In response to my May 11 column on Ladino, Rachel Bortnick, who identifies herself as “a native Ladino speaker and an activist for the preservation and appreciation of that precious Jewish language,” has written a lengthy letter to protest my statement that “the Jewish texture of Ladino isn’t quite as rich or as thick” as that of Yiddish. In this letter, she makes three basic points:
“One cannot [judge the amount of Hebrew in Ladino] just by perusing a Ladino dictionary, and an imperfect one at that. Dr. Elli Kohen and Dr. Dahlia Kohen-Gordon’s Ladino-English/English-Ladino Concise Encyclopedic Dictionary, which was consulted by Philologos, does not list many common words, among them Hebrew-based ones, nor does it consistently indicate the origin or derivation of a word. For example, the popular atakanar (to fix, to repair, from Hebrew le-taken) does not appear there and only its past participle, atakenado is given. Another word absent from this dictionary is the Hebrew niftar, universally used in Ladino parlance for “died” with the Spanish verb ser, as in El padre fue niftar el anyo pasado, ‘his father died last year.’”
“While it may be true that Ladino does not have as many Hebrew words in it as Yiddish, this does not mean that its ‘Jewish texture’ is inferior, as there are many other indicators of the Hebrew influence on a language and its degree of ‘Jewishness.’ In Ladino, many expressions use Hebrew syntax, or are literal translations from Hebrew. There is also an overall tendency to use simple declarative sentences, rather than complex Spanish ones, as in Hebrew.”
“As to theories for why Ladino might have fewer Hebrew words than Yiddish, Philologos espouses the one that puts the Jewish learning of Yiddish speakers at a higher level than that of Ladino speakers. I would suggest an explanation more firmly based on historical facts: While Ashkenazim were forced to live in ghettos and shtetls, Sephardim were integrated in the gentile communities where they lived, in pre-expulsion Spain as well as in the Ottoman Empire. It was because of their daily contacts with their non-Jewish neighbors that they naturally absorbed much of the lexicon of those neighbors’ languages.”
I’m sorry if my column offended Bortnick or other speakers or lovers of Ladino, the “Jewishness” of which I would never question. As I specifically stated there, Ladino has a perfectly normal amount of Hebrew words in it for a Jewish language, and the question is not why it doesn’t have more but rather why Yiddish does. That having been said, however, I don’t think that her points are very good ones. Here’s why:
Bortnick’s argument from the insufficiency of the Kohen and Kohen-Gordon dictionary is not logical. Apart from the fact that my impressions come from many sources other than this dictionary, including the writings of Ladino scholars, and that I am quite capable of recognizing that such words as atakenado have a Hebrew source, the question of the dictionary’s inclusiveness is simply beside the point. After all, even if it leaves out words, one has to assume that these have been left out randomly and not because of their Hebrew origin, and that the proportion of Hebrew-derived words among them is therefore not significantly different from the proportion of such words that appear in the dictionary. How, then, could tracking them down possibly be germane to the issue?
Yes, Ladino does show a Hebrew influence that goes beyond that of Hebrew-derived words. There is no question that a Ladino expression like kado uno i uno — that is, “every single one” (literally, “every one and one”) — comes from Hebrew kol eh.ad ve-eh.ad, and numerous other examples could be given. But my May 11 column never implied otherwise. Its subject was Hebrew-derived words in Ladino, not Hebrew-derived expressions.
Historically, Yiddish-speaking Jews never lived in ghettos, and I think Bortnick both underestimates the extent of Jewish-gentile contact in the Eastern European shtetl and exaggerates its extent in the Ottoman Empire. In both cases, Jews lived largely insular lives but did have some exposure to the world around them, which is why they both continued to speak their own languages and why these languages, over the centuries, absorbed a great deal of Slavic or Turkish vocabulary. There is certainly not the slightest evidence for her theory that either Yiddish or Ladino started out with a higher percentage of Hebrew words than it has now, and that this percentage was then diluted to its present level as words from the environment were absorbed — more of them under the Ottomans, she thinks, than in Eastern Europe. The language of old Ladino songs, for example, many of which go back hundreds of years, does not have any more Hebrew in it than does contemporary Ladino.
In speaking of such Jewish languages as Yiddish or Ladino, we should do our very best to stay clear of the Jewish culture wars — particularly, in this case, of those between Ashkenazim and Sephardim. Why Yiddish has more Hebrew words in it than Ladino is an interesting question, but whatever the answer to it might be, it doesn’t, in my opinion, make Yiddish speakers “more Jewish” than Ladino speakers. If I didn’t make that clear May 11, I’d like to make it clear now.
Questions for Philologos can be sent to philologos@forward.com.
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See please the A LEXICON OF THE HEBREW AND ARAMAIC ELEMENTS IN MODERN JUDEZMO by David M. Bunis, Jerusalem 1993
Esteemed Philologos: In my letter, I was arguing with your statement that Yiddish was "the most Jewish of Jewish languages" because it had more Hebrew words. I did question whether you could tell how many Hebrew words we (Ladino-speakers) have simply by perusing an imperfect dictionary, implying that we have many more than you might assume. But that was a minor point in my argument, as I did defer to you, the Yiddish expert, and accepted that Yiddish has more Hebrew words than Ladino. But, I argued mainly that this does not make Ladino iany less Jewish than Yiddish, because there are many more Hebrew influences in Ladino than just the number of words, and I listed them. I am glad you make it clear that we are not any less Jewish as speakers of one language or another, but I am still wondering if you still think that as a language, we can claim one to be more Jewish than the other. To me, the most Jewish of all Jewish languages is Hebrew.
As a Ladino speaking Jew from Katerini, Greece, near Salonika, who learned my Ladino from my "Nona",Italian word for Grandmother, I believe that the arguments presented herein may be of relevance to many Ladino or Yiddish speaking Jews. However our efforts should be concentrated in trying to preserve these two languages. As for the example presented above for death, we always used "muerte" for death, "se muryo" for he died, and "esta muerto" for its dead. The variation in the languages were definately affected by the local enviroment.
I would like to invite Matt Yosafat (and all Ladino speakers) to become a member of Ladinokomunita, a Ladino-only discussion group on the Internet. Please visit: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ladinokomunita/ Or, to subscribe, send an empty email to: Ladinokomunita-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
I completely agree with the vews expressed in this article.
Hi, my name is Toivi and I am 13 years old. I am come from a Sefardi family in the U.S. I missed your first article on May 11 column on Ladino. I want to apologize for Rachel Bortnick who doesn't represent all of us as native Ladino speakers. I am not offended when anyone says the Yiddish has more Hebrew or more literature out there. It is so true and that is what has inspired me to get my first book published. I wanted to share with you that I am getting ready to publish my Ladino (Judeo-Castillian) Dictionary in the next few months. I was inspire by the Dr. Elli Kohen and Dr. Dahlia Kohen-Gordon’s Ladino-English/English-Ladino Concise Encyclopedic Dictionary, since it is so incomplete and missing a lot of words but kudos to them for their effort to try to preserve our Sefardi language. I have been working on it since last summer when I tried to look up some words in that Ladino dictionary and didn't find many. As I started to put words together for myself, when my parents looked at it, they encouraged me to get it published. At the JCC during Yom Atsmaut, I met people who encouraged me to publish it eventhough I am young. And my biggest source is the Ferrara Bible in Ladino. There is a lot more to the Judeo Castillian (Ladino) language than it has been given credit. As my parents say we all have a right to speak out our minds and I am glad that you did and no one should be offended but we should be able to clarify. Just to clarify, the Judeo-Castillian (Ladino) does have a lot of Hebrew as we speak it at home a lot. Thanks for writing on that and allowing me to comment. I am sure that Ladino has a lot of Hebrew words just like the Yiddish. They are both beautiful languages and part of our Jewish heritage. Toivi Cook
hi if anyone who speaks ladino could email about translating two simple sentencenes that would be great! dasphill@gmail.com I didnt really read this article but i say preserver it all. Its all holy.
My mom say that yidish has many nasty words to insult people that don't understand it. Poeple say their language is better when they feel insecure about themselves and they say mean things about others to feel they have accomplish so much in life when they feel they are not noticed by anyone. So lonely and boring people post mean things about the other Jewish languages like ladino. Ladino is cool and i don't even know it. But you say mean things to people to make yidish feel tough.
That is what happens when you put 2 jews in a room. They fight and don't come to agreement. they always ssay 2 jews 9 opiniosn
What a piece of crap!!!! Peace of crap of article and peace of crap of people. All crap!!!! yidish crap!!!! Ladino crap!!!!!! All crap!!!! worst than human waste like poop and diaharea!!! write something better!!! Instead of crap on people who poop with ladino.
The reason Ladino doesn't have many Hebrew words like Yiddish is because the word Ladino is not even a Jewish word. In Spanish it means CUNNING and SLY. It also means Mestizo, which comes from the Spanish word that describes a mixture. People started calling the Jewish language of the Sephardim Ladino to describe the translations from the Hebrew to the Old Spanish of Medieval Spain. The word also describes anyone who is cunning like a two face. The word originally describe the Black African slaves who lived like Spaniards. Then the word was to describe the cunning, fraud and sly. The word had nothing to do with the Jewish people or the Judezmo/Judaico language, until later on to describe the translations of the Hebrew language. LADINO is also known as the language of the Sephardim but it is not a Jewish word. LADINO is a Spanish word and is mostly used among Latinos from Latin America.
My Ladino Mother reached out to me, she survived the Iranian rebellion and fled to Cuba. I am adopted how do I relate??
The only reason the Yiddish speakers are more Jewish than the Ladinos is because the Yiddish people are Jewish by birth, while most of the Ladinos are converting to Judaism and rediscovering Jewish ancestors from the Inquisition Spain, yet most of them have no idea what is like to be Jewish and they ate pork for many many years.
The Yiddish speakers are used to being Jewish and kosher. So unless you live in Guatemala and speak their ladino language, cuase they do have a language known as Ladino which is a mixture of Spanish and Mayan which the ladinos or Mestizos speak in Guatemala.
So to clear up the misunderstanding to all those who reply to this article. YES the YIDDISH language is the more Jewish language along with HEBREW, Ladino is just a marrano way of interacting.
"A language known as ladino, which is a mixture of latino and mayan". Sorry Ladinosrule, such thing does not exist. 1. There are 21 native languages, related with maya and quiché. 2. There are 2 extra languages, the Garifuna (caribbean arawak) and Xinca, an smaller native group non-related with mayas. 3. Ladino identifies the guatemalan people who speaks spanish, and which is not integrated into the previous group.
There is no ladino language. People speak proper spanish. They can be understood by other spanish-speaking people like spaniards, mexicans, argentinians...at least when you do not use slang. People call this language CASTILLA, which means "castillian" or "dialect form Castilla".
Some mayan people are very fluent with spanish, and a few ones communicate in "broken" spanish. Some others use spanish words for words that had no equivalent in quiché or cackchiquel.
Local spanish includes a few words taken from maya and nahuatl, which commonly described plants food or objects from american origin. (american belonging to "The Americas").
Greetings. Julio.