David M. Bunis

[[Modernization and the Language Question among Judezmo-Speaking Sephardim of the Ottoman Empire]]

Introduction

• Origins:
  • In Medieval Spain from the interaction of Jews with Spanish and Arabic-speaking neighbors
  • mix of elements from Old Castilian, Hebrew-Aramaic, Judeo-Arabic and Judeo-Greek.
  • unique use of material incorporated from non-native sources
• 1492: expulsion of the Jews from Spain:
  • transplanted to Ottoman Empire and North Africa
  • survived there until modern times
• 19th century:
  • modifications through:
    • internal trends
    • contacts with new neighbors: Turks, Greeks, Slavs in the Ottoman Empire / Arabs, Berbers, Spaniards and French in North Africa
  • More presence of Western European nations in the Ottoman Empire
    • western influence in the cultures of the empire.
    • young Sephardim react judging their own community and culture as retrograde
      • desire to change in direction of the modern West: modernization, Westernization and secularization

The Language Problem and the Solutions Proposed

• Consequences of Western influence:
  • the so far course of development of Judezmo was interrupted:
    • so far natural and locally oriented phenomenon
  • deep effects of Western influence in Judezmo speakers’ attitudes towards their language.
• 1880s, El tyempo periodical. Its editor David Fresco berated Judezmo and its speakers and announced the death of the language. This article set off a debate around "the language question" which mainly took place in the Judezmo press for over a century.
• Key questions:
  • is judezmo a language ir a dialect of Spanish?
  • What name should be used for it?
  • should it be maintained and in what form? traditional and popular variety or a new one? what model should the modification follow? alphabet?
  • should it be abandoned? and how should it be replaced?
• Outsiders such as Angel Pulido also noted this debate and took part in it.

Delineated solutions

• Abandonment and replacement
• Argument: Judezmo is a corrupted dialect of Spanish, no intrinsic cultural value and has no role in the modern world. It only serves as barrier between Jews and other ethnic groups. It should then be replaced by one of the following:
  • A Western European International Language:
    • a prestigious and commercially useful language.
    • at least Judezmo speakers should learn Western languages even if they do not replace Judezmo.
    • initially this proposal was rejected but soon Sephardi children were increasingly educated in European languages, culture and literatures at school.
    • Four specially important languages: Spanish, French, Italian, German.
    • Spanish:
      • Influence started when mid XIX century
      • Protestant missionaries tried to convert the Sephardim through educational material written in a language between Modern Spanish and Judezmo.
      • The conversion failed but the materials continued to circulate.
      • Modern Spanish was a novelty to the Sephardi, since for generations there had been little or no awareness of/identification with Spain or its modern language.
      • Spanish government had little interest in the Ottoman empire or the Sephardim living there.
      • However, individual Spaniards such as marquis Isidoro de Hoyos or Angel Pulido were interested in reincorporating the Sephardim to the Hispanic World.
      • Through this interest and the diffusion of these intelectuals’ work in the Judezmo press, many Sephardis rediscovered their connection to Spain.
      • efforts were appreciated but in spite of proposals to abandon Judezmo in favor of Spanish, most Ottoman Jews rejected this idea. They were not interested in speaking modern Spanish nor returning to Spain.
      • Change after the world wars: some Sephardim started displaying identification with Spain and spanish culture.
    • Italian:
      • Was an important language in the Ottoman Empire and many Ottoman Sephardim had trade connections with Italian port cities
      • XIX cent: Sephardi children begin to learn Italian in private schools founded by Italians in Ottoman cities. Later: Societá Dante Alighieri.
      • Italian started to influence Judezmo.
    • French:
      • important language of trade, science and culture in the Ottoman Empire.
      • informally learnt among the Sephardim until the XIX cent.
      • 1860: Alliance Israélite Universelle, Paris: network of schools throughout the Ottoman empire.
      • Western education in French
      • French affected the Judezmo speaking community more than any other Western European language.
      • many Westernizers suggested that French should replace Judezmo
        • Arguments: French was an international prestige languages, had great practical utility in commerce, vehicle of a great European culture and because of being a Romance language it would be easy for Sephardim to master.
      • French influenced spoken and specially written Judezmo. French linked to speakers who desired upward social mobility.
      • Various newspapers in French were founded in the Ottoman empire. French was also important for scholar writing and the codification of Judezmo.
    • German:
      • prestige language in communities influenced by the Austro-Hungar empire: Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Romania.
      • employed as literary language by Sephardim in those regions, also important in commerce and culture.
      • Influence in the Judezmo of those regions
    • The State language
      • The Ottoman empire allowed for each ethnic community to speak its own language, which allowed for the Jewish communities to manage without a great knowledge of the majority languages.
      • With the dissolution of the empire and the formation of independent nation-states, each of them promoted its own national language in search of cultural homogeneity.
      • This generated pressure in the Judezmo speaking communities to adopt the national language instead of Judezmo. Sephardi leaders were in favor of this.
      • These national languages were:
        • Turkish: as early as 1840, Judezmo speakers were pressured to learn Turkish and different initiatives were developed to promote this: language courses, circulation of materials printed in turkish with the Rashi alphabet,.
        • Jewish writers came to play an important role in turkish scholarship and literature.
        • Today, Turkish is favored among young Sephardim.
      • Other national languages:
        • similar situation as with Turkish with Greek, Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian and Romanian.
        • Younger Sephardim began to attend state schools and be more proficient in local languages.
        • the national languages also started to be used by rabbis and lecturers when addressing their audiences
        • communal periodicals were published in those languages, also multilingual ones, dictionaries
        • After 1st world war Sephardi writers began to contribute to national literatures.
      • Languages of Immigration Centers
      • Young Turk Revolution and the induction of Jewish men into the new Turkish army, led to the displacement of some young Jews to Western Europe, the Americas, Africa and Australia.
      • Later: Zionism and proclamation of the Jewish state
      • in the new host countries, Jews established some Judezmo periodicals but mostly assimilated linguistically to territories which imposed language homogeneity. Booklets published to help this transition.
      • The mastery of local languages in detriment of Judezmo was achieved within a generation.
      • contributions to national literatures.
  • Replacement by another Jewish language: Hebrew
    • 16th cent.: rabbis who wrote texts in Judezmo excused their use of other language than hebrew arguing that it was necessary for the understanding of the texts by unlearned readers
    • until mid 19th cent., only the rabbinic elite in the Ottoman Empire had learned Hebrew, but afterwards secular Sephardi jewish nationalists played an important role in the promotion of Hebrew.
      • Joseph Halévy was a philologist who promoted the foundation of a Hebrew academy (later materialized) among other contributions
      • Late 19th cent: arguments favoring Hebrew as the replacement of Judezmoas the oldest Jewish language which was shared by communities worldwide (at least in religious contexts).
      • Jews should not return to Spain, but to the Hebrew language and Israel.
      • Hebrew-speaking kindergarten in Salonika (although considered impractical by critics): 1908.
      • also Hebrew-Judezmo periodicals, Hebrew poetry and locally published learning materials.
    • Loyalty to Judezmo and proposition of normative models
      • Western-educated Sephardi writers and publicists favored the preservation of Judezmo (Sam Levy, for example). Normative models were proposed to develop a Modern Judezmo:
        • Spanish models: Judezmo should be polished, purified of the non-Romance elementes. Spaniards proposed their replacement with Castilian equivalents.
        • French and/or Italian models: most Westernizing Judezmo writers proposed to replace those non-Romance elements with equivalents from Frencha nd Italian. The introduction of these terms made their reading quite difficult for average Judezmo readers without a formal Western education.
      • Popular Judezmo as a norm
        • Shemuei Saadi Halevy: against anti-Judezmists like fresco and Danon.
        • Desire to improve language, but not change it for another. Also encouraged people to learn national language.
        • rise of talented writers who advocated for the language of older generations, before the westernization. Judezmo folk writing.

Other linguistic questions

• the question of the name used to refer to the language
• the alphabet employed to write it
• the linguistic sources used to construct the grammar and lexicon of texts
• today, most young people prefer to speak the national languages of their country of residence or other additional languages of Western culture
• older people continue to treasure the language of their ancestors
• variation, different backgrounds of speakers