Judeo-Arabic

History

Jewish use of Arabic in Arabia predates Islam. There is evidence of a Jewish Arabic dialect, similar to general Arabic but including some Hebrew and Aramaic lexemes, called al-Yahūdiyya, predating Islam. Some of these Hebrew and Aramaic words may have passed into general usage, particularly in religion and culture, though this pre-Islamic Judeo-Arabic was not the basis of a literature.{{rp|41-42|quote=There is some evidence that the Jews on the Arabian Peninsula during the pre-Is- lamic period used a type of Jewish Arabic dialect called al-Yahūdiyya (Gil 1984: 206; Newby 1971, 1988: 21–23). This dialect was similar to the Arabic dialect used by the general public but included some Hebrew and Aramaic lexemes, especially in the domains of religion and culture. Some of these Hebrew and Aramaic words passed into the speech and writing of the Arabs. This may explain the appear- ance of words of Hebrew and Aramaic origin in the Quran. There is no evidence, however, that Pre-Islamic Judeo-Arabic ever served as the vehicle of a distinct liter- ature (see below in 4.2, as-Samaw'al bnu 'Ādiyā''s case). Yet al-Yahūdiyya writings in Hebrew characters may also have existed (Newby 1971: 220).}}

There were Jewish Pre-Islamic Arabic poets, such as al-Samawʾal ibn ʿĀdiyā, though surviving written records of such Jewish poets do not indicate anything that distinguishes their use of Arabic from non-Jewish use of it, and their work according to Geoffrey Khan is generally not referred to as Judeo-Arabic. This work is similar to and tends to follow Classical Arabic, and Benjamin Hary, who calls it Classical Judeo-Arabic, notes it still includes some dialectal features, such as in Saadia Gaon's translation of the Pentateuch. This period includes a wide array of literary works.{{rp|42|quote=The second phase of Judeo-Arabic began in the eighth century in Egypt and the ninth century elsewhere. This was the period in which the Judeo-Arabic Pho- netic orthography was used, though alongside the Arabicized orthography (see below). The appearance of Saadia ibn Yosef al-Fayyūmī's (882–942 CE) transla- tion of the Pentateuch into Judeo-Arabic at the turn of the tenth century marks the beginning of the third phase, Classical Judeo-Arabic. Although the written form of this language contained dialectal features as well as pseudocorrections, according to Blau (1999), it tended to follow the model of Classical Arabic to a large extent. The works written in this period covered the entire spectrum of lit- erary composition: theology, philosophy, biblical exegesis, philology, grammar, lexicography, law, ritual, and literature, in addition to commercial and private correspondence. Much of the material from this period has survived in several genizot, most notably the Cairo Geniza. The number of works in this period exceeded the number of Judeo-Arabic works of any other single period.}} Scholars assume that Jewish communities in Arabia spoke Arabic as their vernacular language, and some write that there is evidence of the presence of Hebrew and Aramaic words in their speech, as such words appear in the Quran and might have come from contact with these Arabic-speaking Jewish communities.

Before the spread of Islam, Jewish communities in Mesopotamia and Syria spoke Aramaic, while those to the West spoke Romance and Berber. With the Early Muslim conquests, areas including Mesopotamia and the eastern and southern Mediterranean underwent Arabization, most rapidly in urban centers. Some isolated Jewish communities continued to speak Aramaic until the 10th century, and some communities never adopted Arabic as a vernacular language at all. Although urban Jewish communities were using Arabic as their spoken language, Jews kept Hebrew and Aramaic, traditional rabbinic languages, as their languages of writing during the first three centuries of Muslim rule, perhaps due to the presence of the Sura and Pumbedita yeshivas in rural areas where people spoke Aramaic.

Jews in Arabic, Muslim majority countries wrote—sometimes in their dialects, sometimes in a more classical style—in a mildly adapted Hebrew alphabet rather than using the Arabic script, often including consonant dots from the Arabic alphabet to accommodate phonemes that did not exist in the Hebrew alphabet.

For centuries, Jews residing in Islamic lands used Judeo-Arabic for daily communication and written works, leading to significant literary output. This linguistic variety emerged with the Arab conquests in the seventh century, blending classical, postclassical, and dialectal Arabic features, as a variety within the cluster of Middle Arabic. It became prevalent among urban populations starting with the lower strata. While some scholars suggest its use reflected a desire to elevate non-Arab cultures, Shu'ubiyya, over pan-Arabization, Arabiyya, others view it as a pragmatic choice. Jewish communities, lacking the same theological necessity for Classical Arabic, adopted dialectal forms more readily, and exhibited diverse approaches to Arabic literary conventions.

By around 800 CE, most Jews within the Islamic Empire (90% of the world's Jews at the time) were native speakers of Arabic like the populations around them. This led to the development of early Judeo-Arabic. The language quickly became the central language of Jewish scholarship and communication, enabling Jews to participate in the greater epicenter of learning at the time, which meant that they could be active participants in secular scholarship and civilization. The widespread usage of Arabic not only unified the Jewish community located throughout the Islamic Empire but also facilitated greater communication with other ethnic and religious groups, which led to manuscripts like the Toledot Yeshu, being written or published in Arabic or Judeo-Arabic. By the 10th century Judeo-Arabic would transition from Early to Classical Judeo-Arabic.

During the 15th century, as Jews, especially in North Africa, gradually began to identify less with Arabs, Judeo-Arabic would undergo significant changes and become Later Judeo-Arabic. This coincided with increased isolation of Jewish communities and involved greater influence of Hebrew and Aramaic features.{{rp|42|quote=The fourth phase, Later Judeo-Arabic, lasted from the 15th to the 19th cen- turies. The shift from Classical to Later Judeo-Arabic was accompanied by "the increased social isolation of the Jews of the Arab world at the end of the Middle Ages within restrictive quarters, such as the məllāḥ and ḥart il-yahūd" (Stillman 1988: 5). During this period, many more dialectal elements penetrated into the written language, and the tradition of the šarḥ – the literal translation of Hebrew and Aramaic religious sacred texts into Judeo-Arabic – developed. Historical, halakhic, liturgical, and other texts were written in this period, many of them aimed at the general public rather than the erudite elite. Toward the end of this period, and even more so in the following period, an extensive folk literature also came into being. This period witnessed the development of the Hebraized orthog- raphy (Hary 1996), i.e., Judeo-Arabic written with spelling conventions that were heavily influenced by Hebrew and Aramaic.}}

Some of the most important books of medieval Jewish thought were originally written in medieval Judeo-Arabic, as were certain halakhic works and biblical commentaries. Later they were translated into medieval Hebrew so that they could be read by contemporaries elsewhere in the Jewish world, and by others who were literate in Hebrew. These include:

• Saadia Gaon's translations of the Pentateuch, Emunoth ve-Deoth (originally كتاب الأمانات والاعتقادات), his tafsir (biblical commentary and translation) and siddur (explanatory content, not the prayers themselves)
• David ibn Merwan al-Mukkamas
• Solomon ibn Gabirol's Tikkun Middot ha-Nefesh
• Bahya ibn Paquda's Kitab al-Hidāya ilā Fara'id al-Qulūb, translated by Judah ben Saul ibn Tibbon as Chovot HaLevavot
• Judah Halevi's Kuzari
• Maimonides' Commentary on the Mishnah, Sefer Hamitzvot, The Guide for the Perplexed, and many of his letters and shorter essays.

Sharch (šarḥ, pl. šurūḥ, šarḥanim) is a literary genre consisting of the translation of sacred texts, such as Bible translations into Arabic, the Talmud or siddurim, which were composed in Hebrew and Aramaic, into Judeo-Arabic, prevalent starting in the 15th century, and exhibiting a number of mixed elements. The term sharḥ sometimes came to mean "Judeo-Arabic" in the same way that "Targum" was sometimes used to mean the Aramaic language. The texts of the sharh are based on and dependent on Hebrew.

Present day

The significant emigration of Judeo-Arabic speakers in the 1940s and 1950s to Israel, France, and North America has led to endangerment or near-extinction of the ethnolects. Judeo-Arabic was viewed negatively in Israel as all Arabic was viewed as an "enemy language". Their distinct Arabic dialects in turn did not thrive, and most of their descendants now speak French or Modern Hebrew almost exclusively; thus resulting in the entire group of Judeo-Arabic dialects being considered endangered languages.{{Rp|page=44|quote=the religiolect again experienced a dramatic change in the 20th century, with the rise of Arab and Jewish national movements, the outbreak of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the consequent emigration of Jews from (mostly) Arabic-speaking areas. The religiolect lost ground due to migration, struggle, and nationalism (and the resulting pressure from other languages). This change brought about the near loss of the religiolect}} There remain small populations of speakers in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Lebanon, Yemen, the United States, and Israel.

Historiography

The 19th century rediscovery of the Cairo Geniza gave the study of Judeo-Arabic prominence within Judaic Studies, leading to publications such as Shelomo Dov Goitein's series A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza.

Cultural critic Ella Shohat notes that modern Jewish speakers of Arabic did not refer to their language as 'Judeo-Arabic' but simply as 'Arabic'. In the period of 'massive dislocation' from the late 1940s through the 1960s, Jewish speakers of Arabic in diaspora and their descendants gradually adopted the term 'Judeo-Arabic' and its equivalents in French and Hebrew. Shohat's criticism is a recent intervention that challenges the conventional wisdom, though she stipulates that she excludes the medieval context from her discussion.

Shohat identifies linguist Yehoshua Blau as a key figure in the development of the notion of Judeo-Arabic, within what she describes as a Zionist linguistic project invested in prioritizing the uniqueness and separateness of isolatable 'Jewish languages'. Shohat cites the first issue of the Israeli journal Pe'amim, which featured a "Scholars' Forum" (בימת חוקרים) on "The Jewish Languages – the Common, the Unique and the Problematic" (הלשונות היהודיות – המשותף, המיוחד והבעייתי) with articles from Chaim Menachem Rabin "מה מייחד את הלשונות היהודיות" ('What Distinguishes the Jewish Languages') and Yehoshua Blau "הערבית-היהודית הקלאסית" ('Classical Judeo-Arabic'). This project explicitly sought to describe the Arabic of Jews as a distinct, Jewish language, equating it with Yiddish. According to Esther-Miriam Wagner, the case of Judeo-Arabic reified a Zionist 'Arab vs. Jew' dichotomy.

Characteristics

Judeo-Arabic can be seen as many different mixed forms incorporating different aspects of Classical Arabic, Arabic dialects, Hebrew and Aramaic. Judeo-Arabic, particularly in its later forms, contains distinctive features and elements of Hebrew and Aramaic.{{Rp|quote=Summary: This paper examines Judeo-Arabic, the language of Arabic-speaking Jews, as a mixed language in the context of the Jewish linguistic spectrum. Judeo-Arabic is a mixed religiolect that contains elements of classical and post-classical Arabic, dialectal compo- nents, pseudocorrections, pseudocorrections that have become standardized, as well as elements of Hebrew and Aramaic vocabulary and grammar. The essay investigates the inclusion of these elements in Judeo-Arabic, using especially the texts of the šarḥ—a liter- ary genre of translations of Hebrew (and Aramaic) religious sacred texts into Judeo-Arabic that developed especially from the fifteenth century onwards|page=125}}{{Rp|page=35|quote=Judeo-Arabic is a religiolect that has been spoken and written in various forms by Jews throughout the Arabic-speaking world. A religiolect is a language variety with its own history which is developed within a specific religious community, although some of its distinctive features may later spread outside of the com- munity (Hary 2009: 12–13). Judeo-Arabic literature deals, for the most part, with Jewish topics and is written by Jews for a Jewish readership. Several important features distinguish it from other varieties of Arabic. These include a mixture of elements of Classical and post-Classical Arabic, dialectal components, pseu- docorrections,1 and pseudocorrections that have become standardized. In other words, it is a typical mixed variety. Judeo-Arabic also possesses a number of spe- cific additional sociolinguistic features that set it apart: the use of Hebrew rather than Arabic characters, various traditions of Judeo-Arabic orthography, elements of Hebrew and Aramaic vocabulary and grammar, and the style of the šarḥ (a genre composed of literary translations of Jewish religious and liturgical texts from Hebrew and Aramaic into Judeo-Arabic). Users began to employ the religio- lect around the eighth century CE, as a linguistic result of the Arab conquests during the seventh century, and have been using it in various forms until today}}

The Arabic spoken by Jewish communities in the Arab world differed from the Arabic of their non-Jewish neighbors. Particularly in its later forms, Judeo-Arabic contains distinctive features and elements of Hebrew and Aramaic, such as grammar, vocabulary, orthography, and style.

For example, most Jews in Egypt lived in Cairo and Alexandria and they shared a common dialect. Baghdad Jewish Arabic is reminiscent of the dialect of Mosul. For example, "I said" is qeltu in the speech of Baghdadi Jews and Christians, as well as in Mosul and Syria, as against Muslim Baghdadi gilit.

Judeo-Arabic can be thought of as a variety of vernacular Middle Arabic, and differs from Bedouin dialects and classical Arabic in a shift to subject-verb-object word order and in that it is more an analytical language versus a synthetic language, relying on syntax more than morphology. It also exhibits changes such as the loss of nominal case and verbal modal endings and the introduction of new object markers and particles.

Some Judeo-Arabic writers, such as Maimonides, were able to switch between varieties of Judeo-Arabic and the Standard Arabic dialect.{{Rp|pages=64-65|quote=Judeo-Arabic authors at timesattempted to write in the more prestigious variety of Standard Arabic withvarying degrees of success resulting in pseudo-corrections (Hary 1992:62–69). In other words, several Judeo-Arabic authors mastered StandardArabic and wrote in it. When they did, their writings in Standard Arabiccannot be considered Judeo-Arabic. Therefore, these writings are outsidethe scope of Judeo-Arabic. Maimonides (1135–1204) serves as a goodexample in the period of classical Judeo-Arabic. He was certainly capableFigure 2.Continuum in Judeo-Arabic Judeo-Arabic: a diachronic reexamination65of writing in variety A and indeed did so, but he was able to switch betweenthe different varieties of the language, thus adapting to his readership. As aresult, some of his works, such as his medical writings, which were aimedat non-Jewish readers, are in variety A and cannot be considered part ofclassical Judeo-Arabic. In other works, such as his letters to his coreligion-ists, that is, Jewish readership, he used the varieties of Bn, and thereforethey are in literary written classical Judeo-Arabic.Judeo-Arabic writers and speakers' attitude is important for under-standing the ethnolect.}}

Like other Jewish languages and dialects, Judeo-Arabic languages contain borrowings from Hebrew and Aramaic. This feature is less marked in translations of the Bible, as the authors clearly took the view that the business of a translator is to translate.

Dialects

• Judeo-Algerian
• Judeo-Egyptian
• Judeo-Moroccan
• Judeo-Tripolitanian
• Judeo-Tunisian
• Judeo-Yemeni
• Judeo-Syrian
• Judeo-Lebanese
• Modern Palestinian Judeo-Arabic
• Judeo-Iraqi
  • Judeo-Baghdadi

Media

Most literature in Judeo-Arabic is of a Jewish nature and is intended for readership by Jewish audiences. There was also widespread translation of Jewish texts from languages like Yiddish and Ladino into Judeo-Arabic, and translation of liturgical texts from Aramaic and Hebrew into Judeo-Arabic. There is also Judeo-Arabic videos on YouTube.

A collection of over 400,000 of Judeo-Arabic documents from the 6th-19th centuries was found in the Cairo Geniza.

The movie Farewell Baghdad would be released in 2013 entirely in Judeo-Iraqi Arabic

Orthography

Judeo-Arabic orthography uses a modified version of the Hebrew alphabet called the Judeo-Arabic script. It is written from right to left horizontally like the Hebrew script and also like the Hebrew script some letters contain final versions, used only when that letter is at the end of a word. It also uses the letters alef and waw or yodh to mark long or short vowels respectively. The order of the letters varies between alphabets.

Sample text

Endnotes

Bibliography

• Blanc, Haim, Communal Dialects in Baghdad: Harvard 1964
• Blau, Joshua, The Emergence and Linguistic Background of Judaeo-Arabic: OUP, last edition 1999
• Blau, Joshua, A Grammar of Mediaeval Judaeo-Arabic: Jerusalem 1980 (in Hebrew)
• Blau, Joshua, Studies in Middle Arabic and its Judaeo-Arabic variety: Jerusalem 1988 (in English)
• Blau, Joshua, Dictionary of Mediaeval Judaeo-Arabic Texts: Jerusalem 2006
• Mansour, Jacob, The Jewish Baghdadi Dialect: Studies and Texts in the Judaeo-Arabic Dialect of Baghdad: Or Yehuda 1991
• Heath, Jeffrey, Jewish and Muslim dialects of Moroccan Arabic (Routledge Curzon Arabic linguistics series): London, New York, 2002.

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