Book Description

This volume on Jewish language varieties not only accords weight to linguistic and cultural analysis but also to extensive text specimens with both interlinear and idiomatic translation. A comprehensive comparative essay by Aharon Maman introduces the volume. The following book sections are ordered according to the linguistic affiliation of the treated language varieties, in the following order: Semitic (Neo-Aramaic and Arabic), Germanic (Yiddish and English), Romance (Judezmo/Ladino, Haketia, Italian, French, and Provencal), Greek, Iranian (early Persian and Juhuri/Judeo-Tat(i)), as well as Turkic (Crimean-Turkic, Krymchak, Karaim, and other varieties). The main criterion for the inclusion of a language (variety) in this volume was the existence of a sizable amount of religious, literary, scholarly, and other text genres in Hebrew characters produced by Jewish authors. All contributions follow a common structural outline - a cultural introduction followed by a grammatical (and lexical) sketch and then text specimens with glosses. Several indices complete the volume. Beyond its obvious function as a scholarly reference tool, the volume has the potential to emerge as a pedagogical textbook for courses covering one or several Jewish language varieties, as well as courses in general linguistics and in languages in contact.