Judeo-Latin, or La‘az is the presumed Jewish language of the many scattered Jewish communities of the former Roman Empire, but especially by the Jewish communities of the Italian Peninsula and Transalpine Gaul. "La`az" (לעז) is Hebrew for "foreign language" (i.e., specifically, "non-Hebrew language").
It has been posited that Judeo-Latin is the predecessor of all the Judeo-Romance languages, although strong phonological evidence for this link is found primarily in Shuadit (Judeo-Provençal). This theory holds that Shuadit and Zarphatic grew out of two variants of La‘az ha-Ma‘rav (western Judeo-Latin) and that Judeo-Italian grew out of La‘az ha-Darom (southern Judeo-Latin). The relationship to Catalanic, Ladino and Judæo-Portuguese is much more tenuous.
Judeo-Latin likely influenced not only the Judeo-Romance languages, but also the Yiddish language and Rotwelsch, through its posited daughter languages, Judeo-Italian, Shuadit and Zarphatic.
The historical relationships between the various Judeo-Romance languages is subject to debate, and are only tenuously demonstrable at best. These languages include:
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