Yevanic language

Yevanic
Romaniyot, Judaeo-Greek
יעואני גלוסא‎, γεβανί γλώσσα yevani glosa
Native toOriginally Greece, recently Israel, Turkey, United States
Native speakers
"A few semi-speakers left in 1987 [in Israel], and may be none now [as of 1996 or earlier]. There may be a handful of elderly speakers still in Turkey."[1]
Hebrew alphabet
Greek alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3yej
yej
Glottologyeva1238
ELPYevanic
Linguasphere56-AAA-am

Yevanic, also known as Judaeo-Greek, Romaniyot,[2] Romaniote, and Yevanitika,[3] is a Greek dialect formerly used by the Romaniotes and by the Constantinopolitan Karaites (in whose case the language is called Karaitika or Karaeo-Greek).[4][5] The Romaniotes are a group of Greek Jews whose presence in the Levant is documented since the Byzantine period. Its linguistic lineage stems from the Jewish Koine spoken primarily by Hellenistic Jews throughout the region, and includes Hebrew and Aramaic elements. It was mutually intelligible with the Greek dialects of the Christian population. The Romaniotes used the Hebrew alphabet to write Greek and Yevanic texts. Judaeo-Greek has had in its history different spoken variants depending on different eras, geographical and sociocultural backgrounds. The oldest Modern Greek text was found in the Cairo Geniza and is actually a Jewish translation of the Book of Ecclesiastes (Kohelet).[6]

  1. ^ Yevanic at Ethnologue (13th ed., 1996).
  2. ^ Spolsky, B., S. B. Benor. 2006. "Jewish Languages." In Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 120-124. http://legacy.huc.edu/faculty/faculty/benor/Spolsky%20and%20Benor%20jewish_languages%20offprint.pdf Archived 2018-10-03 at the Wayback Machine.
  3. ^ "¿Sabías que el Yevanic es una lengua clasificada como". Idiomas en peligro de extinción. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
  4. ^ Wexler, P. Jewish and Non-Jewish Creators of "Jewish" Languages, p. 17. 2006
  5. ^ Dalven, R. Judeo-Greek. In: Encyclopedia Judaica. 1971:426
  6. ^ Johannes Niehoff-Panagiotidis. Language of Religion, Language of the People: Medieval Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, p. 31, Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2006