Stability and instability among Jewish languages and alphabets

Abstract

Jewish languages, except for Hebrew, are varieties of other languages but have independent standard versions and independent dialect systems. They are typically written in the Hebrew alphabet. I would like to suggest that when the official language of a country is the same as the coterritorial spoken language, Jewish language shift takes place.

There was a shift from Aramaic to Greek or Judeo-Greek in the eastern Mediterranean in the early days of the Roman Empire, followed by a switch to Latin in the western half of the Roman Empire. Jews speaking Judeo-French lost their language after Jews were expelled from France in 1394.

Ashkenazic Jews did not lose their language when they left German-speaking areas but continued to speak Yiddish in the kingdom of Poland-Lithuania. Similarly, Sephardic Jews continued to use Ladino in the Ottoman Empire, but when Turkish switched to the Latin alphabet, Ladino did as well. After 500 years of being written in Hebrew (Aramaic) characters, Ladino today is written in the Latin alphabet, even in Israel.

Such a shift also occurred after the destruction of the First Temple, when Jews switched from Hebrew to Aramaic. Alphabet switch took place as well. What we now call the Hebrew alphabet is actually the Aramaic alphabet. The original Hebrew alphabet is used today only by the Samaritans, who at this time in history are not considered Jewish