Judeo-Italian languages

Infobox Language
name=Judeo-Italian
nativename="giudeo-italiano"
speakers= 200
region=Ferrara, Florence, Mantua, Modena, Piedmont, Reggio Emilia, Rome, Venice, Livorno; Corfu
familycolor=Indo-European
fam2=Italic
fam3=Romance
fam4=Italo-Western
fam5=Italo-Dalmatian
iso2=roa
iso3=itk

Judeo-Italian languages are the Italo-Romance linguistic varieties used between the 10th and the 20th centuries in Italy and Corfu.

The term "Judaeo-Italian"

The glossonym type "giudeo-italiano" is of academic and relatively late coinage. In English, "Judæo-Italian" was first used by Lazaro Belleli in 1904 for his article " [http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=588&letter=J Judæo-Greek and Judæo-Italian] " in the Jewish Encyclopedia (vol. 7, 310-313), describing the languages of the Jews of Corfu. In Italian, Giuseppe Cammeo referred to a "Gergo giudaico-italiano" in his 1909 article "Studj dialettali" (Vessillo Israelitico 57 (1909); the term first appears on p. 169). That same year, Umberto Cassuto used the term "giudeo-italiano", in the following:

:Actually, while the existence of a Judeo-German dialect is universally known, almost nobody beyond the Alps suspects that the Italian Jews have, or at least had, not to say a dialect of their own, but at least a way of speaking with peculiar features. True, in practice its importance, limited to the everyday use of some thousand people, is almost nothing versus that of Judeo-German, spoken by millions of individuals that often do not know any other language, and has its own literature, its own journalism, its own theater, and thus, almost the importance of a real language... It is almost nothing, if you will, even compared with other Jewish dialects, Judeo-Spanish for instance, that are more or less used literarily; all this is true, but from the linguistic point of view, Judeo-German is worth as much as Judeo-Italian ["giudeo-italiano"] , to name it so, since for the glottological science the different forms of human speech are important in themselves and not by its number of speakers or the artistic forms they are used in. Moreover, a remarkable difference between Judeo-German and Judeo-Italian ["giudeo-italiano"] , that is also valuable from the scientific point of view, is that while the former is so different from German as to constitute an independent dialect, the latter by contrast is not essentially a different thing from the language of Italy, or from the individual dialects of the different provinces of Italy...:256::...It was natural that the Judeo-Italian jargon ["gergo giudeo-italiano"] would disappear in a short while.:(Umberto Cassuto “Parlata ebraica.” Vessillo Israelitico 57 (1909): 255-256)Umberto Cassuto “Parlata ebraica.” Vessillo Israelitico 57 (1909): 255-256)]

Other designations

*Historically, Italian Jews referred to their vernaculars as "La`az" (לעז), Hebrew for "foreign language" ("i.e.", specifically, "non-Hebrew language"). The Italian Jewish rite is sometimes called "minhag ha-lo'azim", and linguists use "lo'ez" as a description of words of Romance origin in Yiddish. This may be connected with the Germanic use of the word "wälsch" (literally, "foreign") for Romance peoples and languages (as in "Welsh", "Walloon" and "Wallachian"): the Italian (and Sephardic) Hebrew script for Torah scrolls is known as "Velsh" or "Veilish".
*In 1587, David de Pomi uses the word "italiano" in reference to the Italian glosses in his trilingual dictionary. The Hebrew title of the 1609 Venice Haggadah uses the word "italiano" for the language of Leone Modena's translation (u-fitrono bi-leshon iṭalyano ופתרונו בלשון איטליאנו).
*Other historic descriptions are "Latino" and "Volgare", both of which were commonly used in the Middle Ages to mean Italian in general.
*After the institution of the Ghetto forced Jewish communities throughout Italy into segregation, the term ghettaiolo was identified with local Jewish varieties of regional dialects.
*Another native name type is "giudeesco" (e.g., Judeo-Florentine "iodiesco"; < *IUDÆĬSCU [M] , or an assimulation of the hiatus /aˈe/IPA| *giudaesco < *IUDAĬSCU [M] ).
*The neologism Italkian was coined in 1942 by Solomon Birnbaum ("see References"), who modelled the word on the modern Hebrew adjective ית-/אטלקי "italki(t)", “Italian”, from the middle Hebrew adjective איטלקי (< ITALICU [M] ), “Italic”, “Roman”.

Dialects

Judeo-Italian regional dialects ("ghettaioli" "giudeeschi"), including:
* Judæo-Ferraran (giudeo-ferrarese) from Ferrara
* Judæo-Florentine (giudeo-fiorentino, iodiesco) from Florence
* Judæo-Mantuan (giudeo-mantovano) from Mantua
* Judæo-Modenan (giudeo-modenese) from Modena
* Judæo-Piedmontese (giudeo-piemontese) from the region of Piedmont
* Judæo-Reggian (giudeo-reggiano) from the region of Reggio Emilia in Emilia-Romagna
* Judæo-Roman (giudeo-romanesco) from Rome
* Judæo-Venetian (giudeo-veneziano) from Venice.Also
* Bagitto (giudeo-livornese) from Livorno (includes elements of Judeo-Spanish and Portuguese)

At least two Judeo-Italian varieties, based on Salentino and Venetian varieties were also used in Corfu. [http://www.rosettaproject.org/archive/indo-european/europe/judeo-italian-corfiote/?searchterm=Judeo-Italian]

Characteristics

All the spoken varieties used a unique (among Jewish languages, although there are arguably parallels in Jewish English usage) combination of Hebrew verb stems with Italian conjugations ("e.g.", "axlare", to eat; "gannaviare", to steal; "dabberare", to speak; "lekhtire", to go). Similarly there are abstract nouns such as "tovezza", goodness.

Also common are lexical incorporations from Hebrew, particularly those applicable to daily life. Terms from other Jewish languages such as Yiddish and Ladino were also incorporated.

Bagitto, the dialect of Livorno (Leghorn), is particularly rich in loanwords from Judeo-Spanish and Judeo-Portuguese.

It was claimed by Cassuto that most Judeo-Italian dialects reflect the Italian dialect of places further to the south, as since the expulsion of the Jews from the Kingdom of Naples the general direction of Jewish migration in Italy has been northward.

Number of speakers

Fewer than 4000 people today have basic knowledge of Italkian, and of these, only a small number are able to speak the language fluently.

Library of Congress/ISO information

"Italkian" is not used by the Library of Congress as a subject heading, neither does it figure as a reference to Judeo-Italian. The authorized subject heading is "Judeo-Italian language". Subheadings are:
*Judeo-Italian language: Glossaries, vocabularies, etc.
*Judeo-Italian language: Grammar.
*Judeo-Italian language: Italy Livorno Glossaries, vocabularies, etc.
*Judeo-Italian language: Texts.

The subject reference is: Judeo-Italian dialect. LC-MARC uses the following language codes :Judeo-Italian Assigned collective code [ita] (Italian).

This is in compliance with the International Organization for Standardization language code ISO 639-2 code (roa).

ee also

* Italian Jews
* Judæo-Latin
* Judæo-Romance languages

References and notes

*Birnbaum, Solomon. "Jewish Languages", in "Essays in Honour of the Very Rev. Dr. J. H. Hertz, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Empire, on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday, September 25, 1942 (5703)". Ed. I. Epstein, E. Levine, C. Roth. London, E. Goldston, [1944] . 51-67 (63, 67).
*Cassuto, Umberto. "Parlata ebraica". "Vessillo Israelitico" 57 (1909): 254-260.
*Ferretti Cuomo, Luisa. "Italchiano versus giudeo-italiano versus 0 (zero), una questione metodologica", in "Italia: studi e ricerche sulla storia, la cultura e la letteratura degli Ebrei d'Italia" 3.1-2 (1982): 7-32.
*Fortis, Umberto. "La parlata degli ebrei di Venezia e le parlate giudeo-italiane". La Giuntina, 2006. ISBN 88-8057-243-1.
*Fortis, Umberto and Zolli, Paolo, "La parlata giudeo-veneziana": Assisi/Rome 1979 ISBN 88-85027-07-5
*Gold, David L. "The Glottonym Italkian", in "Italia: studi e ricerche sulla storia, la cultura e la letteratura degli Ebrei d'Italia" 2.1-2 (1980): 98-102.
*Mayer Modena, Maria Luisa, “Le parlate giudeo-italiane”, in "Storia d'Italia. Gli ebrei in Italia", a cura di Corrado Vivanti, vol. II, Dall'emancipazione a oggi, Einaudi, Torino 1997, pp. 939-963.
*Merzagora, Giovanna Massariello, "Giudeo-Italiano" Profilo dei dialetti italiani 23: Pisa 1977
*Pomi, David de, 1525-ca. 1593. "unicode|Tsemaḥ David. Dittionario novo hebraico, molto copioso, dechiarato in tre lingue". Venetijs: Apud Ioannem de Gara, 1587.

External links

* [http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Italkian/Italkian.html Judeo-Italian: Description of Medieval Koine]
* [http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=588&letter=J Judæo-Greek and Judæo-Italian]
* [http://www.rosettaproject.org/archive/indo-european/europe/itk/?searchterm=Judeo-Italian Judæo-Italian at the Rosetta project]
* [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=itk Ethnologue report for Judeo-Italian]
* [http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Italkian/Italkian-La_Ienti_de_Sion.html La Ienti de Sion in Italia]