Judeo-Arabic languages
| Judeo-Arabic | |
|---|---|
|
Native speakers
|
(ca. 540,000 cited 1992–1995) |
|
Afro-Asiatic
|
|
| Hebrew alphabet | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | |
| ISO 639-3 |
Individual codes: yhd – Judeo-Iraqi Arabic aju – Judeo-Moroccan Arabic yud – Judeo-Tripolitanian Arabic ajt – Judeo-Tunisian Arabic jye – Judeo-Yemeni Arabic |
| Glottolog | None |
The Judeo-Arabic languages (Arabic: عربية يهودية, Hebrew: ערבית יהודית) are a continuum of varieties of Arabic spoken by Jews living or formerly living in the Arab world; the term also refers more or less to Classical Arabic written in the Hebrew script, particularly in the Middle Ages. Just as with the rest of the Arab world, Jews had different dialects depending on where they lived. This phenomenon may be compared to cases such as Yiddish dialects or forms of Judaeo-Spanish (Ladino) in areas such as the Balkans, Thessaloniki-Istanbul, Morocco, etc.
Many significant Jewish works, including a number of religious writings by Maimonides and Judah Halevi, were originally written in Judeo-Arabic as this was the primary colloquial language of their authors.
The Arabic spoken by Jewish communities in the Arab world differed slightly from the Arabic of their non-Jewish neighbours. These differences were partly due to the incorporation of some words from Hebrew and other languages and partly geographical, in a way that may reflect a history of migration. For example, the Judeo-Arabic of Egypt, including in the Cairo community, resembled the dialect of Alexandria rather than that of Cairo (Blau). Similarly, Baghdad Jewish Arabic is reminiscent of the dialect of Mosul. Many Jews in Arab countries were bilingual in Judeo-Arabic and the local dialect of the Muslim majority.
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