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Judeo-Italian dialects
Judeo-Italian (or Judaeo-Italian, Judæo-Italian, and other names including Italkian) is a group of endangered and extinct Jewish dialects, with only about 200 speakers in Italy and 250 total speakers today. The dialects are one of the Italian languages and are a subgrouping of the Judeo-Romance Languages. Some words have Italian prefixes and suffixes added to Hebrew words as well as Aramaic roots. All of the dialects except Judeo-Roman are now extinct.
The glottonym giudeo-italiano is of academic and relatively late coinage. In English, the term was first used (as Judæo-Italian) by Lazaro Belleli in 1904 in the Jewish Encyclopedia, describing the languages of the Jews of Corfu. In Italian, Giuseppe Cammeo referred to a gergo giudaico-italiano ('Judaico-Italian jargon') in a 1909 article. That same year, Umberto Cassuto used the term giudeo-italiano, in the following (here translated into English):
...It is almost nothing, if you will, even compared with other Jewish dialects, Judeo-Spanish for instance, that are more or less used literally; all this is true, but from the linguistic point of view, Judeo-German is worth as much as Judeo-Italian [giudeo-italiano], to name it so, since for the glottological science the different forms of human speech are important in themselves and not by its number of speakers or the artistic forms they are used in. Moreover, a remarkable difference between Judeo-German and Judeo-Italian [giudeo-italiano], that is also valuable from the scientific point of view, is that while the former is so different from German as to constitute an independent dialect, the latter by contrast is not essentially a different thing from the language of Italy, or from the individual dialects of the different provinces of Italy
The International Organization for Standardization language code for Judeo-Italian / Italkian in the ISO 639-3 specification is itk; the ISO 639-2 collective language code roa (for Romance languages) can also apply more generally.
"Italkian" is not used by the US Library of Congress as a subject heading, nor does it figure as a reference to Judeo-Italian. The authorized subject heading is "Judeo-Italian language".
The first Jewish communities in Italy emerged during the 2nd century BC and were Greek speaking with knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic. But by 1000 AD the Jewish community in Italy had abandoned Greek and adopted early forms of Italian. By the 900's AD Hebrew loanwords had begun to find their way into the speech of Italian Jews and Italian writing begins appearing in Hebrew, though the amount of Hebrew influence varies widely.
During the 16th century expulsions led[clarification needed] to a massive decline in the amount of Judeo-Italian literature. During the 19th century Judeo-Italian had switched from using Hebrew letters to the latin alphabet. The language began to decline in the early 19th century as Italian Jews were emancipated and began to switch to standard Italian instead of Judeo-Italian. At the same time it began to be written down to preserve the language as it declines. By 1900, 30,000 people spoke the language, today it is down to 250. Around 2015 Judeo-Piedmontese went extinct. All of the dialects of Judeo-Italian except for Judeo-Roman are now extinct.
According to some scholars, there are some Judeo-Italian loan words that have found their way into Yiddish. For example, the word in Judeo-Italian for 'synagogue' is scola, closely related to scuola, 'school'. The use of words for 'school' to mean 'synagogue' dates back to the Roman Empire. The Judeo-Italian distinction between scola and scuola parallels the Standard Yiddish distinction between shul/shil for 'synagogue' and shule for 'school'. Another example is Yiddish iente, from the Judeo-Italian yientile ('gentile', 'non-Jew', 'Christian'), as differentiated from the standard Italian gentile, meaning 'noble', 'gentleman' (even if the name can come from Judeo-French and French as well).
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Judeo-Italian dialects AI simulator
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Judeo-Italian dialects
Judeo-Italian (or Judaeo-Italian, Judæo-Italian, and other names including Italkian) is a group of endangered and extinct Jewish dialects, with only about 200 speakers in Italy and 250 total speakers today. The dialects are one of the Italian languages and are a subgrouping of the Judeo-Romance Languages. Some words have Italian prefixes and suffixes added to Hebrew words as well as Aramaic roots. All of the dialects except Judeo-Roman are now extinct.
The glottonym giudeo-italiano is of academic and relatively late coinage. In English, the term was first used (as Judæo-Italian) by Lazaro Belleli in 1904 in the Jewish Encyclopedia, describing the languages of the Jews of Corfu. In Italian, Giuseppe Cammeo referred to a gergo giudaico-italiano ('Judaico-Italian jargon') in a 1909 article. That same year, Umberto Cassuto used the term giudeo-italiano, in the following (here translated into English):
...It is almost nothing, if you will, even compared with other Jewish dialects, Judeo-Spanish for instance, that are more or less used literally; all this is true, but from the linguistic point of view, Judeo-German is worth as much as Judeo-Italian [giudeo-italiano], to name it so, since for the glottological science the different forms of human speech are important in themselves and not by its number of speakers or the artistic forms they are used in. Moreover, a remarkable difference between Judeo-German and Judeo-Italian [giudeo-italiano], that is also valuable from the scientific point of view, is that while the former is so different from German as to constitute an independent dialect, the latter by contrast is not essentially a different thing from the language of Italy, or from the individual dialects of the different provinces of Italy
The International Organization for Standardization language code for Judeo-Italian / Italkian in the ISO 639-3 specification is itk; the ISO 639-2 collective language code roa (for Romance languages) can also apply more generally.
"Italkian" is not used by the US Library of Congress as a subject heading, nor does it figure as a reference to Judeo-Italian. The authorized subject heading is "Judeo-Italian language".
The first Jewish communities in Italy emerged during the 2nd century BC and were Greek speaking with knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic. But by 1000 AD the Jewish community in Italy had abandoned Greek and adopted early forms of Italian. By the 900's AD Hebrew loanwords had begun to find their way into the speech of Italian Jews and Italian writing begins appearing in Hebrew, though the amount of Hebrew influence varies widely.
During the 16th century expulsions led[clarification needed] to a massive decline in the amount of Judeo-Italian literature. During the 19th century Judeo-Italian had switched from using Hebrew letters to the latin alphabet. The language began to decline in the early 19th century as Italian Jews were emancipated and began to switch to standard Italian instead of Judeo-Italian. At the same time it began to be written down to preserve the language as it declines. By 1900, 30,000 people spoke the language, today it is down to 250. Around 2015 Judeo-Piedmontese went extinct. All of the dialects of Judeo-Italian except for Judeo-Roman are now extinct.
According to some scholars, there are some Judeo-Italian loan words that have found their way into Yiddish. For example, the word in Judeo-Italian for 'synagogue' is scola, closely related to scuola, 'school'. The use of words for 'school' to mean 'synagogue' dates back to the Roman Empire. The Judeo-Italian distinction between scola and scuola parallels the Standard Yiddish distinction between shul/shil for 'synagogue' and shule for 'school'. Another example is Yiddish iente, from the Judeo-Italian yientile ('gentile', 'non-Jew', 'Christian'), as differentiated from the standard Italian gentile, meaning 'noble', 'gentleman' (even if the name can come from Judeo-French and French as well).