Transcript Judeo Spanish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ5L5XR45Jk
Avrix mi galanica, que ya va’amanecer /
Avrix mi galanica, que ya va’amanecer /
Avrir yo vos avro, mi lindo amor /
La noche yo no durmo, pensando en vos //
Judeo Spanish
Mi padre’sta meldando, mos oyerá /
Mi padre’sta meldando, mos oyerá /
Amatalde la luzezica’si se dormirá /
Amatalde la luzezica’si s’echará //
Heather Clarke, Rachel Hopkinson, Christian Kusi-Obodum and Gina Sterling
Theory of Language death
Rachel Hopkinson
What is ‘language death’
exactly?
• ‘A language dies when nobody speaks it
anymore.’ (Crystal, D. p.1, 2002)
• ‘If you are the last speaker of a language, your
language- viewed as a tool of communication- is
already dead. For a language is really alive only
as long as there is someone to speak it to. When
you are the only one left, your knowledge of your
language is like a repository, or archive, of your
people’s spoken linguistic past.’
• Importance of recording the language.
• When the last speaker dies, the language
dies along with them.
• ‘When a language dies which has never
been recorded in some way, it is as if it
has never been.’ (Crystal, p.2, 2002)
• Harrison (p.23, 2007) claims that the
languages that are merely oral, and never
written down, die out the fastest.
Contributory factors to language
death
• ‘The search for a single cause which
inevitably leads to language death is futile.’
(Crystal, p.70, 2002)
Contributing factors to language
death.
• ‘The massive die-off we now face is one of
the greatest results of colonialism- the grand
project to govern, control, […] But the die-off
is also the result of natural demographic
factors.’ (Harrison, p.21, 2007).
• Also, people’s voluntary migration to cities for
better way of life, in which it is more
beneficial to speak the language of the
majority. (Harrison, p.21, 2007)
Contributory factors
• Crystal, (p.11, 2002), points out problem
when language not passed on to younger
generations.
• When the speakers are in physical
danger- natural disasters, etc. (Crystal,
p.70).
• Or political situation. (Crystal, p.75).
• ‘Cultural assimilation’.
The 3 Stages of language death:
• 1) Pressure on the people to speak the
dominant language. ‘Top down’= from the
government, ‘bottom up’= from the people
themselves.
• 2) Period of Bilingualism. This deteriorates
eventually.
• 3) Lack of interest by younger generation.
(Crystal, p.78, 2002)
What can be done?
• According to Crystal, (2002), stage 2 is the
most pivotal in terms of reversing the
language degeneration.
• Aims to raise the prestige of the language
in various movements around the world.
• The need for funds.
• Importance of political cooperation.
• Awareness of linguistic diversity.
• In Europe, est. 1982: ‘The European
Bureau of Lesser Used Languages.’ with
its news bulletin ‘Contact’.
Ways of promoting the endangered
language
• Plays, literature, poetry- even other forms
of art. (Crystal, p.98, 2002).
• Education.
• ‘Because bilingual education is expensive,
it is under constant threat.’ (Crystal, p.101,
2002)
• This draws attention to the importance in
political funding in maintaining a language
in danger.
For a language to remain, the
following is necessary:
• That the speech community be interested,
and to accept the help.
• ‘A positive political climate, committed to
the preservation of ethnic identity and
cultural rights, prepared to put some
money where its principles are’.
• Available professionals to help in teaching,
recording and analysis of the language.
• Example of success of revival of Hebrew
in modern Israel, due to political and
religious factors. (Crystal, p.127, 2002).
• Also, linguistic tolerance in the territory is
required. (Crystal, p.128, 2002).
Most important factors in language
death:
• Lack of intergenerational language transmission.
• Lack of government funding to support the language.
• Lack of prestige even within the speech community of
the language in danger.
• Dilution of the speech community within a larger
community (eg. A city) in which it is more beneficial to
speak the main language, for career opportunities etc.
• ‘On the one hand, especially in recent decades, we
find voices that present Spanish as a powerful
homogenizing force that threatens to rease linguistic
and cultural diversity.’ (Duchene, A. and Monica Heller,
p.242, 2007).
Bibliography
• Crystal, D. (2002) Language Death. Cambridge
University Press, New York.
• Duchene, A. and Monica Heller (eds.) (2007)
Discourses of Endangerment. Continuum, New
York.
• Harrison, K.D. (2007) When Languages Die:
the extinction of the world’s languages. Oxford
University Press, New York.
Origins and features of
Judeo-Spanish
Gina Sterling
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Contains elements of 14th and 15th century Castilian.
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Eastern Judeo-Spanish: spoken in Eastern Bulgaria, Turkey and the Greek
island of Rhodes: (reflects Castilian Spanish)
•
Western Judeo-Spanish: spoken in Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, western
Bulgaria: (reflects characteristics of north-western part of the Iberian
peninsula)
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The Spanish Jews integrated into existing Jewish communities and adopted
their language after a period of time.
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In north Morocco and in the Ottoman Empire they retained their spanish
language and even imposed it.
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As culture and language of Spanish jews evolved outside Spain, archaic
15th C Castilian son considered Jewish.
•
Judeo-Spanish
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According to linguist B. Pottier Jewish people expelled from Spain in 1492,
took varieties of Spanish with them. Leonese, Aragonese and Castilian.
•
These form base of what would become Judeo-Spanish vernacular around
1620.
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1620 = around the date which travellers from Spain stopped being able to
understand the ancestor of their language in the Spanish spoken by the
descendants who were expelled.
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Judeo-Spanish = language of fusión. Essientially 15th C Castilian, initially
influenced by regionalisms and hispanic Arabicisms and after 149 by
Moroccan, Turkish, Italian etc
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1492 (date of Jewish expulsión) Castilian had not yet undergone silencing
of voiced sibilants or the birth of the jota.
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Don Quixote now written Don Quijote arrived in France as Don Quichotte.
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Develop interesting strategies for “hispanisizing” various loan words.
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Eg continued use of the frequentative verbal ending ear, as verbal
hispanisizer for all loan words from the Turkish, Arabic, Bulgarian, Greek etc
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Those from French take -ar ending.
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Vocabulary and Semantics (Spanish archaic usages)
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Genuine lexical creations based on Ladino (Judeo- Spanish calque) go
back to 12th/13th century.
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Therefore language of fusión. 4% of loan words come from Hebrew, 15%
from Turkish, 20% from French etc… all these built on 15th C foundation of
Spanish.
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Dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire – contributed to the Judeo-Spanish
emigrating from the Levant and in Morocco to Europe and the Americas
starting in the 19th C.
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World War II and the Holocaust decimate the Judeo-Spanish population.
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Jewish people who emigrated within Europe, where Nazi occupation took
them by surprise- many died.
Judeo-Spanish Today
Heather Clarke
Number of speakers
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Lack of official statistics makes it difficult to know the exact number of speakers of
Judeo-Spanish
Renard (1966) estimate: 360,000
Harris (1979) estimate: 160,000
Harris (1994) estimate: 60,000
Number of speakers is constantly decreasing
Varieties of Judeo-Spanish
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Contains elements of 14th and 15th century Castilian.
Eastern Judeo-Spanish: spoken in Eastern Bulgaria, Turkey and the Greek island of
Rhodes: (reflects Castilian Spanish)
Western Judeo-Spanish: spoken in Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, western Bulgaria:
(reflects characteristics of north-western part of the Iberian peninsula)
http://www.sephardicstudies.org/quickladino.html
Competence
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In 1978 and 1985, Harris (1994) conducted research in the Sephardic communities in
New York, Israel and Los Angeles.
Total of 91 Judeo-Spanish speakers were interviewed:
28 from New York
28 from Israel
35 from Los Angeles
Results
Reading: 81/91 can read Judeo-Spanish (mostly letters from Sephardic relatives in
other parts of the world, ballads etc)
Writing: 63/91 can write Judeo-Spanish using the Roman alphabet (use the
language to write to Sephardic relatives.) Many people could write in the language
many years ago but are out of practice now.
Speaking: 91/91 can speak confidently in Judeo-Spanish. 77/91 use the language
when speaking to grandparents (the rest did not have the opportunity to speak to
their grandparents.) This number progressively decreases when moving down the
age scale.
Current uses of Judeo-Spanish
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Language used with older people
“People under 50 years of age generally do not speak Judeo-Spanish but they can
understand it. People 20 years old and younger don’t even understand the language.”
Harris (1994:167)
Judeo-Spanish as a secret language
Humour and expressive purposes
Common language among Sephardim
Occasional use at work (e.g. with colleagues of Puerto Rican origin)
Current domains are limited.
No one reads, writes or speaks Judeo-Spanish on a regular basis.
Language of the older generation which is not being passed on to the younger
generations.
Reasons for the decline of JudeoSpanish
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Nationalism in the Balkans
Loss of prestige
Assimilation of speakers
Americanization
Hebrew is reinforced as the language of religion
No Sephardic schools
No language academy
No prestigious Judeo-Spanish literature
No ‘homeland’ and lack of newly arriving immigrants
Reduction of language domains
Signs of impending language death
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Diminishing domains of use
Very small number of speakers
No young speakers
No monolingual speakers
Lack of institutional / community support
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Signs of decay within the language
Individual variation
Borrowing
Hesitations, halting speech and fear of making mistakes (Sala 1970)
The likely future of Judeo-Spanish
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The number of speakers is likely to continue to decrease as the older generations
pass away.
Judeo-Spanish is not taught in schools so the younger generations are not likely to
learn it.
Difficult to find native speakers under 55.
It is no longer a language of trade and so has lost its prestige. This dissuades people
from using Judeo-Spanish, even if they are capable of doing so.
Harris (1994) ‘Do you consider Judeo-Spanish to be a dying language?’ 79/91 said
yes.
Estimated that Judeo-Spanish will have disappeared within 3 generations.
It is likely that the language will disappear as a living language / for purposes of
communication.
Bibliography
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http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Spanish-Ladino/Ladino.htm
http://www.sephardicstudies.org/quickladino.html
Harris, T (1994) Death of a Language, London and Toronto: Associated University
Presses
Renard, R (1966) Sépharad: le monde et la langue judéo-espagnol des
Séhardim, Belgium: Annales Universiatires de Mons
Sala, M (1970) ‘Observaciones sobre la desaparición de las lenguas’ In Etudios
sobre el judeoespañol de Bucarest, 9-45. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autonoma
Interpretation of Research
Christian Kusi-Obodum
Interpretation of Research
Orality
Number of speakers
Revival
Linguistic community and identity
Generational transmission
Literacy
Competency
Standardisation
Literature
Implementation
Functions
Prestige