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| Judeo-Italian | |
|---|---|
| ג'יודו-איטאליאנוgiudeo-italiano | |
| Pronunciation | [dʒuˌdɛoitaˈljaːno],[(ʔ)italˈkit] |
| Region | Italy Israel |
| Ethnicity | Italian Jews |
Native speakers | 200 in Italy, 250 in total (2022)[1] Very few speakers are fluent as of 2007[1] |
| Dialects | |
| Hebrew alphabet 10th-18th centuriesItalian Alphabet 19th century onwards | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | itk |
| Glottolog | jude1255 |
| ELP | Judeo-Italian |
| Linguasphere | & -bf 51-AAB-be & -bf |
| This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. | |
| This article is part ofthe series on the |
| Italian language |
|---|
| History |
| Literature and other |
| Grammar |
| Alphabet |
| Phonology |
Judeo-Italian (orJudaeo-Italian,Judæo-Italian, and other names includingItalkian) is a group of endangered and extinctJewish dialects, with only about 200 speakers in Italy and 250 total speakers today.[2] The dialects are one of theItalian languages and are a subgrouping of theJudeo-Romance Languages.[3] Some words have Italianprefixes andsuffixes added toHebrew words as well asAramaic roots.[4] All of the dialects except Judeo-Roman are now extinct.[5]
Theglottonymgiudeo-italiano is of academic and relatively late coinage. InEnglish, the term was first used (asJudæo-Italian) by Lazaro Belleli in 1904 in theJewish Encyclopedia,[6] describing the languages of theJews ofCorfu.[7] In Italian, Giuseppe Cammeo referred to agergo giudaico-italiano ('Judaico-Italian jargon') in a 1909 article.[8] That same year,Umberto Cassuto used the termgiudeo-italiano, in the following (here translated into English):[9]
...It is almost nothing, if you will, even compared with other Jewish dialects,Judeo-Spanish for instance, that are more or less used literally; all this is true, but from the linguistic point of view, Judeo-German is worth as much as Judeo-Italian [giudeo-italiano], to name it so, since for theglottological science the different forms of human speech are important in themselves and not by its number of speakers or the artistic forms they are used in. Moreover, a remarkable difference between Judeo-German and Judeo-Italian [giudeo-italiano], that is also valuable from the scientific point of view, is that while the former is so different from German as to constitute an independent dialect, the latter by contrast is not essentially a different thing from the language of Italy, or from the individual dialects of the different provinces of Italy
TheInternational Organization for Standardization language code for Judeo-Italian / Italkian in theISO 639-3 specification isitk; theISO 639-2 collective language coderoa (for Romance languages) can also apply more generally.
"Italkian" is not used by the USLibrary of Congress as a subject heading, nor does it figure as a reference to Judeo-Italian. The authorized subject heading is "Judeo-Italian language".
The first Jewish communities in Italy emerged during the 2nd century BC and wereGreek speaking with knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic. But by 1000 AD the Jewish community in Italy had abandoned Greek and adopted early forms of Italian.[12] By the 900's AD Hebrew loanwords had begun to find their way into the speech of Italian Jews and Italian writing begins appearing in Hebrew, though the amount of Hebrew influence varies widely.[12]
During the 16th century expulsions led[clarification needed] to a massive decline in the amount of Judeo-Italian literature.[14] During the 19th century Judeo-Italian had switched from usingHebrew letters to thelatin alphabet.[12] The language began to decline in the early 19th century as Italian Jews were emancipated and began to switch to standard Italian instead of Judeo-Italian.[15] At the same time it began to be written down to preserve the language as it declines.[16] By 1900, 30,000 people spoke the language, today it is down to 250.[12] Around 2015 Judeo-Piedmontese went extinct.[17] All of the dialects of Judeo-Italian except forJudeo-Roman are now extinct.[12]
According to some scholars, there are some Judeo-Italian loan words that have found their way intoYiddish.[3] For example, the word in Judeo-Italian for 'synagogue' isscola, closely related toscuola, 'school'. The use of words for 'school' to mean 'synagogue' dates back to theRoman Empire. The Judeo-Italian distinction betweenscola andscuola parallels the Standard Yiddish distinction betweenshul/shil for 'synagogue' andshule for 'school'. Another example is Yiddishiente, from the Judeo-Italianyientile ('gentile', 'non-Jew', 'Christian'), as differentiated from the standard Italiangentile, meaning 'noble', 'gentleman'[18] (even if the name can come from Judeo-French and French as well).
There are also several loanwords from Judeo-Italian dialects inJudeo-Gascon, due to the migration of a few Italian families to the Sephardi communities in Gascony during the 18th and 19th centuries.[19]
Judeo-Italian regional dialects (ghettaioli,giudeeschi), these:
Source:[23]
Source:[23]
Source:[23]
Source:[23]
At least two Judeo-Italian varieties, based on theSalentino andVenetian languages, were also used inCorfu[24](see relevant section inCorfiot Italians).
It is also divided into two time based varieties which are Early Judeo-Italian which is attested through writings made from 1200 to 1700 and Modern Judeo-Italian attested from 1700 onwards.[16]
All of the spoken Judeo-Italian varieties used combination ofHebrew verb stems withItalian conjugations (e.g.,אכלרakhlare, 'to eat';גנבירgannaviare, 'to steal';דבררdabberare, 'to speak';לכטירlekhtire, 'to go'). Similarly, there are abstract nouns such asטובזהtovezza, 'goodness'. This feature is unique amongJewish languages[citation needed] although there are arguably parallels inJewish English dialect.
Also common are lexical incorporations from Hebrew, particularly those applicable to daily life. Terms from other Jewish languages such asYiddish andJudeo-Spanish were also incorporated.Bagitto, spoken inLivorno, is particularly rich inloanwords from Judeo-Spanish andJudeo-Portuguese.
It was claimed by Cassuto that most Judeo-Italian dialects reflect the Italian dialect of places further to the south, due to the fact that since the expulsion of the Jews from theKingdom of Naples, the general direction of Jewish migration in Italy had been northward.[9]
Compared to the non Jewish languages they're related to, the Judeo-Italian languages are relatively similar to each other, with them all being mutually intelligible.[25]
The degree of variation between Judeo-Italian dialects and their base languages (Judeo-Venetian and Venetian, Judeo-Piedmontese and Piedmontese etc.) varies. With some like Judeo-Mantuan being more divergent, others like Judeo-Venetian being less divergent and some like Judeo-Livornese being in the middle.[26]
The oldest known Judeo-Italian text is found in the margin notes of a copy of theMishnah written between 1072 and 1073 known as "Mishnah A". One of the most accessible ways to view the Judeo-Italian language is by looking at translations ofbiblical texts such as theTorah andHagiographa. For example, the Judeo-Italian language is represented in a 1716 VenetianHaggadah, a Jewish prayer book typically used during aseder, some samples of which are available online.[27]
Today, there are two locations, theOxfordBodleian Library, and theJewish Theological Seminary inNew York, in which many of these texts have been archived.[28]
Some notable writers who wrote in Judeo-Italian are:Guido Bedarida who wrote in Bagitto, and Annibale Gallico who wrote in Judeo-Mantuan.[20] A theater groups namedChaimme 'a sore 'o sediaro e 'a moje (Chaim, the sister, the chairmaker and the wife) performs plays in Judeo-Roman, andCrescenzo Del Monte wrote plays in Judeo-Roman,[5] and the playGnora Luna in Judeo-Florentine.[22]
Infatti, mentre è universalmente nota l'esistenza di un dialetto giudeo-tedesco, quasi nessuno sospetta oltr'alpe che gli ebrei italiani abbiano pure, o almeno abbiano avuto, non dirò un loro dialetto, ma almeno una loro parlata con peculiari caratteri. Certo, praticamente l'importanza di essa, limitata all'uso quotidiano di poche migliaia di persone, è pressoché nulla di fronte a quella del giudeo-tedesco, il quale è parlato da milioni di individui che bene spesso non conoscono altra lingua, ed ha una propria letteratura, un proprio giornalismo, un proprio teatro, sì da assumere quasi l'importanza di una vera e propria lingua a sé .... è pressoché nulla, se si vuole, anche a paragone di altri dialetti giudaici, del giudeo-spagnuolo ad esempio, che sono più o meno usati letterariamente; è vero tutto questo, ma dal punto di vista linguistico tanto vale il giudeo-tedesco, quanto il giudeo-italiano, se così vogliamo chiamarlo, giacché di fronte alla scienza glottologica le varie forme del parlare umano hanno importanza di per sé e non per il numero di persone che le usano o per le forme d'arte in cui vengono adoperate. Piuttosto, una notevole differenza fra il giudeo-tedesco e il giudeo-italiano, che ha valore anche per il riguardo scientifico, è che, mentre quello è tanto diverso dalla lingua tedesca da costituire un dialetto a sé stante, questo invece non è essenzialmente una cosa diversa dalla lingua d'Italia, o dai singoli dialetti delle varie provincie d'Italia .... [E]ra naturale che il gergo giudeo-italiano in breve volger di tempo sparisse ....
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