Judaeo-Portuguese

Judaeo-Portuguese, Lusitanic, or "Lusitanico" in Judaeo-Portuguese is the generally extinct Jewish language of the Jews of Portugal.

Description

The Judaeo-Portuguese language, known as Lusitanico to some, was the vernacular of Jews in Portugal before the sixteenth century and also in many places of the Portuguese Jewish diaspora. Texts were written in Hebrew letters (aljamiado português) or in Latin script.

As Portuguese Jews mingled with other expelled Sephardim, it influenced the Judaeo-Spanish or Ladino language, but was distinct from it, since Portuguese Jewry was never expelled but rather forced to convert to Christianity, through a mass baptism decreed by King Manuel I in 1497. Many of the new Christians, also known as conversos or marranos, continued to observe Judaism in secret. When the Inquisition was established in Portugal in 1536, a migratory movement to France, Italy (especially Leghorn) the Netherlands (especially Amsterdam), Northern Germany (especially Hamburg), and later to England, North America and South America began.

Due to close similarity with non-Jewish Portuguese, Judaeo-Portuguese died out in Portugal, surviving in the every-day usage in the diaspora until the early 19th century. It also influenced the Papiamento and Saramaccan languages.

Characteristics

Influences from Ladino

Portuguese archaisms

See also

• Ladino language
• History of the Jews in Portugal
• Spanish and Portuguese Jews
• Judaeo-Romance languages
• Mozarabic
• Jewish languages
• Yiddish language
• Haketia
• Tetuani
• Şalom
• Lusophone
• Lusophilia
• Sephardic Jews
• Lusitanic
• Judaism

References

• Judaeo-Portuguese in Jewish Language Research Center
• Thesouro dos Dinim, a Halakhic work
• Strolovitch, Devon L. (2005) Old Portuguese in Hebrew Script: Convention, Contact, and Convivência. Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.