Cover not available
Part of
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
References (20)
References
Bénichou, P. (1945). Observaciones sobre el judeo-español de Marruecos. Revista de Filología Hispánica, VIII, 209-258.Google Scholar
Besso, H.V. (1964). Situación actual del judeoespañol. In G. Marañón & R. Menéndez Pidal (Eds.), Presente y futuro de la lengua española, Actas de la Asamblea de Filología del I Congreso de Instituciones Hispánicas (pp. 306-324). Madrid: Ediciones Cultura Hispánica.Google Scholar
Bradley, T.G., & Delforge, A.M. (2006). Phonological retention and innovation in the Judeo-Spanish of Istanbul. In T.L. Face & C.A. Klee (Eds.), Selected Proceedings of the 8th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium (pp. 73-88). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Bunis, D.M. (1993). A lexicon of the Hebrew and Aramaic elements in modern Judezmo. Jerusalem: Magnes.Google Scholar
Christodouleas, T. (2008). Judeo-Spanish and the Jewish Community of 21st Century Thessaloniki: Ethnic language shift in the maintenance of ethno cultural identity (Unpublished PhD dissertation). The Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Donath, K. (1999). Estudios sobre el judeo-español en México. Mexico, DF: INAH.Google Scholar
Gilmer, P.G. (1986). Judeo-Spanish to Turkish: Linguistic Correlates of Language Death (Unpublished PhD dissertation). University of Texas, Austin.
Harris, T. (1994). Death of a language: The history of Judeo-Spanish. Newark, NJ: University of Delaware Press.Google Scholar
Haspelmath, M. (2009). Lexical borrowing: Concepts and issues. In M. Haspelmath & U. Tadmor (Eds.), Loanwords in the world's languages: A comparative handbook (pp. 35-54). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hualde, J.I., & Şaul, M. (2011). Istanbul Judeo-Spanish. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 41(1), 89-110. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lewis, M.P., Simons, G.F., & Fennig, C.D. (Eds.). (2014). Ethnologue: Languages of the world (17th ed.). Dallas, TX: SIL International. Retrieved from: <[URL]>Google Scholar
Nemer, J. (1981). Sound Patterns and Strategies: Loanwords in Judeo-Spanish (Unpublished PhD dissertation). Indiana University, Bloomington, IN.Google Scholar
Romero, R. (2011a). Mainland vs. island: A comparative morphological study of Spanish-Turkish contact. In J. Michnowicz & R. Dodsworth (Eds.), Selected proceedings of the 5th Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics (pp. 50-56). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
. (2011b). Issues of Spanish language maintenance in the Prince Islands. In A. Cortazar & R. Orozco (Eds.), Lenguaje, arte y revoluciones ayer y hoy: New approaches to Hispanic linguistic, literary, and cultural studies (pp. 162-187). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar
. (2012). Spanish in the Bosphorus: A sociolinguistic study on the Judeo-Spanish dialect spoken in Istanbul. Istanbul: Libra.Google Scholar
. (2013). Palatal east meets velar west: Dialect contact and phonological accommodation in Judeo-Spanish. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 6(2), 279-299. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sachar, H. (1994). Farewell España: The world of the Sephardim remembered. New York, NY: Vintage.Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, S. (2006). Analyzing sociolinguistic variation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van Hout, R., & Muysken, P. (1994). Modeling lexical borrowability. Language Variation and Change, 6, 39-62. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Weinstock, N., & Séphiha, H.V. (1997). Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish: A European heritage. Brussels: Vanden Broele.Google Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two 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

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 25 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.