Judeo-Latin

Judeo-Latin, La‘az or ebraico-Latino is a presumed Jewish language for 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"), and in the Middle Ages started to refer to Latin or Romance languages.

It has been posited that Judeo-Latin is the predecessor of all the Judaeo-Romance languages,^[1] although strong phonological evidence for this link is found primarily in Shuadit (Judeo-Provençal)^{[citation needed]}. 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.^{[citation needed]}

Corpus

There is not much extant record for the Judeo-Latin language. Leo Levi found some hebraisms a few epigraphs in Italy^[2]

Other possible source for Judeo-Latin are loanwords in other languages, like in Sardinian cenabura [ken'abura] 'Friday' (from Latin cena pura) and caputanni, 'September', a literal translation of Rosh Ha-Shanah.

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.

Related languages

The historical relationships between the various Judeo-Romance languages is subject to debate, and are only tenuously demonstrable at best. These languages include:

• Catalanic (Judeo-Catalan)
• Judeo-Italian
• Judeo-Aragonese
• Judeo-Portuguese
• Ladino (Judeo-Spanish)
• Shuadit (Judeo-Provençal)
• Zarphatic (Judeo-French)

1. ↑
   • Blondheim, D. S. 1927. Poèmes judéo-français du Moyen Age. Paris: Champion
   • WEINREICH, Max (1956). The Jewish languages of Romance stock and their relation to earliest Yiddish. RPh 9: 403-428.
2. ↑ Leo Levi, "Ricerca di epigrafia ebraica nell'Italia meridionale," La Rassegna mensile di Israel, vol. 28 (1962), pp. 152-153