| Modern Palestinian Judeo-Arabic | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Israel,Palestine,Lebanon |
| Region | North and Central Israel, Southern Lebanon |
| Ethnicity | Old Yishuv andIsraeli-Jewish Descendants |
Native speakers | ≤4[a] |
Afro-Asiatic
| |
| Dialects | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
Modern Palestinian Judeo-Arabic (MPJA) is a variety ofPalestinian andMoroccan[citation needed] Arabic that was spoken by theOld Yishuv inOttoman andMandatory Palestine, and currently by a fewIsraeli Jews in Israel.
It was once spoken by around 10,000 speakers in the 20th century.[1] Today it is nearly extinct with only 5 speakers remaining inGalilee.
MPJA's decline is attributed to therevival of Hebrew and the proliferation ofModern Hebrew among theYishuv.[2]
Following theAl-Hambra decree after the conclusion of theReconquista in Iberia,Sephardi Jews began arriving inOttoman Palestine in the 16th century, settling especially inthe four holy cities ofJerusalem,Hebron,Safed, andTiberias.Over time, MPJA formed out of a conglomerate ofMaghrebi Jewish dialects andPalestinian Arabic dialects. In addition to the Jewish communities of Ottoman Palestine, many Jews of coastal Lebanese cities, with whom they maintained strong relations, adopted a variant of MPJA.[2]
Presumably, the number of MPJA speakers in the first third of the 20th century reached several thousand and possibly more than ten thousand at its peak. However, asHebrew became the dominant language of theYishuv, and later, theState of Israel, thespeech community sharply declined. The number of MPJA (both Galilean and Jerusalem variants) speakers at the end of the 20th century was still greater than one hundred.[2] However, as of 2016, there were only 5 speakers estimated to remain in the Galilee.
MPJA is divided into two subgroups based on where it was spoken: Galilean MPJA and Jerusalem MPJA. The Galilean had two subdialects in the cities ofSafed andTiberias.[2]
MPJA lexicon contains several influences from itsMaghrebi origins as well asHebrew,Ladino, andAramaic loanwords for several specifically Jewish terms. Beginning in 1936 as Hebrew became ever more prevalent among the Old Yishuv, Hebrew loanwords became more prevalent and older Hebrew loanwords phonetically reverted to their original Hebrew pronunciation. By 1948 Hebrew loanwords had completely reverted and Hebrew loans became more prevalent.[2]
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