Posted on 10/14/2021 3:32:17 PM PDT by Eleutheria5
In April, the language-learning app Duolingo added its 40th language to its program arsenal: Yiddish. A couple of decades ago, it would have been unthinkable for a mainstream non-Jewish language program to offer an expansive, comprehensive course in Yiddish. But Duolingo’s Yiddish addition only serves to reflect the increased global interest in learning a language that once had as many as 12 million speakers.
Ladino, a Romance language of Sephardic Jews still spoken by hundreds of thousands worldwide, has also garnered much interest in recent years. Ladino classes, both online and in-person, are widely available to prospective learners.
But while those two Jewish languages are enjoying a cultural renaissance, many others — ones spoken in Crimea, Baghdad, Baku and beyond, which have both miraculously survived and succumbed to tumultuous periods in world history — have remained largely inaccessible to interested learners.
This month, that’s changing.
The Oxford School of Rare Jewish Languages in the UK has launched its inaugural semester of courses in 12 Jewish languages, belonging to the Aramaic, Arabic and Turkic language families. They range in number of speakers, from millions to none.
The courses, which began this week, run for an hour a week online and are free for all students.
“There are currently many brilliant research projects and online platforms concerning Jewish languages,” said Professor Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, president of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies and the creator of the new program. “What is missing is the possibility for the growing number of interested students to learn these languages, even less in an academic setting.”
This is why she sees the OSRJL’s format — online and free — as significant: it ensures that classes are accessible to an international pool of students.
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Ladino is close to one of the prettiest languages on Earth.
It’s like an edgy French. Just wonderful to listen to.
Apparently pretty easy to learn.
Mexico and South America have pockets.
I’ve been there and heard it.
There’s also a major literary work written in it, the Me’am Lo’ez midrashic anthology. It’s been translated into Hebrew and English, but the original Ladino edition is still around, probably out of print.
Any of the speakers you heard have the last name Nunez?
Don’t know one way or the other.
I know one has the sur-name “Castillo” bc he married my sister-in-law and is a Colonel in the IDF. (So he’s my brother in law in law? No clue the word.)
Anyway, it was a 5 day party from which I was hung over for three days. And that was when I was in my 30s.
Nearly killed the poor Chabad rabbi who officiated.
Anyway, it appears that the name Nunez is to Sephardim what the name Goldstein is to Ashkenazim. Learned this from a fellow named Nunez who didn’t even know he was Jewish, descended from Marranos, until somebody explained the meaning of the name to him. He was an aristocratically Castilian Mexican, in whose house I was once a guest.
Ladino is still spoken by Sephardic Jews. Romaniote/Judeao-Greek/Yevanic is all but extinct
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