mosul.[5] Many Jews in Arab countries were bilingual in Judeo-Arabic and the local dialect of the Muslim majority.
Like other Jewish languages and dialects, Judeo-Arabic languages contain borrowings from Hebrew and Aramaic. This feature is less marked in translations of the Bible, as the authors clearly took the view that the business of a translator is to translate.[6]
Dialects
- Judeo-Algerian
- Judeo-Egyptian
- Judeo-Iraqi
- Judeo-Moroccan
- Judeo-Tripolitanian
- Judeo-Tunisian
- Judeo-Yemeni
- Judeo-Syrian
- Modern Palestinian Judeo-Arabic
History
Before the Early Islamic conquests Jews living in Arabia spoke a separate Judeo-Arabic ethnolect called Pre-Islamic Judeo-Arabic.[7]
Jews in Arabic, Muslim majority countries wrote—sometimes in their dialects, sometimes in a more classical style—in a mildly adapted Hebrew alphabet rather than using the Arabic script, often including consonant dots from the Arabic alphabet to accommodate phonemes that did not exist in the Hebrew alphabet.
By around 800 CE, most Jews within the Islamic Empire (90% of the world’s Jews at the time) were native speakers of Arabic like the populations around them. This led to the transition of Judeo-Arabic from pre-islamic to early Judeo-Arabic.[7] The language quickly became the central language of Jewish scholarship and communication, enabling Jews to participate in the greater epicenter of learning at the time, which meant that they could be active participants in secular scholarship and civilization. The widespread usage of Arabic not only unified the Jewish community located throughout the Islamic Empire but also facilitated greater communication with other ethnic and religious groups, which led to important manuscripts of polemic, like the Toledot Yeshu, being written or published in Arabic or Judeo-Arabic.[8] By the 10th century Judeo-Arabic would transition from Early to Classical Judeo-Arabic.
During the 15th century, as Jews, especially in North Africa, gradually began to identify less with Arabs, Judeo-Arabic would undergo significant changes and become Later Judeo-Arabic.[7]
Some of the most important books of medieval Jewish thought were originally written in medieval Judeo-Arabic, as well as certain halakhic works and biblical commentaries. Later they were translated into medieval Hebrew so that they could be read by contemporaries elsewhere in the Jewish world, and by others who were literate in Hebrew. These include:
- (explanatory content, not the prayers themselves)
- David ibn Merwan al-Mukkamas
- Solomon ibn Gabirol's Tikkun Middot ha-Nefesh
- Bahya ibn Paquda's Kitab al-Hidāya ilā Fara'id al-Qulūb, translated by Judah ben Saul ibn Tibbon as Chovot HaLevavot
- Judah Halevi's Kuzari
- Maimonides' Commentary on the Mishnah, Sefer Hamitzvot, The Guide for the Perplexed, and many of his letters and shorter essays.
Most communities also had a traditional translation of the Bible into Judeo-Arabic, known as a sharḥ ("explanation"): for more detail, see
Present day
In the years following the
Media
Most literature in Judeo-Arabic is of a jewish nature and is intended for readership by Jewish audiences. there was also widespread translation of Jewish texts from languages like
A collection of over 400,000 of Judeo-Arabic documents from the 6th-19th centuries was found in the Cairo Geniza.[10]
The movie Farewell Baghdad would be released in 2013 entirely in Judeo-Iraqi Arabic[11]
Orthography
Judeo-Arabic orthography uses a modified version of the Hebrew alphabet called the Judeo-Arabic script. It is written from right to left horizontally like the Hebrew script and also like the Hebrew script some letters contain final versions, used only when that letter is at the end of a word.[12] It also uses the letters alef and waw or yodh to mark long or short vowels respectively.[12] The order of the letters varies between alphabets.
Judeo- Arabic |
Arabic | Semitic name | Transliteration |
---|---|---|---|
א | ا | Alef | /ʔ/ ā and sometimes ʾI |
ב | ب | Beth | b |
ג | ج | Gimel | g or ǧ: hard G, or J, as in get, or Jack: /ɡ/, or /dʒ/ or si in vision /ʒ/ depending on the dialect |
גׄ, עׄ or רׄ | غ | Ghayn | ġ /ɣ/, a guttural gh sound |
ד | د | Daleth | d
|
דׄ | ذ | Dhaleth | ḏ, an English th as in "that" /ð/ |
ה | ه | He | h |
ו or וו | و | Waw | w and sometimes ū |
ז | ز | Zayn | z |
ח | ح | Heth | ḥ /ħ/ |
ט | ط | Teth | ṭ /tˤ/ |
טׄ or זׄ | ظ | Theth | ẓ /ðˤ/, a retracted form of the th sound as in "that" |
י or יי | ي | Yodh | y or ī |
כ, ך | ك | Kaph | k |
כׄ, ךׄ or חׄ | خ | Kheth | ḫ, a kh sound like "Bach" /x/ |
ל | ل | Lamedh | l
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מ | م | Mem | m |
נ | ن | Nun | n
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ס | س | Samekh | s |
ע | ع | Ayn | /ʕ/ ʿa , ʿ and sometimes ʿi |
פ, ף or פׄ, ףׄ | ف | Fe | f |
צ, ץ | ص | Sadhe | ṣ /sˤ/, a hard s sound |
צׄ, ץׄ | ض | Dhadhe | ḍ /dˤ/, a retracted d sound |
ק | ق | Qof | q |
ר | ر | Resh | r
|
ש or ש֒ | ش | Shin | š, an English sh sound /ʃ/ |
ת | ت | Taw | t
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תׄ or ת֒ | ث | Thaw | ṯ, an English th as in "thank" /θ/ |
Additional letters | |||
ﭏ | الـ | - | Definite Article "al-". Ligature of the letters א and ל |
Sample Text
Judeo-Arabic, Iraqi variant[12] | Transliteration[12] | English[12] |
---|---|---|
יא אבאנא אלדי פי אלסמואת, יתׄקדס אסמך, תׄאתׄי מלכותׄך, תׄכון משיתך כסא פי אלסמא ועלי אלארץ, חבזנא אלדי ללעד אעטנא אליום, ואעפר לנא מא עלינו כמא נעפר נחן לםן לנא עליה, ולא תׄדחלנא אלתׄגארב, לכן נגנא מן אלשריר, לאן לך למלך ואלקות ואלמגד אלי אלאבד | Yā abānā illedī fī al-samwāti, yaṯaqaddasu asmuka, ṯāṯī malakūṯuka, ṯakūnu mašyatuka kamā fī al-samā waʕalay al-ārṣi, ḥubzanāʔ al-ladī liluʕadi aʕṭinā al-yawma. Wāǧfir lanā mā ʕalaynū kamā naǧfiru naḥnu liman lanā ʕalayhi, walā ṯudḥilnāʔ al-ṯṯagāriba, lakin nagginā mina al-šširīri, lanna laka lamluka wālquqata wālmagida alay al-abdi. | Our father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever and ever. |
See also
- Arabic language in Israel
- Judeo-Berber language
- Judeo-Iraqi Arabic
- Baghdad Jewish Arabic
- Judeo-Moroccan Arabic
- Judeo-Tunisian Arabic
- Judeo-Yemeni Arabic
- Judeo-Syrian Arabic
- Judeo-Algerian Arabic
- Letter of the Karaite elders of Ascalon
- Arab Jews
- Haketia
- Garshuni
Endnotes
- ^ Judeo-Arabic dialects at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- OCLC 231382751.
- ^ "jrb | ISO 639-3". iso639-3.sil.org. Retrieved 2022-11-13.
- S2CID 151728939.
- ^ For example, "I said" is qeltu in the speech of Baghdadi Jews and Christians, as well as in Mosul and Syria, as against Muslim Baghdadi gilit (Haim Blanc, Communal Dialects in Baghdad). This however may reflect not southward migration from Mosul on the part of the Jews, but rather the influence of Gulf Arabic on the dialect of the Muslims.
- ^ Avishur, Studies in Judaeo-Arabic Translations of the Bible.
- ^ a b c d e "Judeo-Arabic". Jewish Languages. Retrieved 2024-01-25.
- S2CID 234166481.
- ^ Yudelson, Larry (2016-10-22). "Recovering Judeo-Arabic". jewishstandard.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 2024-01-28.
- ISBN 978-0-691-18952-9.
- ^ "ראיון: כשבמאי ישראלי עושה סרט עיראקי". הארץ (in Hebrew). Retrieved 2024-01-25.
- ^ a b c d e "Judeo-Arabic script". www.omniglot.com. Retrieved 2024-01-28.
Bibliography
- Blanc, Haim, Communal Dialects in Baghdad: Harvard 1964
- Blau, Joshua, The Emergence and Linguistic Background of Judaeo-Arabic: OUP, last edition 1999
- Blau, Joshua, A Grammar of Mediaeval Judaeo-Arabic: Jerusalem 1980 (in Hebrew)
- Blau, Joshua, Studies in Middle Arabic and its Judaeo-Arabic variety: Jerusalem 1988 (in English)
- Blau, Joshua, Dictionary of Mediaeval Judaeo-Arabic Texts: Jerusalem 2006
- Mansour, Jacob, The Jewish Baghdadi Dialect: Studies and Texts in the Judaeo-Arabic Dialect of Baghdad: Or Yehuda 1991
- Heath, Jeffrey, Jewish and Muslim dialects of Moroccan Arabic (Routledge Curzon Arabic linguistics series): London, New York, 2002.
External links
- Alan Corré's Judeo-Arabic Literature site, via the Internet Archive
- Judeo-Arabic Literature
- Reka Kol Yisrael, a radio station broadcasting a daily program in Judeo-Moroccan Arabic
- Jewish Language Research Website Archived 2017-07-24 at the Wayback Machine (description and bibliography)
- Tafsir Rasag, a translation of the Torah into literary Judeo-Arabic, at Sefaria