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Lexical Elements of Slavic Origin in Judezmo On South Slavic Territory, 16-19th Centuries: Uriel Weinreich and The History of Contact Linguistics
Lexical Elements of Slavic Origin in Judezmo On South Slavic Territory, 16-19th Centuries: Uriel Weinreich and The History of Contact Linguistics
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Abstract
Keywords
* The research on which the present article is based was supported by the Israel Science Foun
dation (grant no. 1105/11).
1 On a personal note, had I not read Weinreich’s College Yiddish, with its chapter on other
Jewish languages, and Languages in Contact when I was a high-school student, I might
never have studied with Marvin I. Herzog, one of Weinreich’s most outstanding students at
Columbia University, and entered the fields of Judezmo and Jewish language research.
2 Many Judezmo speakers also came to reside in the lands of the Bulgars; but their varieties
of Judezmo, and the impact of Bulgarian upon them, are beyond the scope of the present
article. For references to recent research see Varol-Bornes 2011.
Trade and other relations with Jews and Gentiles in neighboring Italy also
made it worthwhile to acquire a knowledge of varieties of Italian. When parts
of the region came under Austrian rule in the nineteenth century, proficiency
in German became a valuable asset as well. Through this period, the intense
interaction with their non-Jewish neighbors – as merchandise suppliers, cus-
tomers, shop assistants, and so on – and the close proximity of the open Jewish
quarters to those of the neighboring Muslims and Christians, necessitated
some familiarity with their languages, especially among the males.
The passive knowledge and active use by Jews of the non-Jewish languages
eventually led to the incorporation of borrowings from those languages into
their everyday Judezmo. In line with a principle of contact linguistics analyzed
by Weinreich (1953:74–80), the extent of borrowing was commensurate with
the relative status of the languages in the South Slavic region: into the nine-
teenth century, Turkish and, later, Austrian German constituted the principal
‘languages of power’ (or ‘prestige,’ Weinreich 1953:108–110) in this region as the
languages of the ruling peoples, thus enjoying primary status, while the others
amounted to languages of ‘disunity,’ of lower status than Turkish or German,
and constituting one of the features distinguishing the variegated and, amongst
themselves, competitive non-Turkish, and later, non-German ethnic groups
from one another. So long as the regions were under Ottoman domination, any
major Jewish efforts to master a local non-Jewish language were directed pri-
marily at Turkish. Well into the late nineteenth century, Turkish certainly had
a more profound impact on Judezmo of the South Slavic region than any other
non-Jewish language. With Austrian domination, German came to replace
Turkish as the major donor of loanwords in local Judezmo, as in local Slavic,
especially in the terminological spheres related to administration and Western
civilization and culture. Although Jewish males undoubtedly had some famil-
iarity with the varieties of South Slavic spoken by local non-Jews with whom
they regularly interacted, and this familiarity is reflected, if mildly, in the re-
sponsa literature reflecting the lives of the Sephardim in this region (for ex-
amples see sections “Middle Judezmo Period” and “Early Modern and Middle
Modern Periods” below), Slavic did not become a language of consequence
for the Jews of the South Slavic region (it never became consequential for the
Sephardim of the other regions of the Balkans) until the South Slavs began to
gain their independence in the first half of the nineteenth century, and thus
borrowing from South Slavic did not begin to become significant in this region
until that time. Most Sephardim of the South Slavic region resided in Serbia
or Bosnia-Herzegovina, and since the position of Slavic differed somewhat in
the two states, it is worth pointing out some of the differences in their political
development, since they had linguistic repercussions.
Serbia
Following centuries of domination by the Ottomans and, between 1718 and
1739, by the Austrians, the Serbian revolution of 1817 led to the rise of the
Principality of Serbia, which achieved de facto independence in 1867, recog-
nized by the Great Powers in 1878.3 With Serbian autonomy the Jews were able
to establish a press in Belgrade, at which they printed works in Hebrew and
Judezmo composed for the most part by rabbinical scholars from what I have
called the Northwest Judezmo dialect region (i.e., what came to be Yugoslavia,
Bulgaria, and Romania, as well as Austria and Hungary; Bunis 1974:49 fn. 37).
Before Serbian autonomy, Sephardic Jewish education in this area, as in other
parts of this region, had been conducted in Judezmo and focused entirely on
sacred studies, with an emphasis on Hebrew as the ‘Holy Tongue.’ With Serbian
independence this changed: in the 1860s – when there were some 2,000 Jews in
the area, most of them in Belgrade – Serbian and German began to be taught
in the higher grades in the Jewish schools (Freidenreich 1979:37). Around 1866
Jahiel Ruso, president of the Jewish community in Serbia, replaced Judezmo
with Serbian as the community’s language of official administration, but in
order to do so he had to hire a non-Jewish Serbian secretary (Friedenreich
1979:33), implying that, although some Jews must have been fluent in Serbian
at this time, most were unable to write it in a non-Jewish alphabet.
The Serbian-Jewish Choral Society, which had been founded in 1879, per-
formed Yugoslavian as well as ‘Jewish’ (i.e., Judezmo and Hebrew) pieces, and
in general the Sephardim in Serbia entered into closer contact with Serbo-
Croatian in cultural and administrative contexts. Serbia became an indepen-
dent kingdom in 1881. As Freidenreich (1979:38) observes: “In the 1895 census
80 percent of Serbian Jewry declared Ladino as their mother tongue, and only
3 percent claimed Serbian … The case in Belgrade was much the same: 77 per-
cent opted for Ladino and only 4 percent chose Serbian. Only five years later
a remarkable shift in linguistic affiliation took place. A mere 27 percent of the
Jews of Serbia reported themselves as native Ladino speakers, while 46 per-
cent adopted Serbian.” This sudden drop perhaps reflects the Jews’ desire pub-
licly to demonstrate identification with the aims and official language of the
new kingdom rather than an actual drastic language shift. At the turn of the
twentieth century there were more than 5,000 Jews in Serbia (Marcus & Roth
1972:868).
3 For copious details concerning the history of the Jews in Belgrade see Lebel 2007.
Bosnia-Herzegovina
In 1780 there had been some 1,500 Jews in this region, which was under Ottoman
control until 1878, when the area fell to the Austrians. With the transition
from the Ottoman to the Austro-Hungarian cultural and political sphere, the
Sephardim, like their non-Jewish Serbo-Croatian-speaking neighbors, became
increasingly influenced by German, the language of official administration,
which also played a significant role in commerce and was associated with west-
ern European high culture. Interaction with German-speaking Ashkenazim in
Sarajevo as well as Belgrade served to heighten the direct impact of German on
Judezmo of the entire region.
At the end of the nineteenth century there were more than 8,000 Jews in
Bosnia-Herzegovina. In 1894 Serbo-Croatian was introduced in the curriculum
of the Jewish school in Sarajevo. At the turn of the century La Lira, the Jewish
choral society in Sarajevo, was performing both Judezmo and Serbo-Croatian
selections. “According to the Austro-Hungarian census of 1910, of the Sephardim
in Sarajevo 98 percent declared Ladino as their mother tongue” (Freidenreich
1979:22). And yet Serbo-Croatian was undoubtedly gaining strength within the
Jewish community there, especially in public and official domains. In 1910, the
Talmud Torah was closed in Sarajevo, marking the end of the use of Judezmo in
an official capacity and the almost complete linguistic shift to Serbo-Croatian
for the Jewish community’s official needs.
In 1918 the Yugoslavian state was declared, with Serbo-Croatian as its official
language. In 1921 there were some 7,458 Jews in Bosnia, most of them fluent in
Serbo-Croatian; but Judezmo continued to enjoy some use as a Jewish com-
munal language until World War II. In 1941 some 14,000 Jews were living in
Bosnia-Herzegovina (Marcus & Roth 1972:872; Freidenreich 1979:215).
and Late Modern ‘Yugoslavian’ Judezmo (c. 1914–present), during which the
Judezmo speech community underwent intensive linguistic assimilation to its
Serbo-Croatian surroundings. The present study is limited to Middle Judezmo
and Early and Middle Modern Yugoslavian Judezmo – i.e., the period which
ended around 1913, some 40 years after the recognition of the Principality of
Serbia (1878), and the passing of Bosnia-Herzegovina to Austrian hands (1878).
The raw materials available for the study of the Slavic impact on Yugoslavian
Judezmo during this period are: Sephardic rabbinical texts from the South
Slavic region (primarily Judezmo passages in Hebrew-language responsa col-
lections; halakhic codes; annotated prayer books), and Judezmo texts such as
educational manuals for adults and children, produced during this period in
Livorno, Vienna, and the South Slavic region by authors from the region.
4 In the transcription of Hebrew-origin names in the English text, the standard symbols are
used, e.g., ’ = intervocalic alef, ‘ = ‘ayin, ĕ = šĕwa na,’ ḥ = ḥet, q = qof, ṣ = ṣadi, š = šin, ṭ = ṭet,
w = waw, x = kaf (thus, = יצחקYiṣḥaq). In the transcription of such names in the Judezmo
passages, the Judezmo forms are used (thus, = יצחקYis·hak); on the transcription of Judezmo
see footnote 9 below.
"ריהי אי זאגיני5 (cf. B.6 Горка́ нъ Саботинъ7 между́ керванъ-сера́ йа, уда́ риха
уда́риха, и загъı́на). Her words were translated into Judezmo, evidently by
the witness or by the rabbinical court scribe who transcribed the testimony,
as “Desdichado de Shabetay, entre los dos kieravasarás lo firieron i murió” (Poor
Šabbĕtay, between the two inns they wounded him and he died).8 Other
5 I am grateful to Dr. Omer Shafran for deciphering the Bulgarian material presented here
(any errors are my own). Shafran proposes the following transcription of the Hebrew-letter
text: Gorgel Sebotin meshdú kyervasar[a]ya, udárihe udárihe, i zagine. The Bulgarian passages
reconstructed for the rabbinical court by the Judezmo-speaking witnesses suggest that they
had a good grasp of Bulgarian grammar. A more detailed linguistic analysis of the passages
will be provided elsewhere.
6 The following abbreviations of language names are used in the present article: Al. = Albanian,
Ar. = Arabic, B. = Bulgarian, C. = Czech, Ge. = German, Gk. = Greek, Hb. = Hebrew, Hu. =
Hungarian, I. = Italian, J. = Judezmo, L. = Latin, M. = Macedonian, MS. = Modern Spanish, OJ.
= Old Judezmo, OS. = Old Spanish, Pe. = Persian, Po. = Polish, Pt. = Portuguese, R. = Romanian,
S. = Spanish, SC. = Serbo-Croatian, T. = Turkish, V. = Venetian, Y. = Yiddish.
7 The author of the responsa noted that the Bulgarians regularly rendered the Hebrew male
name Šabbĕtai as Sebotin (cf. Blg. Саботинъ). Omer Shafran noted a tendency for Bulgarian
a to be transcribed by yod, evidently denoting e, in the Hebrew-letter transcription here.
8 For lack of space I omit the Hebrew-letter spelling of the Judezmo phrases cited here. In the
present article, a modified version of the Romanization of Judezmo advocated by the Israel
National Authority for Ladino and its Culture is employed in the transcription of texts origi-
nally appearing in the traditional Hebrew-letter Judezmo alphabet. Note certain features of
the present transcription (as used to represent Judezmo as spoken in its major population
centers, e.g., Salonika, Istanbul, Izmir): ch = [ʧ]; d = [d]; ḏ = [ð] or, before a voiceless conso-
nant or in utterance-final position, [θ]; dj = [ʤ]; g = [g], ġ = [γ]; h = [χ]; i = [i] or, when con-
tiguous to a vowel, [j]; j = [ʒ]; k´ = palatalized [k´]; n = [n]; ny = [ɲ]; r = flapped [ɾ] or trilled [r]
(depending on the word and the regional dialect); s = [s] or, when preceding a voiced phone,
[z]; sh = [ʃ] or, when preceding a voiced phone, [ʒ]; u = [u] or, when preceding a vowel, [w];
y = [j] (at the beginning or end of a word, or when preceded and followed by a vowel); z = [z].
The Judezmo phonemes s + h in sequence are separated by a middle dot to avoid confusion
with sh, e.g., Yis·hak. Unless otherwise indicated by an acute accent over the stressed vowel,
the stress is penultimate in words ending in a vowel or in n, s or z, and ultimate in words
ending in other consonants. It is very possible that among the Sephardim of the South Slavic
lands, under Slavic influence, the phonemes /d/ and /ḏ/ (i.e., [ð]) early on had collapsed as
occlusive [d] (and the latter, when representing word-final tav, as [t]), and earlier /g/ and
/ġ/ (i.e., [γ]) had fallen together as [g]; and perhaps historical nonstressed /e/ and /o/ were
already realized as raised /i/ and /u/, respectively (on these regional features see Quintana
2006). However, for ease of reading by those unfamiliar with these regional characteristics
I have transcribed the affected phones as they are pronounced in the dialects of the large
cities (e.g., Istanbul, Salonika) rather than in the relatively small communities of the South
Slavic region, as has become the transcription norm accepted amongst most Judezmo schol-
ars today.
Gentile girls present asked her who she was referring to; she said it was to
Šabbĕtay Ben El‘azar. Further on in the responsum Sarah, the wife of Avraham
‘Immanu’el, told the court that a Gentile girl told her how murderers came and
burned the city and praised themselves for their act. Her statement “bi-lšon
burgaresko” was "גאלידאייטי פשיטאטה שי פאלישי שיבוטין לאזארוני שינה שי אוטרי9
"( פאליחישי אושטאבי"הי זוטיר פוט קישטה אי שי אישגורילcf. B. Гля́дайте пьсе́тата
си па́лише Саботинъ, Ла́зарона10 съı́на, съ у́трѣ па́лиха.си, оста́виха
заю́ трѣ подъ къ́ ща и се е.сгори́ лъ). It was translated "“( "בלשון לעזbi-lšon
la‘az” ‘in Judezmo’) as “Mirad unos peros ke se alavavan i dezían ke a Sebotin ijo
de Lazar lo mataron i lo desharon dientro de kaza i se kemó” (Look at those dogs
who praised themselves and said that they killed Sebotin [Šabbĕtay], son of
Lazar, and left him inside the house and it burned). Sarah further reported that
a Gentile girl came and told her “bi-lšon burgaresko” words that she translated
as “Shabetay ben Lazar, lo mataron, i eya lo vido ke lo mataron i le kortaron la
kavesa por un kavo i el kuero por otro entre los dos kieravasarás” (Šabbĕtay Ben
Lazar, they killed him, and she saw that they killed him and they cut off his
head at the end [and it was in one place] and his neck in another, between the
two inns).
As reported by Rabbi Aharon Sason (b. 1550, d. Constantinople 1626) in his
responsa (1621, no. 2), a conversation which had transpired in Vidin (today,
Bulgaria), in 5360 [1600], between Yisra’el Šim‘on, a Judezmo speaker, and a
Bulgarian Christian – undoubtedly in Bulgarian – was partially reconstructed
by Yisra’el for the rabbinical court of Salonika in the following words:
Common Nouns
Some Slavic loanwords were common nouns which have been documented in
varieties of Judezmo used throughout the Ottoman Empire; they are also docu-
mented for Turkish of the period and they perhaps entered Judezmo, even on
Slavic territory, through Turkish rather than directly through a Slavic language.
As Weinreich (e.g., 1953:53–61) would lead us to predict, the terms refer to the
local realia, including: the spheres of administration and currency, e.g., ban
‘governor’ (Ben Lev 1573, vol. 3, no. 18, from Nikopol 1564; cf. Tietze 1957:2; SC.,
T. ban),11 kiral ‘king’ (SC. kralj, T. kıral),12 voivoda ‘kind of governor’ (Karo 1598,
Goy mesiaḥ lĕ-fi tummo no. 2, from 1551; cf. Tietze 1957:2; cf. SC. vojvoda, B. voevo-
da, T. voyvoda),13 zolota ‘a former Ottoman coin, the value of which varied over
time, following the progressive decline of the piaster, of which it represented
three-quarters’ (Benveniste [d. 1673] 1788, Ḥošen mišpaṭ, vol. 1, no. 133, from
Izmir 1664; cf. Tietze 1957:2); cuisine, e.g., b-/pogacha ‘kind of bread or flaky
pastry’ (cf. SC. pogača, T. pogaça),14 kolecha/eskolacha ‘fried vermicelli’ (cf.
J. (d)es- [< S. (d)es-] + SC. kolač ‘kind of cake, tart,’ [Çanakkale, Edirne] T. kolaç);15
clothing, e.g., kapanik´e/‑che ‘(archaic) a kind of fur cloak (worn by high state
11 Unless otherwise noted, the Turkish forms cited throughout this article correspond to
those offered in Redhouse 1990.
12 Keḏó … kon el kiral Kost[antín] ‘He remained with King Constantine’ (‘Otmanlim 1767:3b);
also kral, closer to the Slavic etymon, in Attias 1959:140, from cf. 1794; cf. Tietze 1957:2.
13 The word is later attested in texts from the South Slavic area; e.g., pl. voivodas (Bĕxar
Ḥayyim 1823:233).
14 “I boġacha” (Ḥešeq Šĕlomo 1588:12b, 31b, translating wĕ-xikar [‘ ]וככרand one loaf of bread’
in Exodus 29:23 and ṣĕlil [‘ ]צלילa slice [of barley bread]’ in Judges 7:13); Turkish pogaça is
already documented in the 15th century (Tietze 1957:25, no. 169).
15 “La aletrea ke se yama eskolacha” ‘the noodles called eskolacha’ (Xulí 1733:188b); cf. also
Gk. skoulíki ‘worm’ (cf. Wagner 1950:51; Skok 2:122); kolecha (Toledo 1755:8a); dimin. kole-
chikas (Magula 1757:15b).
officials)’ (Medina 1596, Even ha-‘ezer, no. 42, from 1553; cf. Tietze 1957:2; cf.
SC. kabanica ‘mantle, cloak,’ T. kapaniçe), rizá ‘handkerchief; (Bosn.) silk
cassock’ (Šulḥan ha-panim 1568:52b; cf. Subak 1906:164; cf. B. rizá); hus-
bandry and agriculture, e.g., koloch(k)a ‘broody hen; incubator’ (cf. B. kločka,
T. kuluçka);16 local architecture and related terms, e.g., soba ‘stove’ (cf. SC. soba
‘room,’ T. soba ‘stove’),17 kuliba/-va ‘hovel, shack’ (cf. SC. koliba, T. kulübe);18 local
occupations and related terms, e.g., chirnik ‘kind of boat used on the Danube’
(cf. South Sl. ce-/cirnik, T. çırnık);19 and weapons, e.g., toyaká ‘stout stick, club,
cudgel; (fig.) beating, thrashing; (fig.) imbecile’ (cf. SC. tojaga, T. toy(a)ka/-ğa).20
Toponyms
In addition to the common nouns one finds toponyms referring to places in the
South Slavic region. Judezmo passages in responsa collections from the seven-
teenth and later centuries refer to descendants of the Jews exiled from Iberia
who made their way to the cities and towns of the South Slavs. Among these
Jews were individuals searching for Jewish businessmen who had traveled in
the region and never returned home, like the Jews murdered in Nikopol, leav-
ing their wives with the status of the ‘aguna or ‘straw widow’ who could not
remarry. Such texts provide us with the names of states, cities, and rivers of
the region as denoted by Judezmo speakers in the South Slavic region, as well
as in other Judezmo speech communities of the Ottoman Empire. Many of
these names reflect South Slavic, either through outright importation of the
Slavic forms or in Judezmo adaptations.21 For example, from a responsum
16 “Ġayina klocha ke se asentó sovre los ġuevos 3 días” ‘A broody hen that has sat on her eggs
three days’ (’Asa 1749:232b); cf. Tietze 1957:2, 12 no. 89.
17 “Uzan ke el goy saka las kalderas de los ornos i·las pone serka de orno de el envierno, ke lo
yaman soba” ‘The custom is that the Gentile takes the pots out of the oven and puts them
near the winter stove which they call soba’ (’Asa 1749:111b); cf. Tietze 1957:2; Stankiewicz
1964:232.
18 “Izo komo una kuliva i kortó lenya de los árvoles … i izo lumbre” ‘He made a kind of shack
and cut firewood from the trees … and made a fire’ (Meshalim de Shelomó améleh 1766:8b);
cf. Tietze 1957:2.
19 “Los ke andan kon naves uzaron por azer sus menesteres dela ‘mĕšoṭa,’ kere dezir sandal
o chirnik” ‘Those who sail on ships used for their needs a mĕšoṭa, i.e., a small boat’ (’Asa
1749:178a); cf. Tietze 1957:2.
20 “A Yishmael lo avían matado … kon toyakás en la kavesa” ‘They had killed Yišma‘’el with
clubs to the head’ (Benveniste 1669, vol. 1, no. 84, from Belgrade 1664); cf. Tietze 1957:31,
no. 217.
21 For parallel phenomena in the use of local toponyms in Polish Yiddish see Stankewicz
1965.
22 No attempt has been made to reconstruct the place of stress in the Slavic-origin words;
that in the pre-modern forms probably differed from the stress used today, in that those
with a final vowel probably had penult stress, and those with a final consonant, final
stress.
23 For general remarks on the phonological incorporation of loanwords from one contact
language into another, see Weinreich 1953:26–28.
24 Under Slavic (and perhaps also other local) influence, ts is phonemic in the Judezmo of
the South Slavic region (Quintana 2006:82–84); cf. ratsa ‘race’ vs. rama ‘branch.’
25 The innovative form with bl- instead of vl- perhaps derives from the impermissibility of
vl-, but frequent occurrence of bl-, in Judezmo as in Spanish.
26 Yosef El‘azar of Sofia in Medina 1596, Ḥošen mišpaṭ, no. 15, from 1577.
27 Medina 1596, Yore de‘a, no. 155.
prothetic e- before Jud. s/sh + consonant, S. -a);28 and a query from someone in
Rudnik (Serbia) concerning merchandise to be sent to Egypt.29
From the testimony of Ṣĕvi bar Elyaqim Aškĕnazi of Sofia dating from
1547 in the responsa of Rabbi Yosef ben Lev (= Maharival, b. Bitola 1505, d.
Constantinople 1580) we know that a Jew named Yiṣḥaq Bar Sason took a ship
from Belogrado (Belgrade; a blend of I., S. Belgrado + SC. Beograd) en route to
Budún (Ofen) and the ship sank (Ben Lev, 1561, vol. 1, no. 2).30 A Judezmo com-
mercial document from Sarajevo 1684 reproduced in a responsum of Rabbi
Yosef ben Yiṣḥaq Almosnino, who was born in Salonika in 1642 and served
as a rabbi in Belgrade, referred to the trade relations between Sephardim in
Sarajevo and Belgrade (Almosnino [d. 1689] 1713, vol. 2, no. 47). In a question
from 1674 to Rabbi Ḥisday ben Šĕmu’el Ha-Kohen Pĕraḥya (d. 1678) of Salonika
we read of a witness reporting to the rabbinical court:
(Here there came news that we should look for Avraham and Binyamin
and Rĕfa’el, who did not reach the fair, and … we went to Vrijanja in
search of them…” They [the court witnesses] further testified that the
bey of that place came from Crete to Skopje and his son came from the
Skopsa [Macedonia]’ (M. Skopsa + prothetic e-).
28 Medina 1596, Even ha-‘ezer, no. 115. The Hebrew-letter spelling of Eskopia was discussed by
de Medina (1596, Even ha-‘ezer, no. 244).
29 Medina 1596, Ḥošen mišpaṭ, no. 148.
30 Cf. Budum in Šabbĕtay 1715, vol. 2, no. 7.
31 Pĕraḥya [d. 1678] 1722, no. 60.
32 Benveniste 1672, vol. 2, no. 27, from Belgrade 1651.
Eastern Macedonia; 1775:1a). Other cities and towns of the region which were
cited in Ottoman Sephardic responsa include Espalat[r]o (i.e., Spalato or Split,
in Dalmatia; cf. Dalmatian Spalatro + epenthetic e-, I. Spalato, Croatian Split;
Sason 1626, no. 5, from Salonika 1597),33 Travnik (in Bosnia-Herzegovina; Pardo
1772, Even ha-‘ezer, no. 1, from Sarajevo 1744), and Dolia (in Serbia; Pardo 1772,
Ḥošen mišpaṭ, no. 7). Other cities of the region mentioned in the responsa are
Nikopol ‘Nikopol (Bulgaria)’ (Karo 1791, no. 13; Slav. Nikopol), and Vidin ‘Vidin
(Bulgaria)’ (Medina 1596, Yore de‘a, no. 41; B., SC. Vidin).
Jewish names for the major rivers of the region are also found in rabbini-
cal sources by Judezmo-speaking rabbis: e.g., in a responsum from Salonika
1594 in the collection of Rabbi Ya‘aqov Kastro (or Maharika”s, Egypt 1525–1610),
reference is made to a Judezmo speaker who, “en Eskopia … andando al sefaḏ
a-Vardal, oyó …” (in Skopje, walking along the Vardar, heard …) (cf. tendency
toward syllable-final ‑l/‑r neutralization in Andalusian and certain other forms
of Spanish).34 The Duna ‘Danube’ and the Sava are mentioned in discussions
by Rabbi Moše Ben Ḥabib (b. Salonika 1654, d. Jerusalem 1696) concerning the
correct Hebrew-letter spelling of proper nouns (Ben Ḥabib 1677:197).35
33 Cf. Espalatro in Šabbĕtay (d. 1647) 1713, vol. 1, no. 89. Various Jewish and Gentile names of
the city are discussed in Pardo 1772, ’Even ha-‘ezer, no. 9.
34 Kastro [1525–1610], no. 56.
35 Duna is replaced by Tuna in Attias 1959:140, from c. 1794.
36 See Weinreich 1953:53 for remarks on analogous anthroponymic shifts among Yiddish
speakers in America.
(a) ‑a (cf. SC. ‑a) occurring in the feminine name Rika (< Hb. Rivqa)37 in
a Hebrew passage from Sarajevo 1634 (Šabbĕtay 1651, no. 18);38
(b) ‑i/‑e (denoted by Hebrew yod; cf. SC. ‑e) occurring in the masculine
name Mosi/‑e (or Moshi/‑e < Hb. Mošé) in a Judezmo passage from
Bitola 1643;39
(c) ‑u/-o (Hebrew-letter waw; cf. SC. ‑o) appearing in the masculine name
Yaku/‑o (> Hb. Ya‘aqov) in a Judezmo passage from Belgrade 1651.40
Oni Isa što biaše saraf done brada, što odnese zirnik u·Micir, prodao po groš
na oka kako prodao [tako] umereo.
42 Cf. biblical anthroponym Togarma ‘Tegaramah, in Southeast Anatolia(?)’ (Gen. 10:3);
among Judezmo speakers Togarmá denoted the Muslim ‘Ottoman Empire,’ and togar/-
(m)im, ‘Muslims’ (Bunis 1993, nos. 4011, 4012).
(That Isa who was a money-changer and his beard was long and who
brought orpiment to Egypt and sold it there for one piaster per okka and
when he was selling it he died.)43
Dr. Eliezer Papo informed me that, examining the sentence from the perspec-
tive of standard Modern Serbo-Croatian, one notes evidence of an incomplete
mastery of the case system: nominative forms are used instead of others (e.g.,
brada instead of genitive brade, oka instead of acusative oku). On the other
hand, in literary Serbo-Croatian, nominative onaj would replace the initial
word oni, but the latter is in fact widely used in colloquial language. The word
done evidently derives from od one ‘of that’ (done brada ‘of that [known]
beard’). Perhaps a difficulty in realizing syllable-final m + syllable-initial r,
often yielding ‑mbr- in Judezmo (as in Spanish), led to the insertion of epen-
thetic vowels in umereo < umro (cf. B. umrya).
Despite its grammatical flaws when compared with the standard language,
the reconstructed sentence demonstrates that Ḥayyim Avraham ‘Atías, who
was probably a typical Jewish shopkeeper in Sarajevo, was able to follow the
Gentiles’ Serbo-Croatian conversation and reconstruct a fragment from it in
the original language for the rabbinical court. Fourteen years later David ‘Atías,
who was born in Sarajevo and spent much of his adult life in Livorno, made
mention in his Judezmo educational manual La guerta de oro of his own famil-
iarity with “el karáter srpesko o sea moskovito (Serbian or Russian characters).
Writing in Judezmo over half a century later, Eli‘ezer ben Šem Ṭov Papo of
Sarajevo called the Bosniaks boshnakes or goyim (Papo 1862:51b, 8a) and their
language, “lashón de·los goyim” (language of the Gentiles/Muslims);44 he re-
ferred to it in Hebrew as “lĕšon ha-goyim šellanu” (language of our Gentiles/
Muslims [evidently in opposition to Turkish]).45 Papo alluded to the familiar-
ity of the local Sephardim with Serbo-Croatian in the mid-nineteenth century
43 Pardo 1772, Even ha-‘ezer, no. 2. The original Hebrew-letter text reads:
"אוני איסאה ש'טו ביאש'י שארא'ף דוני בראדה ש'טו אודנישי זירניק אומיציר פרודאו פו
."גרו'ש נאאוקה קאקו פרודאו אומיריאו
It is accompanied in the responsum by the Hebrew translation:
"אותו יצחק שהיה שארא'ף וזקנו גדולה שהוליך זירניק למצרים מכר אותו בגרוש א' כל אוקה
."וכשמכרו מת
I am grateful to Dr. Eliezer Papo of Ben-Gurion University for clarifying for me in a per-
sonal communication some of the Serbo-Croatian structures reflected in this text; any
mistakes here are entirely my own.
44 Papo 1862:8b. Judezmo goy denotes both Gentiles in general and Muslims in particular
(Bunis 1993, no. 834; cf. Bibl. Heb. goy ‘people’).
45 Papo 1876: 122.
indirectly, warning them that the use of oaths in that language – evidently a
common practice among the Jews of his time – was forbidden according to
Jewish law:
(Mentioning the name of the Holy One Blessed Be He [in vain] is not
only forbidden in the Holy Tongue but also in any other language, both in
Ladino, as when they are accustomed to saying A la ira del Dio! [By God’s
wrath!], and thus in the language of the Gentiles/Muslims, [as when one
says] Bógami! [SC. Boga mi! By God!] or he says Tako-mi-Bog! (SC. Tako
mi Boga! By God!), and the same is true if he says in Turkish Vala bila! [cf.
T. Vallahi billahi! (< Ar. Wa-llāhi bi-llāhi!) ‘I swear it is so by God!] … There
are many who, when they fight with one another, say El Dio ke te mate!
[May God kill you!] or El Dio ke te aranke de el mundo! [May God rip you
out of the world!] and similar [oaths], and likewise in the languages of
the Gentiles/Muslims, Úbio te Bog! [SC. Ubio te Bog! May God kill you!),
Alá versín! [cf. T. Allah [belâ] (< Ar. Allāh [balā])] versin! May God curse
(you)!, and so on.
no. 2;47 Alkalay 1860:2b; cf. SC. Vlah, used by Muslims to designate Christians).48
By the twentieth century, the language of the Slavs, too, would be known over-
whelmingly as blaho (Jevrejski glas 5:45 1931:7 <No se avlar in blahu> (I don’t
know how to speak Serbo-Croatian) or lingua v-/blaheska.49 In the anonymous
Judezmo rabbinic pamphlet Yĕqara dĕ-šixve (Belgrade 1859, f. 69a) the expres-
sion Yovaniko appears as a deprecatory term for a Christian Slav (cf. SC. mascu-
line personal name Jovan + J./S. hypocoristic ‑iko/-ico).
In the mid-nineteenth-century Eli‘ezer ben Šem Ṭov Papo of Sarajevo de-
picted the Bosniaks as violent drunkards: “Po irenu … los boshnakes son todos
matadores i borachones ke por un kraicar se matan uno al otro” (Here in our
city … the Bosniaks are all murderers and drunkards who will kill one another
for a coin).50 He also alluded to their poverty, which they palliated through
drink: “Kuando tiene vino, afilú kun pan i fijones ke tiene en la meza, zavalí bosh-
nak, ya le parese ke es mas grande ke el méleh” (When he has wine, even if it’s
only with bread and beans on his table, the poor Bosniak thinks he’s greater
than the king).51 Into the modern era the Bosnian is stereotypically perceived
among Judezmo speakers as a stubborn, unreasonable individual, as alluded to
in the metaphor kavesa de boshnák ‘(literally) a Bosnian head (i.e., a very stub-
born person)’ (cf. Nehama 1977:97).52 Nevertheless, the existence of more posi-
tive – or at least neutral – relations between Jews and Gentile South Slavs in the
region is implied, among others, by the very presence of the Slavic component
in local Judezmo. The Jewish community’s receptivity to and active practice of
Slavic oral traditions is alluded to by rabbinical warnings against Jewish sing-
ing of Slavic as well as Turkish songs, by appreciative non-rabbinical Jewish
47 E.g., “los males ke avía fecho el rey blaho” ‘the evil deeds the Slavic king had done’ (Sason
1621, no. 2).
48 Because of the connection between the Judezmo words for ‘slave’ and ‘Slav,’ the same
words were sometimes used to denote both, e.g., goyá esklava ‘a non-Jewish [i.e., Slavic/
slave] woman’ (Yisra’el 1896:9).
49 E.g., Altarats 1894:245.
50 Papo 1862:51b.
51 Papo 1862:82b.
52 For their part, the South Slavs also made use of disparaging terms for Jews, e.g., Serbian
židov, and more pejorative čif‑/čivut (f. civutka/čivutkinja); Bosnian židov, and more pejo-
rative ćifut, ćifo/ćifko; the latter terms derive from pejorative Turkish çıfıt. The Judezmo
reflections of Slavic derogatory terms for ‘Jew,’ jidan (cf. Rom. jidan) and chifut, are both
documented in the Judezmo periodical El Amigo del Puevlo (9 [1896], 36); the use of the
latter term is also attributed to a non-Jew in an unidentifiable issue of the Sarajevo Jewish
periodical, mostly in Serbo-Croatian, Jevrejski život: “Akel preto de enfrente me dišo, ke so
»čifut«” ‘That black man who lived in front of us said I’m a “kike.” ’.
(Since I came from Venice to Spalato and heard that Ribí Eliyyahu Pestana
[or Pestanya] had come there, I went to meet him, and only with great ef-
fort he was able to answer me, and I saw that he could not walk either,
and his fellow travelers put him onto his horse, and I asked the Jewish
woman who came with him why Ribí Eliyyahu was that way, thinking
maybe he had been drinking. She answered that he hadn’t drunk any-
thing but was hurt. And afterwards, when I was in Spalato, other groups
of travelers came and spoke with other Muslims saying that a Jew died in
the customs house[?]. And a month and a half after I left Spalato for here
[i.e., Sarajevo], passing through the customs [?] I asked the guards how
the death of that Jew had been and they told me that two hours before,
the travelers had left him in the middle of a field, very ill, and the guards
forcibly had them put him on his horse, tied, because he could not stay
on by himself, and two hours later, when he died, they threw him into a
pit and covered him up, and they showed me his skullcap and hat thrown
there.)
Another question addressed to Rabbi Pardo concerned a politsa (cf. SC. polica,
I. polizza) or ‘business policy’ or ‘bill of indemnity’ that had expired without
being paid. One of the parties to a suit centering on this policy entered the fol-
lowing document into the records of the rabbinical court:
(Today, 18 Ṭevet. After extending best wishes, and having received your es-
teemed letter and seeing what you send me, talking about the thousand
piasters of the policy, you are very right. However, what is to blame is the
illness that there was, because of which we fled to the villages and could
not open our shop or look after our business for more than three months.
But now the salary from the government [for the fodder of horses, etc.] is
about to come, and as soon as the salary comes, with God’s help, we will
pay the policy at once, and I don’t want you to suffer any damages, even
a single piaster’s worth, and you won’t have any, with God’s help, and I
know that you are very right but, what can one do, this time the matter
came out this way: on the one hand, the illness, and on the other hand,
the fight that you must very well have heard about, may the One Who
Decrees such things be blessed. But rid yourself of any cares, because
with God’s help I will soon pay.)
57 “Serán … enklinadas anavegar i peshkar i ir por ríos o melaskas ‘They will be inclined to
navigate and fish and go through rivers or streams’ (‘Atías 1778:64b). Colleagues from
Sarajevo have suggested that the reference is to the Miljacka River in Sarajevo; but its use
here as a plural suggests derivation from mlaz + -ka.
58 Also Subak 1906:14; Jevrejski glas 6:14 1932:6; Romano 1933:220.
59 “Deve el ombre ir … ser entendido en todos los jeitanlikes … i malechurías ke puede aver entre
la djente para poderse defender i brane(y)ar de eyos” ‘A person has to be knowledgeable
in all the kinds of deviltry … and mishaps that can occur between people so that one can
defend and guard oneself against them’ (‘Atías 1778:34b).
60 “Dio asembrar sus kanpos babra” ‘He had his fields planted with green peppers.’
61 The Real Academia Española, in turn, suggests that guinda might derive from Germanic
*wīksĭna; cf. Old Germanic wîshila [http://dle.rae.es/?id=JpxzWmD|Jq1ydea; accessed
13 February 2017].
62 E.g., Asa 1749:97b; cf. ‘Eruvin 28; Bĕrakot 57 (as interpreted by Rashi).
63 On the various types of roles which may be played by a loanword, such as co-existence
with a native synonym or near-synonym, and eventual suppletion of the native term, see
Weinreich 1953:53–56.
64 For notes on the incorporation of the elements in the Judezmo morphological system
and connections to the South Slavic case systems see Bunis 2001. For some phonological
considerations see Quintana 2006. Various other types of “interference” (to use the term
Weinreich preferred, e.g., 1953, throughout), such as “the extension of the use of an indig-
enous word of the influenced language in conformity with a foreign model,” are discussed
in Papo 2007, and will receive further treatment by the present author elsewhere.
65 Poplack, Sankoff & Miller 1988.
Slavisms documented here were in fact widely used among Judezmo speakers
in the South Slavic region. Such widespread dissemination is implied by meta-
linguistic statements asserting that “we” (i.e., members of the speech commu-
nity) refer to certain objects using specific Slavisms, or that such objects “are
called” by Slavic-origin names (although the Slavic provenance of the terms
was almost never mentioned): e.g., “el trigo royo i redondo … lo yamamos grahas
(the round red wheat … we call grahas);66 “El lugar ke·se echa el trigo se yama
kosh” (The place where the wheat is put is called kosh).67 Sometimes a Slavic-
origin generic term for a broad category of objects is followed by a Slavic-origin
term for a specific subcategory: e.g., “la soba ke lo yaman peshnyak (the oven
they call peshnyak).68 Occasionally, near-synonyms of Romance, Turkish, and
Slavic origin are adduced simultaneously, e.g., the legal terms “súplika o ar-
zual o inshtántsi(y)a (a supplication or petition or appeal),69 or the Turkish/
Slavic-origin toponyms “Yení Bazar [ …] Novu Bazar” (Novi Pazar).70 In several
instances, the meaning of lexemes of Hispanic, Turkish, German, and even
Slavic origin are clarified for the reader through parenthetic glosses of Slavic
origin: e.g., “kuzinas [cf. OS. cozina] (eshtalas)” (toilets);71 “ahir [cf. Tk. ahır]
de·vakas [kushara]” (cowshed);72 “bira [cf. Ge. Bier] [piva]” (beer);73 “banitsa
[cf. SCr. gibanica] [zelena]” (kind of pastry).74 Such comments would seem to
suggest that the Slavisms in question were already “inherited loanwords” used
by all, and quite possibly represented numerous others of their kind in use in
the speech community. Some of the lexemes are in fact denoted by writers
as being ‘in our language,’ e.g., Hb. bi-lšonenu; cf. “dura: ha-niqra gran turko
u-vi-lšonenu kukurúz” ‘dura [Hb. dura ‘corn, sorghum’]: that is called gran turko
[I. granturco] and in our language kukuruz [SC. kukuruz]’.75
Conclusions
Texts from the sixteenth century through the 1890s exemplifying the use of
Judezmo in the South Slavic regions demonstrate the profound impact on
Judezmo made by Turkish, the official language of most of the region, through-
out that period. During the same period Turkish impacted the other languages
of the region as well. On the other hand, instances of Slavic-origin “lexical inter-
ference” or “loanwords” – to use the terminology advocated by Uriel Weinreich
in his groundbreaking Languages in Contact (1953:47ff.) – were relatively few.
All of the “outright transfers” (Weinreich 1953:47) from Slavic to Judezmo
which I encountered in the extant corpus of texts from the period have been
inventoried here. While our actual inventory is relatively small, its members
may be seen to represent somewhat diverse semantic fields. They should per-
haps be seen as representative rather than exhaustive – reflecting the specific,
and rather limited, topics discussed by the authors. Nevertheless, the case of
Judezmo in the South Slavic region under the Ottomans would seem to present
us with a situation quite different from that of Yiddish in Slavic Eastern Europe
during the same period, as described by Uriel Weinreich (1958) and others.
There, Slavic languages were used by the local political regimes themselves,
which probably added to their prestige in the eyes of Yiddish speakers. Still,
the Slavisms in Judezmo on South Slavic territory during this period provide us
with a glimpse of daily Sephardi-South Slav interrelations over four centuries.
A linguistic outcome of the independence gained by the South Slavs from
the Ottomans and Austro-Hungarians in the late nineteenth century was the
transformation of the ethnic languages of repressed indigenous peoples sub-
jugated by foreign powers, as the South Slavs viewed themselves in relation
to the Ottomans and Austro-Hungarians, into the official state languages of
autonomous nations. The cultivation of those languages was encouraged by
the new South Slavic authorities, and education in them became mandatory in
all schools. From that point, Serbo-Croatian began to exert an ever-increasing
influence on Judezmo in what came to be ‘Yugoslavia,’ as its speakers felt in-
creasing pressure, from without and within, to abandon their group language
in favor of Serbo-Croatian, or its local variants. Between the world wars, the
influence of Serbo-Croatian on Judezmo grew so powerful that a glib member
of the speech community, ostensibly replying to someone who asked him if he
knew ‘Spanish’ (i.e., Judezmo) – “Znaš li španjolski?” (Do you know Spanish?)
– and could read the contributions in that language published in the local
Jewish press, was said to have stated: “Kako da ne, evo: čitjandu las novenas
si bistreja l’um” (Why, of course: reading the newspapers sharpens the mind’)
(Stankiewicz 1964:230). In the reply, only the bare skeleton of Judezmo mor-
phology and syntax (in italics) is preserved, while all of the content-bearing
elements are in fact expressed through incorporations from Serbo-Croatian.
Most of the Jews caught in Yugoslavia during World War II perished in con-
centration camps. But among the survivors, and a few of their descendants,
Judezmo retains a certain, if greatly reduced, vitality. Among elderly
Sephardim in Sarajevo, Belgrade, and other cities of the region there are still
some Judezmo speakers today – but all of them are more comfortable in Serbo-
Croatian, the “winning language” as Weinreich (1953:109) might have called it,
than in Judezmo, the cherished but nonetheless “losing language.”
Appendix
The following is an inventory of all of the elements of South Slavic origin encountered
in the corpus studied.
Nouns
Toponyms; peoples; and geo-political terminology:
(a) countries, regions, states: B-/Vlahí(y)a ‘Wallachia, Romania’ (Šivḥe Ba‘al Šem
Ṭov 1852:[i]a; Bos., SC. Vlahija); Ertsogovina ‘Hercegovina’ (Bĕxar Ḥayyim 1823:238; SC.
Hercegovina); Frántsi(y)a ‘France’ (Bĕxar Ḥayyim 1823:195; SC., M. Francija); Kroátsi(y)
a ‘Croatia’ (Bĕxar Ḥayyim 1823:234; SC. Kroacija, I. Croazia, Rum. Croaţia, S. Croacia);
Nimtsí(y)a ‘Austria; Germany’ (Bĕxar Ḥayyim 1823:227; SC. Nijemac + J. [< S.] -ía);
Serbí(y)a (or Sérbi(y)a) ‘Serbia’ (Šivḥe Ba‘al Šem Ṭov 1852:[i]a; SC. Srbija); Shpáni(y)a
‘Spain’ (Pardo 1772, Even ha-‘ezer, no. 9; SC. Španija);
(b) cities and rivers: Belina (Fintsi 1859:ivb) / Byelin (Papo 1862:iiib) ‘Bijeljina
(Bosnia)’; Brishka (Papo 1865:112b; SC. Bričko, gen. ‑a); Chova ‘(perhaps) Čiovo (Croatia)’
(Bĕxar Ḥayyim 1823:237; Cr. Čiovo, gen. Čiova); Drinovao ‘Drinova Međa (Bosnia and
Herzegovina)’ (Bĕxar Ḥayyim 1823:237); Eshtipe (Rĕ’uven Ben Avraham 1765:ib); Foinitsa
‘Fojnica’ (Papo 1862:51b; SC. Fojnica); Gradista ‘Gradista (in Bosnia-Herzegovina)’ (Bĕxar
Ḥayyim 1823:237); Kolumbats ‘Kolumbacs (on the Danube)’ (Bĕxar Ḥayyim 1823:237);
Kreshova ‘Kreševo’ (Papo 1862:51b; SC. nom. Kreševo, gen. Kreševa); Leskovats ‘Leskovac
(Serbia)’ (Bĕxar Ḥayyim 1823:237); Lom ‘Lom (B.)’ (Papo 1862:[iiib]; B.); Milaska
‘Miljacka (river that flows through Sarajevo)’ (Papo 1862:144b “Puede dar tevilá … en·la
Milaska” ‘One can ritually immerse [vessels] … in the Miljacka’); Mitrovats ‘Mitrovac
(town 52 miles northwest of Sofia)’ (Bĕxar Ḥayyim 1823:237); Nish ‘Niš’ (Molxo 1860:[4]
b); Novo Bazar ‘Novi Pazar (or Yeni Bazar, Bosnia)’ (Bĕxar Ḥayyim 1823:238 Yení Bazar
[ …] Novu Bazar; SC. Novi Pazar; later, also Nju Pazár, Stankiewicz 1964:235); Plevna
(Finci 1859:112b; SC. Pleven, gen. ‑vna); Slivna ‘Sliven (city in Bulg.)’ (Bĕxar Ḥayyim
1823:237; B. Sliven, gen. -na); Travnik (Papo 1862:[iiia]; Bosn.); Zvornik ‘Zvornik (city in
Yug.)’ (Bĕxar Ḥayyim 1823:238; later, also Zvorna, Stankiewicz 1964:235); Visoka ‘Visoko’
(Papo 1862:51b; also noted by Stankiewicz 1964:235; SC. Visoko, gen. ‑a);
(c) national/ethnic groups: boshnakes ‘Bosnians (esp. Muslims)’ (Papo 1862:51b;
SC. Bošnjak, T. Bos-/Boşnak/‑niyak); taliano ‘Italian’ (Kalderón 1860a:3a; SC. talijan(ski)
+ S., I. italiano); nemtsi ‘German, Austrian’ (Alkalay 1860:2b; SC. nom. sg. Nijemac,
gen. sg. Nijemca, m. nom. pl., voc. Nijemci; Stankiewicz 1964:235 cited the Yugoslavian
Judezmo variant njémcu); b-/vlahos ‘Slavs; Wallachians’ (Sason 1621, no. 2; M. D. Alkalay
1860:2b; SC. Vlah); Yovaniko ‘(pejor.) Christian Slav’ (Yĕqara dĕ-šixve 1859:69a 1859; SC.
m. personal name Jovan);
(d) related terms: granitsa ‘border’ (Kalderón 1860:82a; SC. granica); províntsi(y)
a ‘province, state’ (Bĕxar Ḥayyim 1823:162; Alkalay 1839:II:62a; SC. provincija,
S. provincial);
(2) Flora, fauna, agriculture: borinitsas ‘billberries’ (Papo 1862:23b; SC. borovni-
ca); djurdjinas ‘(type of flower)’ (Papo 1872:86; SC. Ðurđina, đurđevak ‘lily of the val-
ley’ [Benson 104; Skok 1:559; Tietze 1957:10, no. 44]); golubikas ‘little pigeons’ (Papo
1862:133a; cf. Bosn. golub, dim. ‑ica, J. dim. ‑ika < S. -ica); grahas ‘beans’ (Bĕxar Ḥayyim
1814b:198 kashkas de grahas ‘shells of peas’; Papo 1862:131b el trigo royo i redondo … lo
yamamos grahas ‘the round red wheat … we call grahas,’ SC. grah, gen. ‑ha, T. grah;
Tietze 1957:10, no. 47); hren ‘horse-raddish’ (Papo 1862:164b; SC. hren); konopia ‘hemp’
(Kalderón 1860:54a; SC. konoplja); kumpríl (Kalderón 1860:19a) / krumpír (Kalderón
1860:15b) ‘potato’ (SC. krumpir, regional [e.g. Herzegovina] kumpir < Ge. Gruntbir); pa-
prikas ‘paprikas, red peppers’ (Papo 1862:29a; SC. paprika, Hu. paprikas); pelin ‘worm-
wood; herbal liqueur made from wormwood’ (Bĕxar Ḥayyim 1823:65; Papo 1872:104; cf.
SC. pelin, B. peljin, T. pelin; Tietze 1957:2); rakas ‘crawfish, crab-fish, clams; frogs’ (Bĕxar
Ḥayyim 1823:114 = Hb. sarṭan; SC. rak, gen. ‑ka [vs. nom. raka ‘tomb, pit’] + S. rana ‘frog’?
[cf. Subak 1906:131; Baruch 1936 [2005]:100; Stankiewicz 1964:235]); shuma ‘wood(s)’
(Alkalay & Alkalay 1859:23a; SC. šuma); turnyak ‘thornbush’ (Papo 1865:45a; SC. trn-
jak); yagodas ‘strawberries’ (Papo 1862:29b; noted by Stankiewicz 1964:235; SC. jagoda);
yaritsa ‘summer wheat’ (Papo 1862:131a; SC. jarica); yechma ‘barley’ (Papo 1862:25a; SC.
ječam, gen. ječma); uzimitsa ‘winter grain’ (Papo 1862:131a; SC. zimnica);
(3) Food, drink, and related terminology: banitsa ‘kind of pastry’ (Papo 1862:123a
banitsa [zelena]; cf. SC. banica ‘wife of a ban,’ gibanica ‘dish made of cheese and strips of
dough’; Skok 1:104); kisela ‘sour (water)’ (Papo 1862:14a; SC. kisela); kukurúz ‘corn’ (Papo
1862:29a gran turko kere dezir pinya (kukurúz) ‘corn meaning sweet-corn (maize)’; SC.
kukuruz, R. cucuruz, T. kokoroz); piva ‘beer’ (Bĕxar Ḥayyim 1814b:223; Papo 1862:25a bira
[piva]; SC. pivo, gen. -a, T. piva; Tietze 1957:2; Skok; Stankiewicz 1964:235 piva); vishnas
‘morello/black/sour cherries’ (Y. Alkalay 1839:67b; Papo 1862:28a; SC. višnja, B. višna,
T. vişne [< Pe. wešni ‘ruby-colored’]; Tietze 1957:2); vishnap ‘morello cherry syrup’
(Pĕri ‘eṣ hadar 1860:[16]b; Kosovo višnjap, B. višnab, T. vişnab); koš ‘(corn) crib’ (Papo
1862:132; SC. koš); vishnada (Papo 1872:29 sherbet de vishnada ‘fruit drink made from
morello cherries’; SC. višnja + J. [< S.] f. nominalizing suffix ‑ada; cf. also Gk. vus(s)
inada, R. vişinata); zelena ‘kind of pastry’ (Papo 1862:123a; SC. f. zelena ‘greens, veg-
etables,’ zeljanica ‘spinach and feta pie’);
(4) Clothing and accessories: chipeles ‘shoes’ (Papo 1872:128; SC. pl. cipele); kabanit-
sa ‘mantle, cloak, overcoat’ (Papo 1862:41a kabanitsa [kyibé]; cf. SC. kabanica < kaban);
kapika ‘little cap’ (Alkalay & Alkalay 1859:84b; SC. kapa + J. [< S.] f. dim. -ika); kaput
‘coat’ (Papo 1865:85b surtuka [kaput]; cf. SC. kaput, T. kaput); krunts ‘crown, wreath,
garland’ (Kalderón 1860b:43a Yevan en·la garganta un krunts de rozas ‘They wear a gar-
land of roses around their necks’; cf. SC. f. krunica, korona, dim. krunac); shubarika
‘little fur cap’ (Papo 1862:41b; SC. šubara + J. f. dim. ‑ika);
(5) Household and related terminology: eshtala ‘stable, stall; toilet’ (Alkalay 1839:9b
pl. ‑s; Papo 1872:139 kuzinas [eshtalas] ‘toilets’; SC. štala, I. stalla, Ge. Stall[-es/-e]); (e)
zvona ‘bell’ (Kalderón 1860:80b pl. ezvonas; SC. zvono, gen. ‑na; and cf. Rom. zvoană);
gunya ‘quilt, blanket’ (Papo 1862:4a; SC. gunj, gen. gunja; vs. SC. nom. gunja ‘quince’);
koshara ‘cattle pen’ (Bĕxar Ḥayyim 1823:94: Hb. refet = [J.] ahir de·vakas [koshara]; cf.
SC. košara ‘hamper, basket’); podrum ‘storage cellar’ (Šivḥe Ba‘al Šem Ṭov 1852:27a; SC.
podrum); lucha ‘kindling wood’ (Papo 1872:21; SC. luč, gen. luča; cf. also Rom. nălucă,
Hu. luczfa); shindra ‘shingle’ (Bĕxar Ḥayyim 1823:97: Hb. rahiṭ = J. shindra; cf. SC. šindra
< Ge. Schindel [Golubović 2007:316]); Tietze 1957:29, no. 199);
(6) Utensils and containers: chabro ‘wooden vessel or bucket with two handles’
(Papo 1862:94a; Subak 1906:135; SC. čabar, gen. ‑bra, dative ‑bru, B. čebru [Skok 1:285]);
kablitsa ‘pail, bucket’ (Papo 1862:94a kablitsa [čabru]; Papo 1865:II:18b kablitsa de agua
‘a pail of water’; cf. SC. kablica, dim. of kabao [cf. Golubović 2007:268 SC. kibla < Ge.
Kübel]); kosh ‘(corn) crib’ (Papo 1862:132a El lugar ke·se echa el trigo se yama kosh ‘The
place where the wheat is put is called kosh’); cf. SC. koš (za kukuruz), R. coş, Al. kosh
[Skok 2:166–167]); peshnyak ‘Dutch tile (for heating)’ (Papo 1872:11 la soba ke lo yaman
peshnyak ‘the oven they call peshnyak’; SC. pećnjak);
(7) Natural substances: eshtirk ‘starch’ (Kalderón 1860a:39b; SC. štirka, regional
štirk < Ge. Stärke (Skok; Golubović 2007:332); jiva ‘quicksilver, mercury’ (Alkalay &
Alkalay 1859:52b; SC. živa);
(8) Police and military: pandures ‘policemen’ (Šivḥe Ba‘al Šem Ṭov 1852:32b; SC.
pandur); pushka ‘gun’ (Yĕqara dĕ-šixve 1859:70a; SC. puška);
(9) Education: inshtántsi(y)a ‘instance; (legal) appeal’ (Bĕxar Ḥayyim 1842:10b
súplika o arzual o inshtántsi(y)a ‘a supplication or petition or appeal’; SC. instancija,
Ge. Instanz); léktsiya ‘lesson’ (Alkalay 1871:[iiib]), cf. SCr., B. lekcija); pronúntsi(y)as
(pl.) ‘pronunciations, pronouncements’ (Bĕxar Ḥayyim 1823:12; SC. pronuncija); shko-
las ‘(secular) schools’ (El Koreo de Viena 1:22–23 [1871], 5; SC. škola, regional I. scuola;
Stankiewicz 1964:234);
(10) Hunting and horsemanship: hames ‘harnesses’ (Šivḥe Ba‘al Šem Ṭov 1852:29b;
SC. ham); lov ‘hunt, chase’ (Šivḥe Ba‘al Šem Ṭov 1852:46a; SC. lov);
(11) Recreation: bilyar ‘billiards’ (Papo 1872; SC. biljar); tsigara ‘cigar’ (Papo 1862:54a;
SC. cigar, gen. cigara);
(12) Administration, commerce and currency: kantsilári(y)a ‘chancellery’
(Kalderón 1860:72b; SC. kancilarija); kraitsar ‘monetary unit’ (Papo 1862:51b; SC. kra-
jcar < Ge. Kreutzer);
(13) Christianity: post ‘Lent’ (Kalderón 1860b:18b; SC. post).
Adjectives
nemtsesko, -a / nemtso, ‑a ‘Austrian, German’ (Papo 1865:85b vestidos a·la nemt-
seska ‘Austrian-style clothing’; Alkalay 1872:1 el dato djudezmo, nemtsesko i gergesko-
serbesko … también las fiestas nemtsas ‘the Jewish, Austrian [i.e., Gregorian] and
Greek Orthodox-Serbian date … also the Austrian holidays’), cf. SC. nemac, gen.
‑mca ‘German’ + J./S. adjectivizing and language-name morpheme ‑esko/‑esco); ser-
besko, ‑a ‘Serbian’ (Alkalay 1872:1 las ferias serbeskas ‘the Serbian fairs’; SC. Srb + S./J.
‑esko/-esco).
References
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David M. Bunis
(Professor) heads the program in Judezmo (Ladino, or Judeo-Spanish) at
the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is an advisor to the Israel National
Authority for Ladino Language and Culture, the editor of Languages and
Literatures of Sephardic and Oriental Jews (Jerusalem, 2009), the co-editor of
Massorot, and the author of books and articles on the Judezmo language.