Historical To Modern Perspective Of The Language Of Jews
By: Muhammad Abdullah Posted on Fri, 15-12-2023
Jews are simply the followers of Judaism. They are often mixed with Christians, however, there is a complete religious difference between them. Judaism is one of the oldest monotheistic religions, the other two being Islam and Christianity. Judaism is more than 3500 years old. It originated with Abraham in approximately 1800 BCE. Today, there are more than 14 million followers of Jews scattered all over the world. The religious places of Jews are called synagogues and their religious leaders are called rabbis. This piece of writing discusses the languages spoken by Jews in detail and traces their origin as well as the history of Jewish languages. We have also explained the downfall as well as the restoration of Jewish languages.
Table of Content
History of Jews, Their Culture and Language
People often question who are Jews. Are they a race, religion, culture, family, or nation? The answer is that they are not a race. However, they are all of the above things. One thing to notice is that whenever we talk about Jews, Israel is the first thing that pops into our minds. This is because of the majority of Jews that reside in Israel. And if you notice, the Jews in Israel are present in different colors which definitely means one thing that they are not a race. As mentioned earlier, Jews are the followers of Judaism. These people are the direct descendants of the followers of the Old Testament of the Bible. This is why on the religious level Christians and Jews very much relate to each other. The history of Jews dates back to the period of Abraham and Moses. The Hebrew Bible also called the Old Testament is the religious book that Jews follow and it contains information about the split between Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judah. Jewish people are both a national and a religious component and so are their languages.History of Jews
One thing about Jews with which you won't be aware of is that this nation was one of the oldest surviving nations on Earth that has faced every challenge that came in its way. In 931 BC, after the death of King Solomon, the united monarchy was split into the Kingdom of Judah and the Kingdom of Israel. In 722 BC. Assyrians invaded the kingdom of Israel.Establishment of the Kingdom of Judah
After the invasion, Jews ran to the kingdom of Judah. It was the Assyrians that ruled over Jews for quite a long time. It was in 612 BC that Babylonians took over the rule. In 586 BC, Babylons conquered Judah and demolished the temple of Solomon. It was the Babylonians that exiled Jews to Babylon.Invasion of the Achaemenid Empire
With the invasion of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, Jews were allowed to come back to Judah.Jews Return to Judah
When Jews came back to Judah, they rebuilt the temple of Solomon and laid the foundations of their culture along with writing their Holy Book Torah. Later on, a crack came in Jews that made them in two groups, religious Jews and Hellenized Jews.Role of the Hellenistic Period
The Hellenistic impact on Jewish language grew which led to the establishment of independent Jewish rule in Judah. When Romans invaded Judah, it led to two great revolts, The Great Revolt, of 66 to 73, and the Second Revolt 132 to 135. The result of these revolts was a massive decline in the number of Jews. More than 580,000 Jews were perished in the war. One thing that you might not know is that it was the Romans that changed “Judah” to “Palestine”. Before the war, Christianity was a Jewish sect. It was the result of the war that gave Christianity the status of a distinct religion. It was the result of Hellenistic Judaism that Jews helped in the Arab conquest for the propagation of Islam. Later on, the Jewish community was established in the Western Europe. The European Christians launch crusades to make Europe a Christian country. This happened after the massive killing of Christians in Jerusalem.The Culture of Jews
The culture of Jews is very diverse and consists of theology and law. It has very deep roots in the religion which is why Jews are very staunch supporters and believers of their culture and religion. It is an orthoprax and ethnoreligion that pertains to deeds that shape people’s lives. Jew culture involves the celebration of religious festivals such as Hanukkah, Yom Kippur, Passover, and Rosh Hashanah. According to the Jews, God had revealed the culture and the structure of life and it is compulsory for Jews to follow it. It refers to the point that God has set a certain set of rules that every Judaism follower has to follow in order to comply with the religion. As per Jews, they have a direct connection with Abraham and it is their sacredness that God granted them a piece of land.Languages of Jews
There is no confinement that Jews can only speak a few languages. The actual thing is that there is a religious and geographic relation with the Jews. The geographical relation specifically relates to Israel and Jerusalem. As mentioned earlier, the Babylonian and Hellenistic periods are one of the driving forces behind the languages that Jews speak.What Languages Do Jews Speak?
There are multiple languages that Jews speak. One interesting fact about the Jews is that in the past, they used to pick the language of the land and integrate that into the language they already knew. This process gives birth to pidgins and creoles. Although these pidgins and creoles don't exist today, they had a great impact on the languages that Jews spoke. It is common knowledge that Jews are living almost everywhere in the world. However, their majority exists in Israel and the United States. This statement supports the fact that Jews speak and have spoken a huge number of languages. There are many Jewish words that are making their way into the English dictionary because of their frequent use such as chutzpah, nosh, and schlep.The Hebrew Language
Language Status: Alive and Holds Religious Importance
One can say that Hebrew is the language of Jews. But there is a contrast, for more than 2000 years neither was Hebrew spoken by Jews nor it was a dead language. Just a few years back the change came and today Hebrew is the national language of the Jewish state. We know that Jews used to pick the language of the land they lived in but what we don't know is that they were still sticking to ancient Hebrew all along. There is no argument that Hebrew is the most classic Jewish language. According to the Gen-Z Jews, it is the most “OG language”. In formal words, Hebrew is an exceptional and old-school language. As per the Jewish prophets, God used to communicate with them in Hebrew.History of Hebrew
Hebrew is the most ancient Jewish language which is part of the Jewish religious book, Torah. In the religious context, it is still called the “Holy Language”. By the time of the popularity of the Yiddish language, it was thought to be the official language of the Jewish state but later, the officials decided to grant Hebrew the status of the official language. In the past, Hebrew was the language of the religion, upper class, and the government. It was in the 1700s that the propagators of the Jewish Enlightenment movement tried to revive it as a modern language. Hence we have two versions of this language, the Ancient Hebrew and the modern Hebrew.Ancient Hebrew
The Old Testament of the Torah is present in ancient Hebrew. This language has its roots in the Canaanite languages that were spoken in the ancient Levant region. The first speakers of ancient Hebrew were found in the 10th century BCE to 1st century CE. When the Phoenician territory joined Canaan, the early form of Hebrew was very much similar to Phoenician. A sudden change came in the 3rd century BC, it was decided by the government officials in Palestine that Aramaic would be the language spoken in daily life while Hebrew, the sacred language, would remain the language of the official level and be used in religious context only. In the ancient Hebrew, there are no separate consonants and vowels. Actually, there is a combination of consonant and vowel signs and pronunciation that matters more than words.Modern Hebrew
The modernity in Hebrew is the venture of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda. He is responsible for coining 4000 brand new words from ancient Hebrew in the late 1800s. This was the result of the zionist vision that demanded that Jews must speak their native language in their native land. In 1922, the fame of modern Hebrew reached the League of Nations where Jews demanded the British mandate. The British mandate recognized modern Hebrew as the official language of Jews in Palestine. The founders of Israel made it a central language and persuaded the Jewish immigrants to give up the old Hebrew names.The Yiddish Language
Language Status: Alive
On a humorous level, some people say that Yiddish is a combination of German and phlegm. Actually, Yiddish is a mixture of medieval German and Hebrew. This is why often Germans are unable to tell what the other person is speaking as it becomes difficult to distinguish that language. The Ashkenazi Jews excessively speak this language. Among the Jewish community, Ashkenazi Jews are considered the original Jews because the ancestors of these Jews used to live in Eastern and Central Europe. The fame of the Yiddish language reached Broadway in the form of a musical that consisted of Yiddish stories. Even the Yiddish film, Fiddler on the Roof, became the best picture nominee at the 1972 Academy Awards. Many people assume that being an old language Yiddish is most probably an extinct language today. However, it's the opposite, Yiddish is still alive and a powerful language. Only in North America, there are more than 150,000 Yiddish speakers.History of the Yiddish Language
The history of the Yiddish language dates back to the 10th century. The evolution of Yiddish started when Jews made their way from northern Italy to the German Rhine Valley. These Jews are known as Ashkenazi. From the 14th and 17th centuries, these Jews migrated to the East and incorporated the Slavic elements of language with Hebrew and Aramaic influences and later added words from Russian, Polish, and Ukrainian. This was the time when Yiddish was the most superior language in Ashkenazi Jewish culture. Yiddish was the language of the era at that time. It dominated theatrical plays and many books were written as well as translated into Yiddish. Yiddish literature remained the talk of the town for many years because of its unique mixture of heartbreak and humor. It was spoken so widely among the Jewish immigrants that it was thought of making Yiddish an official language of the future Jewish state.The Aramaic Language
Language Status: Alive
Hebrew has religious importance but Aramaic is the language that Jesus used to speak, according to the legends. It is the lingua franca across the ancient Near East. The New Testament of the Torah consists of some parts in Aramaic language.History of Aramaic Language
In the Middle East, only one language ruled the Aramaic language. As we already know this fact about Jews is that they have a habit of adopting the language of the land they either live or reside close to. So the same happened with Aramaic, Jews from Israel and Mesopotamia adopted the Aramaic language in their daily life. By the 3rd century CE, the religious buildings of the Talmud Jews, rabbis, echoed with debates in Aramaic. Shortly after that when Muslims came to Arabia, the death of Aramaic started. Today a modern dialect of Aramaic, Jabali, has multiple speakers in Kurdistan. Not only Jews but Iraqi Christians also speak modern Aramaic.The Ladino Language
Language Status: Endangered
Ladino language or Judeo-Spanish language is basically a romance language which is a derivation of Old Spanish. It doesn't have an official status and only has a minority of speakers in Israel, Italy, Morocco, France, and the Netherlands. Today, Ladino is a permanent part of Sephardic Shabbat gatherings. There are approximately 60,000 to 400,000 Ladino speakers in the whole world today.History of Ladino Language
There is a certain class of Jews that speak this language, Sephardic Jews or the Iberian Peninsular Jews. One can say that Sephardic Jews founded their own language which we today know as Ladino. Initially, Ladino was a dialect of Spanish with the addition of some Portuguese and Hebrew words. Ladino gained the status of an individual language when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella exiled Jews from Spain in 1492 following the “Alhambra Decree”. These Jews then settled mainly in the Middle East. The initial opinion of the Jews was that this mass migration put their language in danger but it was later seen that this was the best thing that happened to the Jews, only if we look linguistically because who wants to leave their home and start from scratch? The reason why it was called the best thing is because it allowed the formation of the Ladino language. As Arabic speakers inhabit most of the Middle East, the now sole language Ladino got mixed up with Arabic. It was the Holocaust that led to the destruction of the major Ladino hubs which totally endangered the Ladino language. Here the state of Israel took measures to revive the status of Ladino and ran an exclusive program for this purpose.The Judeo Language
Language Status: Alive
Judeo is one of the oldest Jewish languages on the surface of earth. It has more than 240,000 native speakers and has a huge number of dialects such as Judeo-Catalan, Judeo-Italian, Judeo-Papiamentu, Judeo-Swedish, Judeo-Russian, and many more. The reason behind all these dialects is just because Jews habit of adopting the linguistic traits of the region they live in. This process gives birth to multiple dialects, some of which you might have never ever heard of.History of the Judeo Language
The history of Judeo dates back to the Arabic speakers where Jews coined the Judeo-Arabic dialect. This dialect reached Iraq, Morocco, Yemen, and Spain. It was written with Hebrew elements and the Aramaic vocabulary and grammar. This dialect became so famous that philosophers like Maimonides used them in their writings, one can say that Judeo-Arabic was the language of the time in the Arabic speaking Jewish population. When Jews reached North Africa, they coined a new dialect, Judeo-Amazigh. It was used by the Jews who were in the trade and business sector. This dialect became a second language for the Libyan, Algerian, and Moroccan Jews. Then there is another Judeo dialect, Haketia, which is a mixture of Judeo Moroccan Arabic and Spanish. Among Indian Jews, we have Judeo-Malayalam and Judeo-Marathi. In short, the Jews incorporated different languages in the Judeo language and coined new dialects and languages that are actively used today.What Brought the Downfall of Jewish Languages?
There are various reasons behind the downfall of Jewish languages. It's true that some of them are alive and strong languages today but there are some factors that made them endangered for a short span of time. Still, Jewish languages are struggling to remove the “endangered languages” banner from their heads.The Holocaust
The holocaust which is the result of the Nazi regime was the sole reason behind the near extinction of the Ladino language. It was the aftermath of the First World War that totally threw Ladino off the rails. The state-sponsored killing of more than six million Jews endangered many Jewish languages. Just because of the racism of the Nazis, more than half of the Jewish population was wiped off from the surface of the earth.Exile
The exile of the Jewish community from the Kingdom of Judah is another reason behind the downfall of Jewish languages. The exile of Jews from Muslim countries in the 20th century is another reason for the extinction of Jewish languages.Revival of the Jewish languages
Hebrew
The revival of Jewish languages, especially Hebrew, took place in the 19th and 20th centuries. Its revival is the reason behind Jews’ strong stance in the world today. You may find other languages like Ladino going towards extinction but you won't find Hebrew anywhere near that. It is because, since the revival of Hebrew, Jews are more than ever conscious to protect their languages, especially the one that holds religious importance. With the exile, the Hebrew speakers declined. The above mentioned revival of Hebrew that came in the late 19th and early 20th century was the result of the rise of the zionist movement. The role of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda is worth mentioning. In 1948, with the establishment of the State of Israel, this was the major period of Hebrew revival.Ladino
Though Ladino is an endangered language, the Sephardic Jews in the Iberian Peninsula are trying to revoke its status as a safe language. The dialects that arise because of the mixture of Ladino with other languages is one other reason behind its revival from near extinction to less near extinction.Yiddish
After the joint efforts of Ashkenazi Jews to spread Yiddish, it did become a common language for Jews. But the massacres of these Jews led to a decline in Yiddish speakers. Since then Jews have been trying to incorporate the Yiddish language into the curriculum to make it a living language with no danger of extinction. There are strong Jewish communities in the United States that are Yiddish speakers and are incorporating Jewish festivals in their lives that grab the attention of the non-Jewish people. You will see many Christians celebrating Hanukkah and Christmas together to show love to their Jewish friends and family. Even media representations promote Judaism. For example, the most famous American sitcom “Friends”, showed how Ross explained what Hanukkah is to his son Ben despite the fact that Ben’s mother is Christian and celebrates Christmas.Final Words!
The Jewish culture is based on Judaism. Religion has a very significant role in the thinking process of Jews. Languages such as Hebrew, Ladino, and Aramaic are the main Jewish languages that hold great importance. The history behind these languages explains their formation, near extinction and then revival. The exile of Jews and the holocaust are the two main reasons behind the downfall of Jewish languages. However, the religious upheaval again brought these languages into the limelight.
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