Do you know Ladino?

[IceVajal]

I never heard about Ladino before I stumbled upon this article!

https://www.euronews.com/culture/2022/0 ... extinction

One more language which is close to extinction... We all should learn a language which will vanish soon, if nobody is learning it!

Edit: I'm a curious person, so I was looking for more information and found this article:

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/articl ... ut-ladino/

[Explorer]

I knew it and I can understand almost everything. A very interesting language that was spoken by the Jew community in Spain before they were expelled by the Catholic monarchs in the fifteenth century. It's amazing that their descendants have preserved the language after so many years. It sounds a bit like old Spanish.

[IceVajal]

I thought it's interesting and as one day I want to learn Spanish and thought about Yiddish.... But who knows.
What surprised me most, that it's about people in Greece speaking it and that I never read about it before.

[Explorer]

The Royal Spanish Academy, the main institution which establishes and reinforces the use of the Spanish language worldwide, announced the creation of the National Ladino Academy in Israel.

“The creation of this academy in Israel will be an extraordinary step that will not only serve to boost philological studies on Judeo-Spanish, but will give it greater prestige in Spain, in Israel, and in Spanish-speaking countries”, said the Israeli ambassador in Spain, Daniel Kutner.

Source: https://esefarad.com/?p=81859

[Explorer]

Some useful resources:

• Wikipedia in Ladino
• Sephardic Educational Center
• Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America: a beginner's course online
• Autoridad Nasionala del Ladino: YouTube channel

[Corinnebelle]

Ladino was the trade language in southern Europe while Yiddish flourished in central Europe.

[mention]IceVajal[/mention] If you learn Ladino, it is a dialect of Spanish so should be understandable to Spanish speakers.

[IceVajal]

[mention]Corinnebelle[/mention], first I have to get Russian to upper intermediate before I consider starting Spanish, but one day....

[Corinnebelle]

[mention]IceVajal[/mention] I corrected my comment.

[EranBarLev]

@IceVajal If you learn Ladino, it is a dialect of Spanish so should be understandable to Spanish speakers.

I never learned Ladino, but after learning Spanish I can understand about 95%. So I think it should be considered a dialect of Spanish. The main difference is the pronunciation of the J like in French.

Here are some famous traditional Ladino songs:

[IceVajal]

Thanks for sharing!

[Corinnebelle]

[mention]EranBarLev[/mention] They seem to still have a Jewish flavor in spite of being in a different language. I heard avinu in the first one.

[HeavenBender]

Thank you so much for this post. Those were really interesting articles you shared. I never expected a Romance language similar to Spanish to be endangered. In order for a language to remain truly alive, not only do there need to be people alive who know the language, but there also need to be native speakers of the language. However, extinct languages are ones that are not spoken nor studied by any. So yeah, as long as we can get people to start learning Ladino, we can prevent it from becoming extinct. Whether we can save it from being dead or not, however, relies on having native speakers of Ladino. It depends on what linguists precisely define as a "native speaker", but I would assume that a native is just someone who starts speaking a language from birth. So I would say teaching Ladino to future generations of learners of the language would save the language from dying. However, I don't know if the definition involves the parents being native speakers as well or not.

[panyamnyenyekevu]

Cool article. So is it safe to say that Ladino is a Spanish-Hebrew hybrid the way Yiddish is a German-Hebrew hybrid? Makes me wonder if there might have been other similar hybrids. French-Hebrew?! Polish-Hebrew?!

[panyamnyenyekevu]

Googling ladino yiddish I find an article called “ From Ladino to Bukhori: Jewish Languages Around the World.”

https://www.eldridgestreet.org/blog/fro ... the-world/

[IceVajal]

[mention]panyamnyenyekevu[/mention] , thanks for the link! I'll read it later!

[panyamnyenyekevu]

Cool article. So is it safe to say that Ladino is a Spanish-Hebrew hybrid the way Yiddish is a German-Hebrew hybrid? Makes me wonder if there might have been other similar hybrids. French-Hebrew?! Polish-Hebrew?!

In fact there was a French-Hebrew, as mentioned at the end of the article.

“Others currently surviving include Judeo-Aramaic, Judeo-Median, Judeo-Berber, and more, while languages such as Yevanic (Judeo-Greek), Judeo-Italian and Judeo French flourished in the past but have long since disappeared from regular use. “

Looking a little further, I see “French-Hebrew” or Zarphatic was around from the 11th to the 14th c.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zarphatic_language

I think I’ll start a separate thread for Jewish World languages.

[IceVajal]

I think I’ll start a separate thread for Jewish World languages.

Great idea! A place to get all the varieties of Jewish languages and culture at once!

[IceVajal]

Here is another article about Ladino, this time more focussed on the culture which was almost erased.

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/articl ... holocaust/

[IceVajal]

One more article (with links) about Ladino!

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/articl ... ut-ladino/

[IceVajal]

As it's the holiday season.... Not just Christmas, it's Hanukkah, too.

Kveller.com: This Ladino Hanukkah Song Is Such a Bop.
https://www.kveller.com/this-ladino-han ... uch-a-bop/

For the ones who aren't interested in the article, here is the video.

[Deleted User 4833]

The Ladino language is beautiful and I love the music. I can understand a lot of it because of my Spanish. I have some relatives who speak it, but I never learned it from them.

The first song @EranBarLev linked, "Rey Nimrod" was the first Ladino song that I thought of when I saw there was a thread here about Ladino.

[IceVajal]

@Mixcoatl, that's always a problem when you search for something rare and/or something with an almost identical name.

To be honest, I've never heard of Ladin. Can you tell me a bit about it?

[IceVajal]

@Mixcoatl, thanks for the link. So far I didn't take a closer look at Ladino. But perhaps one day....

Usually it's a good idea to search eBay for foreign language books... I even found some stuff in Ladino, but as this isn't a near future project....

[Corinnebelle]

First Ladino Ulpan!

https://www.timesofisrael.com/haberes-b ... e-program/

[Basler Biker]

As a side note, don't confuse this ladino with "ladin" (DE:ladinisch) spoken a.o. in Süd-Tirol, Trentino.
Yet it's also in distinction (really?) Here is a group of ladies/girls singing in that language, trying to keep it somewhat alive ...

viewtopic.php?p=111309-music-is-good-fo ... ng#p111309

An update : I asked chatGPT 4.0 (really way better than the previous 3.x) as it can also read "recent/actual" pages on the internet, and incorporate some "actuality" into it's answers....

Ladino and Ladinisch (also called Ladin) are not the same language, though their names are quite similar.

Ladino (also known as Judeo-Spanish) is a Romance language spoken by Sephardic Jews, primarily descending from Jews expelled from Spain in 1492. It is heavily influenced by medieval Spanish, with elements from Hebrew, Turkish, Greek, and other languages from the regions where Sephardic Jews settled. Ladino has been spoken in regions like the Balkans, Turkey, Israel, and North Africa.

Ladinisch (or Ladin in English) is a Rhaeto-Romance language spoken in the Dolomite mountain region of northern Italy, particularly in parts of South Tyrol, Trentino, and Belluno. Ladin is related to other Rhaeto-Romance languages like Romansh (spoken in Switzerland) and Friulian (spoken in northeastern Italy), and it has roots in Latin as spoken in the Roman Empire's northern provinces.

Key Differences:
Geographic origin: Ladino comes from Sephardic Jews of Spain, while Ladin comes from the Italian Alps.
Linguistic family: Ladino is rooted in medieval Spanish, whereas Ladin is part of the Rhaeto-Romance languages.
Cultural context: Ladino is associated with Jewish history and the Sephardic diaspora, while Ladin is a minority language in the alpine regions of northern Italy.
Despite their similar names, they are distinct languages with different histories and cultural backgrounds.

How many people, estimated, do speak these two? are they both doomed to disappear?

ChatGPT
Ladino (Judeo-Spanish)

• Number of Speakers: Ladino is considered a highly endangered language. Estimates of the number of Ladino speakers vary widely, but recent figures suggest there may be between 50,000 to 100,000 speakers worldwide. The largest concentrations are in Israel, Turkey, the U.S., and some Balkan countries, though many speakers are elderly.
• Endangerment Status: Ladino is classified as severely endangered by UNESCO. The number of native speakers has been dwindling, as younger generations often adopt the dominant languages of their countries, such as Hebrew, Spanish, or Turkish. Despite efforts to revive the language through cultural and academic initiatives, Ladino's future remains uncertain due to the small and aging speaker base. However, there has been renewed interest in recent years, with programs aimed at preserving Ladino culture, literature, and music.

Ladin (Ladinisch, Dolomite Ladin)

• Number of Speakers: Ladin is spoken by about 30,000 to 40,000 people, primarily in the Dolomite Alps of northern Italy. The communities where Ladin is spoken are mainly concentrated in the regions of South Tyrol, Trentino, and Belluno, which have autonomy and cultural protection.
• Endangerment Status: Ladin is considered vulnerable, but its situation is somewhat more secure than Ladino. Thanks to its recognition as a minority language by Italy and the European Union, Ladin enjoys legal protection, and there are efforts to promote it in schools, media, and cultural activities. In the Ladin-speaking regions, schools often offer bilingual education in Italian and Ladin, and local media (TV, radio, print) help maintain the language. Nevertheless, the number of speakers is small, and urbanization and migration trends could weaken its status over time.

Are They Doomed to Disappear?
Ladino: Sadly, Ladino is at higher risk of disappearing, as the number of speakers continues to decline, and the language has not been transmitted to younger generations on a large scale. However, cultural and academic efforts to document and preserve Ladino (through online archives, dictionaries, and community events) provide some hope for its survival in niche contexts.

Ladin: Ladin, while vulnerable, has a better chance of survival due to governmental and regional support. As long as educational and cultural initiatives continue and younger generations remain connected to their linguistic heritage, Ladin may endure, though likely in a localized context within its alpine communities.

In summary, Ladino faces a much more precarious future, while Ladin is vulnerable but has stronger support and more optimistic prospects for survival.

[XeO3]

@Mixcoatl, that's always a problem when you search for something rare and/or something with an almost identical name.

To be honest, I've never heard of Ladin. Can you tell me a bit about it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladin_language
https://lld.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingaz_ladin

Still feels somewha tstange how transparent a language one has never studied can be -

[SweNedGuy]

... and of course the Italians name 'Ladin' Ladino, adding to my confusion. Considering the scattered occurrence of Ladin in different valleys over a wide area, there is a high dialectal variation. The twin sister language Rhaeto-Romansch is in a similar situation.