Encyclopedia

Sephardim

Also found in: Dictionary, Wikipedia.
(redirected from Judezmo)
The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Sephardim

 

a group of Jews using the Ladino (Sephardic) language, which is close to Spanish. The Sephardim are descendants of émigrés from the Iberian Peninsula. They live in North Africa, Asia Minor, the Balkan Peninsula, and Turkey.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
Mentioned in
References in periodicals archive
Bunis, A Lexicon of the Hebrew and Aramaic Elements in Modern Judezmo (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Misgav Yerushalayim, Institute for Research on the Sephardi and Oriental Jewish Heritage, 1993), 19; Corominas and Pascual, Diccionario critico etimologico, 2:469-470, q.v.; Yakov Malkiel, "A Latin-Hebrew Blend: Hispanic desmazalado" Hispanic Review 15 (1947): 272-301; Paul Wexler, Three Heirs to a Judeo-Latin Legacy: Judeo-Ibero-Romance, Yiddish and Rotwelsch, Mediterranean Language and Culture Monograph Series 3 (Wiesbaden, Germany: Otto Harrassowitz, 1988), 74 n.
Thus in Morocco extensive combinations with Arabic produced Haketiya, in Italy (particularly Livorno) Tuscan dialect or other Italian imports produced an amalgam called 'Bagitto', in what today is Bosnia and Serbia, the local languages led to a special dialect and spelling of Ladino that local Jews called judezmo, expressed today in songs, and in today's Turkey, where the largest group of Sephardic exiles settled, the Ladino, there called judezmo or spanyolit, is influenced by Turkish.
It highlights the historical and sociolinguistic development of Turkic, Iranian, South Asian, Slavic, Greek, Balkan, Judezmo, Armenian, Georgian, and Basque languages.
Sephardic Jews spoke Arabic, too, but inside the community, their language was Judezmo, a Jewish language based on Spanish, with a written form called Ladino.
An example is a word of Greek origin, meletan, which was borrowed by Latin and survives in various Judeo-Romance languages (but not in other Romance languages) meaning "study" or "read." It became meltar in southern Loez (Judeo-Italian), meldar Dzhudezmo (Weinreich's way of spelling Judezmo, nowadays often called Ladino), and miauder in western Loez (Judeo-French).
Other major sections extend the coverage to modern times, taking special note of the absorption of European literature into the Jewish cultural orbit via Hebrew, Yiddish, or Judezmo translations, for instance, or the translation and reception of Jewish literature written in Jewish languages into other languages such as Arabic, English, French, German, or Russian.
David Bunis lists paxad as item 3285 in his Lexicon of the Hebrew-Aramaic Component in Modern Judezmo (1993).
Not even native speakers agree on what to call what, in the academic world, is generally known as Judeo-Spanish; there are those who refer to it as "Landino," "Judezmo," "Spanyolit," "El Kasteyano Muestro," and even simply "Espaniol." How to write the language using the Roman alphabet has also been problematic.
The Jews in Greece who spoke Judeo-Greek, also called Yevanic, were overwhelmed by the speakers of the language called Ladino or Judezmo or Judeo-Spanish or Jidyo or Spanyol.
Copyright © 2003-2025 Farlex, Inc Disclaimer
All content on this website, including dictionary, thesaurus, literature, geography, and other reference data is for informational purposes only. This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional.