| Zarphatic | |
|---|---|
| Judæo-French | |
| צרפתיתTzarfatit | |
| Native to | France, westernGermany andEngland |
| Ethnicity | Ashkenazi Jews |
| Extinct | 14th century[1] |
Early forms | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | zrp |
zrp.html | |
| Glottolog | zarp1238 |
Zarphatic, also calledJudeo-French (Zarphatic:צרפתיתTzarfatit) or Western Loez,[3] is a language that was spoken by theFrench Jews of northernFrance and in parts of westernGermany, such asMainz,Frankfurt am Main andAix-la-Chapelle. It was also spoken by French Jews who moved toNorman England.[4] Some have conjectured that the language influenced the development ofYiddish.[5][6]
The termZarphatic, coined bySolomon Birnbaum,[7] comes from theHebrew name for France,Tzarfat (צרפת), which was originally used in theHebrew Bible as a name for the city ofSarepta, inPhoenicia.
Unlike most otherJewish languages which had many loan words fromHebrew, it had relatively few. This has led to the conclusion that it may not have been a far-distant language but, instead, a dialect ofOld French.[citation needed]
Zarphatic was written using a variation of theHebrew alphabet. It first appeared in this form in the 11th century inglosses of theTorah andTalmud written by the rabbisMoshe HaDarshan andRashi.[3] The language became secularised during the 13th century, becoming used in varied domains such as poetry, medicine, astronomy, and commerce.[3]
Most linguists agree that Zarphatic was not fundamentally different fromOld French, and that it was more of a writing system and literary tradition that reflected the Jewish culture of the day. According to some researchers,[8][full citation needed] it was different from the Christian majority dialect, and thus a specificJudeo-Romance language. However, other linguists contend that it was essentially the same as Christian dialects of the same regions, with only some Hebrew influences.[9]
It seems that Zarphatic was probably never avernacular language, and that the Jews of the area did not speak a differing language or dialect, at least not one distinguished byphonology orlexicon beyond that specific to a community.[10][full citation needed] Rather, it acted more as a liturgical language, for exegesis and literature. Its primary use was for explanation andvulgarisation of biblical and rabbinical literature. Most of the elements from the Hebrew language are found in the function words (articles, prepositions, etc.), though there are some changes to verbs and vocabulary.[11]
Due to the constant persecution, killing andexpulsion of Jews from France[12] andother European nations, the Zarphatic language likely went extinct in the 14th century; documentation of the language slows in the mid-14th century.[3] The last known example of Zarphatic is a recipe forcharoset written in 1470.[9]
Zarphatic was written using the Hebrew writing system and theTiberian system fordiacritical markers and reflected some Latin writing traditions that help to distinguish it from a solely phonetic reproduction of spoken language.[3][9]
Not all Hebrew graphemes are used in Zarphatic: the graphemeskaph (כ),samekh (ס), andtav (ת), are rare, andḥet (ח) andʕayin (ע) are omitted entirely.[3]
| Language | Example text |
|---|---|
| Old French (Hebrew script) | קוֹזָא קִיאֵייט אַקוֹטֶוּמֵייאָה זֵייט אַטְרָא טוֹאוּטְ אוֹטְרִייֵאָה |
| Transliteration | q̄ōzə qīyēyṭ aqōṭūmēyəh dēyṭ aṭre ṭōūṭ ōṭryēəh |
| Old French (Latin script) | Chose qui eit acotumeie, deit etre tout otreieie |
| English translation | Something that is customary must be granted freely |
| French translation | Ce qui est coutumier doit être accordé librement |
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