Juhuri language
| Judeo-Tat | |
|---|---|
| çuhuri / жугьури / ז'אוּהאוּראִ | |
| Native to | Spoken by immigrant communities in Israel, United States (New York City) |
|
Native speakers
|
(ca. 80,000 cited 1989–1998) |
| Latin, Cyrillic, Hebrew | |
| Official status | |
|
Official language in
|
no official status |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | jude1256 |
Judeo-Tat or Juhuri (çuhuri / жугьури / ז'אוּהאוּראִ) is the traditional language of the Mountain Jews of the eastern Caucasus Mountains, especially Azerbaijan and Dagestan, now mainly spoken in Israel.
The language is a form of Persian; it belongs to the southwestern group of the Iranian division of the Indo-European languages. The Tat language is spoken by the Muslim Tats of Azerbaijan, a group to which the Mountain Jews were mistakenly considered to belong during the era of Soviet historiography though the languages probably originated in the same region of the Persian empire. The words Juvuri and Juvuro literally translate as "Jewish" and "Jews".
Judeo-Tat has Semitic (Hebrew/Aramaic/Arabic) elements on all linguistic levels. Judeo-Tat has the Hebrew sound "ayin" (ע), whereas no neighbouring languages have it.
Judeo-Tat is an endangered language classified as "definitely endangered" by UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.
The language is spoken by an estimated 101,000 people:
In the early 20th century Judeo-Tat used the Hebrew script. In the 1920s the Latin script was adapted for it; later it was written in Cyrillic. The use of the Hebrew alphabet has enjoyed renewed popularity.
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Wikipedia