From the Wypedia Encyclopedia"
The oldest and most treasured books of the Jewish people have been the
Torah and
Tanakh (i.e. the
Hebrew Bible) written almost entirely in
Biblical Hebrew and widely used by Jews during their history. Jews zealously studied these detailed Hebrew texts, observed the
commandments formulated in them, based their
prayers on them, and spoke its language. Jews maintained a belief that Hebrew was God's "language" as well (as it was the language God uses in the Torah itself), hence its name
"lashon hakodesh" ("Holy language" or "tongue").
The earliest surviving Hebrew inscription, the
Gezer Calendar, dates from the 10th century BCE; it was written in the so-called
Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, which continued to be used through the time of
Solomon's Temple until changed to the new "Assyrian lettering" (
ktav ashurit) by
Ezra the Scribe following the
Babylonian Exile. During this time there were also changes in the language, as it developed towards
Mishnaic Hebrew. Until then, most Jews had spoken
Hebrew in Israel and Judea, however, by the destruction of the
Second Temple, most had already shifted to speaking
Aramaic, with a significant number in the large diaspora speaking
Greek. As Jews emigrated to far-flung countries, and as the languages of the countries they were in changed, they often adopted the local languages, and thus came to speak a great variety of languages. During the early Middle Ages, Aramaic was the principal Jewish language. The
Targum and most of the
Talmud is written in Aramaic; later in the Middle Ages, most Jewish literary activity was carried out in
Judæo-Arabic:
Arabic written in the
Hebrew alphabet; this is the language
Maimonides wrote in. Hebrew itself remained in vigorous use for religious and official uses such as for all religious events,
Responsa, for writing Torah scrolls, and along with Aramaic, retained a position of importance for the writing of
marriage contracts and other literary purposes.
As time passed, these Jewish dialects often became so different from the parent languages as to constitute new languages, typically with a heavy influx of
Hebrew and
Aramaic loanwords and other innovations within the language. Thus were formed a variety of languages specific to the Jewish community; perhaps the most notable of these are
Yiddish in
Europe (mainly from
German) and
Ladino (from
Spanish), originally in
al-Andalus but spreading to other locations, mainly around the
Mediterranean, due to the 1492 expulsion of practicing Jews from Spain and the persecution by the
Inquisition of the
conversos.
Jews in the diaspora have tended to form segregated communities, in part due to ostracisation and persecution by the surrounding communities, and in part due to a desire to maintain their own culture. This sociological factor contributed to the formation of dialects that often developed and diverged to form separate languages.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Yiddish was the main language of Jews in
Eastern Europe (thus making it the language spoken by the majority of Jews in the world), while Ladino was widespread in the
Maghreb,
Greece, and
Turkey; smaller groups in Europe spoke such languages as
Judæo-Italian,
Yevanic, or
Karaim. The Jews of the
Arab world spoke
Judæo-Arabic varieties, while those of
Iran spoke
Dzhidi (Judæo-Persian); smaller groups spoke
Judæo-Berber,
Judæo-Tat or even, in
Kurdistan,
Judæo-Aramaic. The
Beta Israel were abandoning their
Kayla language for
Amharic, while the
Cochin Jews continued to speak
Malayalam.
What Is God's Language ?
