Audio samples of Ladino/Judeo-Spanish

[docoflove1974]

I don't know if this is interesting to anyone else but me, but I thought I'd post it here. A colleague sent this link; it contains audio samples of Judeo-Spanish, or Ladino.

 

Now, a quick lesson: in the Romance world, there are two 'Ladino' languages: for the Italians, it is a branch of Rhaeto-Romance spoken in Switzerland and North-East Italy (I can't recall the exact location--I'll edit this in later). For the Spanish-speaking world, 'ladino' refers to the variety of Spanish spoken by the Sephardic Jews, who represent those unlucky souls who were expelled from Spain following the Reconquest by the Catholic Monarchs (that would be Ferdinand and Isabel). These Sephardi spoke Spanish, naturally; what is interesting is that they have kept this same dialect of Spanish for centuries. So, when one hears Ladino, or Judeo-Spanish, one hears a bit of Medieval/Renaissance Spanish!

 

If you speak Spanish, listen to it, and figure out how much you can understand. If you can't, but are curious anyway, click away!

[Andrew Dalby]

I don't know if this is interesting to anyone else but me, but I thought I'd post it here. A colleague sent this link; it contains audio samples of Judeo-Spanish, or Ladino.

 

Now, a quick lesson: in the Romance world, there are two 'Ladino' languages: for the Italians, it is a branch of Rhaeto-Romance spoken in Switzerland and North-East Italy (I can't recall the exact location--I'll edit this in later). For the Spanish-speaking world, 'ladino' refers to the variety of Spanish spoken by the Sephardic Jews, who represent those unlucky souls who were expelled from Spain following the Reconquest by the Catholic Monarchs (that would be Ferdinand and Isabel). These Sephardi spoke Spanish, naturally; what is interesting is that they have kept this same dialect of Spanish for centuries. So, when one hears Ladino, or Judeo-Spanish, one hears a bit of Medieval/Renaissance Spanish!

 

If you speak Spanish, listen to it, and figure out how much you can understand. If you can't, but are curious anyway, click away!

 

Very interesting material, Doc. I believe that many of these Judaeo-Spanish speakers formerly lived in Thessalonica -- which used to be an extremely cosmopolitan city before the twentieth century and its successive nationalism/racism/ethnic cleansing/sorting-people-out crazes.

 

If I remember rightly, the other language called Ladino that you mention -- not the one that these samples belong to -- is spoken somewhere around the upper valley of the Adige, in (as you say) northeastern Italy.

[Nephele]

I enjoyed those snippets of Ladino, DoL! In NYC we have an old Ladino-speaking population, as the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue (at Central Park West and 70th Street) was built by the first Jewish congregation (Shearith Israel) in not only NYC, but also in all of North America. Up until the early 19th century, all of NYC's Jewish population -- Sephardi and Ashkenazi alike -- belonged to this congregation. So, Ladino became fairly established in NYC. I'm more familiar with Yiddish, myself, but I enjoy hearing Ladino spoken.

 

-- Nephele

[Gaius Octavius]

Re Italy:

 

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=e...GLD:en%26sa%3DN

 

Re 'Spanish', is it written from right to left?

[docoflove1974]

Re 'Spanish', is it written from right to left?

 

I don't know about today, but the previous documents that I've seen were from the Middle Ages, the Jewish population had two methods of writing, based on either the Roman/Romance alphabet and the Hebrew alphabet, with the method of writing reflecting the alphabet used.

[Publius Nonius Severus]

If you speak Spanish, listen to it, and figure out how much you can understand. If you can't, but are curious anyway, click away!

 

Very interesting. I could understand about 85-90% of what was spoken based on my Spanish. If you put someone speaking Ladino in front of me without giving any more information I would easily say that they were speaking speaking Castilian Spanish with a twinge of some unknown regional dialect.

[docoflove1974]

Very interesting. I could understand about 85-90% of what was spoken based on my Spanish. If you put someone speaking Ladino in front of me without giving any more information I would easily say that they were speaking speaking Castilian Spanish with a twinge of some unknown regional dialect.

 

Pretty much. There are several similarities to modern Castilian, but the biggest exceptions being the sibilants:

 

In Medieval Spanish the sibiliants (s-like sounds) changed drastically, and depending on when one is referring to, there could be any scenario. In the earlier Medieval times, there were three main sibiliants: an apical (apical = tip of tongue), a 'standard' alveolar , and a palatal 'sh'. The apical affricated to a [ts] sound, then fronted and became the interdental 'th' sound; this is represented in the writing system as either 'z' or 'ci/e'. The palatal 'sh' regressed to the velar position, and became a velar fricative [x], represented in the writing system as either 'j' or 'gi/e'. You hear both in the Judeo-Spanish samples.

 

Another sporatic element of the samples is [h]; depending on the timeframe again, you would either hear the original Latin [f] (falar), or perhaps an [h], or perhaps it's already been deleted. The sample has all of these elements...which is very interesting!

[Pantagathus]

Quick little revisit to this thread because I've recently become enamored with a band by the name of Pharoah's Daughter whose front-lady: Basya Schechter is Jewish. PD's songs are usually in some way adaptaions of Jewish-Arabic spiritual poetry/music (typically sung in Aramaic & Hebrew) and when I was first listening to the new album I was caught off gaurd by a song in which I actually understood what was being said; there were Spanish words in there!

 

Turns out to be a couple of songs in sung in Ladino adapted from Judeo-Spanish poets from the 11th-15th Centuries. Really quite awesome.

 

Of course, I thought about the Doc & this thread immediately.

[Ludovicus]

I don't know if this is interesting to anyone else but me, but I thought I'd post it here. A colleague sent this link; it contains audio samples of Judeo-Spanish, or Ladino.

 

Now, a quick lesson: in the Romance world, there are two 'Ladino' languages: for the Italians, it is a branch of Rhaeto-Romance spoken in Switzerland and North-East Italy (I can't recall the exact location--I'll edit this in later). For the Spanish-speaking world, 'ladino' refers to the variety of Spanish spoken by the Sephardic Jews, who represent those unlucky souls who were expelled from Spain following the Reconquest by the Catholic Monarchs (that would be Ferdinand and Isabel). These Sephardi spoke Spanish, naturally; what is interesting is that they have kept this same dialect of Spanish for centuries. So, when one hears Ladino, or Judeo-Spanish, one hears a bit of Medieval/Renaissance Spanish!

 

If you speak Spanish, listen to it, and figure out how much you can understand. If you can't, but are curious anyway, click away!

 

 

Thanks Docoflove! I understood all of it. Looks like stressed vowel "o" hadn't become Spanish "ue" yet in Ladino. Incidentally, one of the four official languages of Switzerland is related to Ladino. It's called Rumantsch. Here's a link with more about this Latin based language: http://www.all-about-switzerland.info/ruma...h-language.html

 

From Wikipedia: Ladin (Ladino in Italian, Ladin in Ladin, Ladinisch in German) is a Rhaeto-Romance language spoken in the Dolomite mountains in Italy, between the regions of Trentino-Alto Adige/S

Edited August 31, 2007 by Ludovicus

[Ingsoc]

Another intresting aspect of the Ladino is the de-christianisation it's made to the Spanish language.

 

For example sunday in Spanish is called Domingo ("the master day"as a refrence to Jesus) however in Ladini it's called Alhat (probably derive from the Arabic name for sunday).

[docoflove1974]

Thanks Docoflove! I understood all of it. Looks like stressed vowel "o" hadn't become Spanish "ue" yet in Ladino. Incidentally, one of the four official languages of Switzerland is related to Ladino. It's called Rumantsch. Here's a link with more about this Latin based language: http://www.all-about-switzerland.info/ruma...h-language.html

 

From Wikipedia: Ladin (Ladino in Italian, Ladin in Ladin, Ladinisch in German) is a Rhaeto-Romance language spoken in the Dolomite mountains in Italy, between the regions of Trentino-Alto Adige/S

[ASCLEPIADES]

Salve!

Both groups have "real" but different Ladinos; each word is a convergent but independent derivative of the Latin word "latinus" (ultimately coming from "Latium").

Both terms have independent entries on English dictionaries (vg, the Webster New World, 3rd Ed.):

The entry 'Ladino' corresponds usually to the "Judeo-Spanish",'Dzhudezmo' , 'Judeo-Espanyol'/'Djudio' (Turkish Jews), 'Hakitia' (Moroccan Jews) and 'Spanyol', all of them alternative names currently accepted by Ethnologue. The term got into English at 1889; it comes from medieval Castilian and is still used in nowadays Spanish meaning "sagacious, cunning, crafty," ie "someone knowing Latin".

The entry and preferred English spelling for the Rhaeto-Romanic dialect spoken in Switzerland and Tyrol is "Ladin" (Ladino in Italian, Ladinisch in German, Ladin in Ladin); it got into English a little earlier (1877).

Source: Online Etymology Dictionary.

Edited August 31, 2007 by ASCLEPIADES

[ASCLEPIADES]

Another intresting aspect of the Ladino is the de-christianisation it's made to the Spanish language.

 

For example sunday in Spanish is called Domingo ("the master day"as a refrence to Jesus) however in Ladini it's called Alhat (probably derive from the Arabic name for sunday).

The following explanation comes from the Orbilat website:

 

"Alh

[ASCLEPIADES]

Thanks Docoflove! I understood all of it. Looks like stressed vowel "o" hadn't become Spanish "ue" yet in Ladino.

There are some notorious examples of Ladino's archaizing metathesis and lack of diphthongization of some irregular verbs as in modern Castilian on both samples of this material: "recodros" instead of "recuerdos" on the first one and "acodro" instead of "acuerdo" on sample 2; the lady of this last one also says "hablates" instead of "hablaste".

[ASCLEPIADES]

I don't know if this is interesting to anyone else but me, but I thought I'd post it here.

 

This is an X-traordinarily interesting material; but more than anything, it is extremely beautiful.

 

Both ladies were clearly unable to hide the joyous emotion of tracking memories.