Contents
The Origins of Ladino
Ladino, otherwise known as Judeo-Spanish (also known as Judezmo, Dzhudezmo, or Spaniolit), is the spoken and written Hispanic language of Jews of Spanish origin dating back nearly a thousand years. The language originally developed from the Old Castilian Spanish spoken prior to and during the end of the Reconquista of Spain in the 15th century and included many elements of Hebrew and Aramaic. Ladino did not become a specifically Jewish language until after the expulsion from Spain in 1492 – it was merely the language of their provinces in the region. When the Jews were expelled from Spain and Portugal, they were cut off from the further development of the language, but continued to speak it in the communities and countries they immigrated to.
The further away from Spain the immigrants went, the more cut off they were from developments of the language in their native Spain, and the more Ladino began to diverge from mainstream Castilian Spanish.
In Amsterdam, England and Italy, those Jews who continued to speak ‘Ladino’ were in constant contact with Spain, allowing them to continue to speak the Castilian Spanish of the time. However, in the Sephardic communities of the Ottoman Empire, the language borrowed words from Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, Turkish, and even French, becoming more and more distorted from it original Catillian origins. This led to major splits in dialects of the language, forming into two primary regional dialects: “Oriental” and “Western”.
“Oriental” Ladino was spoken in areas like Turkey and Rhodes, closely resembling Castilian Spanish. By contrast, “Western” Ladino was spoken in Greece, Macedonia, Bosnia, Serbia and Romania, and preserved the characteristics of the northern Spanish and Portuguese. The vocabulary of Ladino includes hundreds of archaic Spanish words which have disappeared from modern Spanish and also include many words from different languages that have been substituted for the original Spanish word, from the various places Ladino speaking Jews settled. While some terms were transferred from one community to another through commercial or cultural exchanges, others remained unique to particular communities. These foreign words derived mainly from Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, Greek, French, and, to a lesser extent, Portuguese and Italian.
At one time, an estimated 80 percent of Diaspora Jews were Ladino-speaking.
Ladino Diversifies
By the beginning of the 20th century, with the spread of compulsory education in the language of the land in which Sephardic Jewish were living, Ladino began to disintegrate. An example of this is the weakening of Ladino in the Ottoman Empire, when French-medium schools operated by Alliance Israelite Universelle opened in the 1860s. In time Judaeo-Spanish became perceived as a low status language, and Sephardic people began losing connections to that language. Emigration to Israel from the Balkans during that time also hastened the decline of Ladino in Eastern Europe and Turkey.
The Nazis destroyed most of the communities in Europe where Ladino had been the first language among Jews. In Salonica (Thessaloniki), one of the largest European hubs for Sephardic life, the city housed over 50,000 Ladino speaking Jews out of a population of close to 300,000. Prior to the War, the primary language of commerce, government, and daily life was dominated by Ladino.
Heart and Soul Ladino: Saving Greece’s ancient Jewish language
Decline of Ladino
Ladino speakers who survived the Holocaust and emigrated to Latin America tended to pick up regular Spanish very quickly, while others adopted the language of the country they eventually immigrated to in the 20th century. Israel and the United States are now the countries with the greatest number of Ladino speakers. Today, Israel has an estimated 200,000 people who still speak or understand Ladino, either with native/advanced speaking capabilities or basic understanding of the language.
Ladino is in a serious danger of extinction because many native speakers today are elderly and have not transmitted the language to their children or grandchildren.
Traditionally, Ladino was written in either the Hebrew script, Rashi script, or in Solitreo, a cursive script based on Hebrew and unique to only Judeo-Espanyol. It is only in the 20th century that Ladino has been written using the Latin alphabet. In fact, what is known as ‘Rashi script’ was originally a Ladino script used centuries after Rashi’s death in printed books to differentiate Rashi’s commentary from the text of the Torah.
Written Ladino
The 21st century has ushered in a revival of Ladino. People, especially those who are descendants of Sephardic Jews, have a renewed interest in learning it.
This revival has manifested in a few different ways. Online communities have formed, which has allowed people from all over the world to connect over their mutual interest in the language. Ladinokomunita. Sephardic Studies is an internet site where approximately 700 Ladino-speakers worldwide socialize via the internet in Ladino. The weekly Turkish Jewish paper also publishes one page in Ladino.
In 2003 the Ottoman-Turkish Sephardic Culture Research Centre was established in Istanbul. It is a hub for everything relating to Turkey’s Jewish communities including the Judeo-Spanish language. As of 2011, American universities including Tufts University and the University of Pennsylvania are offering courses in the Ladino. Prof. David Bunis taught Judaeo-Spanish at the University of Washington, in Seattle during the 2013–14 academic year and returned to the University of Washington for the Summer 2020 quarter. The Sorbonne in Paris has opened a Department of Judeo-Spanish.
From 2017, the five major Israeli universities all teach Ladino and have departments concentrating on Sephardic studies, including a major world centre at Bar Ilan University and the Moshe David Gaon Centre for Ladino culture at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, which is leading the way in education (language and literature courses, community oriented activities) and research (a yearly scientific journal, international congresses and conferences etc.). Israel has established the National Authority for Ladino in addition to the Maale-Adumim Institute for Ladino with the sole purpose of preserving the language.
In Spain, the Spanish Royal Academy (RAE) in 2019 established a Judaeo-Spanish branch in Israel in addition to 23 existing academies, in various Spanish-speaking countries, that are associated in the Association of Spanish Language Academies. Its stated purpose is to preserve Judaeo-Spanish. The move was seen as another step to make up for the Expulsion, following the offer of Spanish citizenship to Sephardim who had some connection with Spain.
While academic studies of the language are important, what’s really driving the interest in the language is art. Many musical artists have started writing songs in Ladino as a way to keep it culturally relevant. There are Ladino cultural festivals. There are also new Ladino translations of old stories, and entirely new writing. Artists from across mediums are finding ways to incorporate the language.
In addition Kol Yisrael and Radio Nacional de España hold regular radio broadcasts in Judaeo-Spanish. Law & Order: Criminal Intent showed an episode, titled “A Murderer Among Us“, with references to the language. Films partially or totally in Judaeo-Spanish include Mexican film Novia que te vea (directed by Guita Schyfter), The House on Chelouche Street, and Every Time We Say Goodbye.
Efforts have been made to gather and publish modern Judaeo-Spanish fables and folktales. In 2001, the Jewish Publication Society published the first English translation of Judaeo-Spanish folktales, collected by Matilda Koen-Sarano, Folktales of Joha, Jewish Trickster: The Misadventures of the Guileful Sephardic Prankster. A survivor of Auschwitz, Moshe Ha-Elion, issued his translation into Judeo-Spanish of the ancient Greek epic Odyssey in 2012, in his 87th year, and later completed a translation of the sister epic, the Iliad, into his mother tongue.
There is one notable difference between modern Ladino and that used before: it’s now much more common to see the language written using the Latin alphabet. It’s unclear why exactly the shift happened — perhaps those reviving it are used to using the Latin alphabet — but it doesn’t affect the spoken version of the language.
There’s plenty to be optimistic about with Ladino, but the language is far from being widely spoken. Bringing a language back from the brink of death is difficult, and it requires people actually using the language in their day-to-day life. One of the only successful attempts at reviving a language was Hebrew, and that was part of a larger project of nation-building. The desire to keep an old language alive can be very strong, particularly when it’s tied to your ancestral identity, but it’s never easy.
However, enormous effort will be required to teach and use the language if it is not to become extinct in the near future.
A Ladino Revival
Additional Resources
2000 Sephardi Jewry: A History of the Judeo-Spanish Community, 14th-20th Centuries
Esther Benbassa and Aron Rodrigue
Judezmo (Ladino/Judeo-Spanish) A Historical and Sociolinguistic Portrait
Bunis, David. (2018)
An Overview of Ladino: The Origins, Survival and Resurgence of Judeo-Spanish
Goodman, Rachel S, (2014). MA TESOL Collection. 698.
500 years of Ladino literary creativity on display in unique exhibit By Avner Perez
Fun expressions and phrases in Ladino
History and debates about Ladino
Ladino 101: A Beginner’s Guide to the Language
What is the Ladino Language? | History of Judeo-Spanish 1492-2024
YouTube Channel: History With Hilbert
Excellent in depth explanations of how the language is used.
The Rise and Fall of Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), 16th-20th Centuries
Prof. Aron Rodrigue Judaic Studies University of Arizona
Documentary: The Last Sephardic Jew (with subtitles in English)
Directed by Miguel Ángel Nieto in 2003
YouTube Channel: iBebiZi
@Sarah Aroeste
On X (Twitter)
@Ladino 21
On X (Twitter)
El Ponte, The Ladino Podcast
Ladino Refranes: idioms, insults & dirty words
The Leventini Podcast
The Schmooze, The Yiddish Book Centre Episode 85: Collecting Ladino Books: A conversation with Devin Naar
Library of Congress Ladino Transliteration Table
Learn How to Write Soletreo (the Ladino Alphabet)
A Guide to reading and writing Judezmo by David M Bunis
Documenting Judeo Spanish in Solitreo
2000 Sephardi Jewry: A History of the Judeo-Spanish Community, 14th-20th Centuries
Esther Benbassa and Aron Rodrigue
Judezmo (Ladino/Judeo-Spanish) A Historical and Sociolinguistic Portrait
Bunis, David. (2018)
An Overview of Ladino: The Origins, Survival and Resurgence of Judeo-Spanish
Goodman, Rachel S, (2014). MA TESOL Collection. 698.
500 years of Ladino literary creativity on display in unique exhibit By Avner Perez
Fun expressions and phrases in Ladino
History and debates about Ladino
Ladino 101: A Beginner’s Guide to the Language
What is the Ladino Language? | History of Judeo-Spanish 1492-2024
YouTube Channel: History With Hilbert
Excellent in depth explanations of how the language is used.
The Rise and Fall of Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), 16th-20th Centuries
Prof. Aron Rodrigue Judaic Studies University of Arizona
Documentary: The Last Sephardic Jew (with subtitles in English)
Directed by Miguel Ángel Nieto in 2003
YouTube Channel: iBebiZi
@Sarah Aroeste
On X (Twitter)
@Ladino 21
On X (Twitter)
El Ponte, The Ladino Podcast
Ladino Refranes: idioms, insults & dirty words
The Leventini Podcast
The Schmooze, The Yiddish Book Centre Episode 85: Collecting Ladino Books: A conversation with Devin Naar
Library of Congress Ladino Transliteration Table
Learn How to Write Soletreo (the Ladino Alphabet)
A Guide to reading and writing Judezmo by David M Bunis
Documenting Judeo Spanish in Solitreo
Sources and References
- “Will Ladino Rise Again?” Chabad.org. Available at: https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1085545/jewish/Will-Ladino-Rise-Again.htm.
- “Rescuing Ladino from the Flames of History”. Aish.com. Available at: https://aish.com/rescuing-ladino-from-the-flames-of-history/.
- “What Is Ladino?” Sephardic Brotherhood. Available at: https://www.sephardicbrotherhood.com/what-is-ladino.
- “What Is Ladino?” Babbel Magazine. Available at: https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/what-is-ladino.
- “9 Things to Know About Ladino”. My Jewish Learning. Available at: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/9-things-to-know-about-ladino/.
- “Music”. Jewish Rhodes. Available at: https://jewishrhodes.org/music/.
- “Judaeo-Spanish”. Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaeo-Spanish#cite_note-61.