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Spanish Language and Sociolinguistic Analysis
Edited by Sandro Sessarego and Fernando Tejedo-Herrero
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 8] 2016
► pp. 381–400

“Trabajar es en español, en ladino es lavorar”

Lexical Accommodation in Judeo-Spanish

| University of Houston-Downtown

This study analyzes lexical accommodation in Judeo-Spanish (JS) to model Peninsular and Latin American (PLA) Spanish varieties. Data were obtained through sociolinguistic interviews, including an oral translation task, conducted in Istanbul, the Prince Islands, and New York City. Although accommodation appears higher in those lexical items that involve phonological adaptation, such as changing a JS palatal to a PLA velar ([mu.ˈʒer] → [mu.ˈxer]), accommodation by lemma replacement is also a widely-used strategy (JS merkar → PLA comprar). Most of these lemmas appear in all three communities, and a statistical analysis demonstrated that accommodation is higher among speakers 60 years of age and younger. Also, New York City presents the highest percentages of accommodation, probably due to constant contact with other Hispanic and PLA Spanish-speaking populations in the United States. Additional sources and motivations for accommodation include having relatives in Spanish-speaking areas, language attitudes, and professional marketability in a globalized economy.

Keywords: dialect contact, Judeo-Spanish, Ladino, language attitudes, lexical accommodation
Published online: 25 May 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.8.17rom
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Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Kirschen, Bryan
2018. Sociolinguistics of Judeo‐Spanish. Language and Linguistics Compass 12:3 DOI logo
Kirschen, Bryan
2021. Spanish and Ladino in Contact in the United States. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 14:2 ► pp. 385 ff. DOI logo

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