The Ladino Language

The Ladino language permits you to travel (linguistically-speaking) through a time warp of sorts. If you ever wondered what Spanish sounded like in the 14^th and 15^th centuries, take a listen to Ladino, and you’ll be afforded a glimpse (or rather a sound byte) of the past. Also known as Judeo-Spanish, Ladino is currently spoken by approximately 150,000 people in Israel, the U.S., and pockets of Latin America.

In 1492, the Catholic Monarchs of Spain – Ferdinand and Isabella – issued the Alhambra Decree, giving Sephardic Jews the choice to convert to Catholicism or leave the country. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Jews fled Spain, settling in locations as diverse as Turkey and Greece, North Africa, and Eastern Europe.

Though forced immigration meant leaving behind much of their lives in Spain, the Jews did hold onto the language of their former home – Castilian Spanish; however, isolated from a Spanish language that continued to grow and evolve, Ladino remained largely suspended in time with grammar, orthographic conventions and vocabulary that reflect those of medieval Spain. Although exposure to languages such as Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, Greek and French in the immigrants’ new communities contributed significantly to the Judeo-Spanish lexicon, 60% of the language’s vocabulary can be traced to Castilian Spanish.

As previously mentioned, Ladino retains many features that were particular to Old Castilian: differentiation of the ‘b’ and ‘v’ sounds (as in English); lack of the pronouns usted and ustedes (their use in Spanish developed post-1492); and, the absence of ‘ñ’ and the inverted question mark. In addition, “the phonemes /š/ (English sh), /dğ/ (English g in George), and /ž/ (French j in journal) were retained in Judeo-Spanish (in Spanish they became /x/).” [1]

Prior to the 20^th century, Ladino was written right to left using a version of the Hebrew alphabet known as Rashi script. Contemporary Judeo-Spanish utilizes the Latin alphabet, although texts for religious purposes are occasionally written using Hebrew letters.

Judeo-Spanish is considered an endangered language that faces the possibility of extinction within the next 30 years. Almost 90% of the Ladino-speaking population was wiped out during the Holocaust. The relatively few speakers that remain are primarily 50+ years of age, and most have neglected to pass down the language to the next generation.

Vida Larga para el Ladino – A short documentary of the Ladino Language

A video in Spanish about the Ladino Language

Sources:
[1] Judeo-Spanish/Judezmo/Ladino, Jewish Language Research Website