Editing Jewish languages (section)

== Classification ==
{{More citations needed section|date=September 2024}}
Jewish languages are generally defined as the unique linguistic [[variety (linguistics)|varieties]] of Jewish communities in the diaspora in their contact with surrounding non-Jewish languages.<ref name=Handbook/> Languages vary in their [[Abstand and ausbau languages|distance and divergence]] from their non-Jewish sister languages.<ref name=Handbook/> For example, [[Judeo-Yemeni Arabic]] is quite similar to some non-Jewish varieties of [[Yemeni Arabic]], while [[Yiddish]], a [[Germanic language]], shows a high degree of dissimilarity to modern German dialects. Due to continued liturgical and literary use of Hebrew and Aramaic, Jewish communities were naturally in a state of [[diglossia]].<ref name=Chaim>[http://www.adath-shalom.ca/rab_vi.pdf A Short History of the Hebrew Language: Hebrew in the Diaspora]</ref> Along with their vernacular Jewish language, most Jews could read and write in Hebrew, which was necessary to fulfill the religious commandment to learn [[Torah]] and teach it. Jews were expected to also have knowledge of Judeo-Aramaic, the language of religious commentary (''targumim'') as well as many prayers, including the [[Kaddish]]. Hebrew, the "Holy Tongue", was the highest linguistic [[Register (sociolinguistics)|register]] in these communities, used for liturgy and study. Hebrew-Aramaic is the only [[Stratum (linguistics)#adstratum|adstratum]] shared by all Jewish languages.<ref name=Handbook/> 
Some Jewish languages have multiple registers; for example, both Yiddish and [[Judaeo-Spanish|Judezmo]] have three [[Register (sociolinguistics)|linguistic register]]s: colloquial, written, and scholarly-liturgical.

Some Jewish languages show the effects of the history of language shift among the speakers, including Hebrew-Aramaic influence. Yiddish exemplifies such a language. Some Jewish languages may become marked as distinctively Jewish because some shift affected some parts of the language as a whole. For example, what is today known as [[Baghdad Jewish Arabic]] (because it is the [[Varieties of Arabic|Arabic variety]] that was up until recently spoken by Baghdad's Jews) was originally the Arabic dialect of Baghdad itself and was used by all religious groups in Baghdad, but the Muslim residents of Baghdad later adopted Bedouin dialects of Arabic. Similarly, a dialect may be perceived as Jewish because its Jewish speakers brought the dialect of another region with them when they were displaced. In some cases, this may cause a dialect to be perceived as "Jewish" in some regions but not in others.

Some Jewish language varieties may not be [[Dialect#Dialect or language|classified]] as [[language]]s due to [[mutual intelligibility]] with their parent language, as with [[Judeo-Malayalam]] and [[Judaeo-Spanish|Judeo-Spanish]]. In the case of [[Judaeo-Spanish|Judeo-Spanish]], also known as Ladino, linguistically it is a dialect of [[Spanish language|Spanish]], mutually intelligible with other [[Spanish dialects and varieties]], albeit with [[influences on the Spanish language|each Spanish dialect having loanwords and influences]] from different source languages: [[Nahuatl]] and [[Mayan languages|Maya]] loanwords and influences for [[Mexican Spanish]]; [[Quechuan languages|Quechua]] and [[Aymara language|Aymara]] in [[Peruvian Spanish]]; [[Italian language|Italian]], Quechua and [[Guarani language|Guaraní]] in [[Rioplatense Spanish|Argentinian Spanish]]; [[Maghrebi Arabic]] and [[Berber languages|Berber]] in "Ladino Occidental" (also known as [[Haketia]]); [[Levantine Arabic]], [[Greek language|Greek]], [[Turkish language|Turkish]] and [[South Slavic languages|South Slavic]] in "Ladino Oriental".

In some cases, as with Judeo-Spanish, a register may be developed for Biblical translation and exegesis in which Hebrew-Aramaic patterns are frequently [[calque]]d, though the number of true Hebrew and/or Aramaic loanwords may be low. Another possibility is that Jews may speak the same language as their non-Jewish neighbors, but occasionally insert Hebrew-Aramaic or other Jewish elements. This is a transitory state in the shift from the use of Jewish to a non-Jewish language, often made in the context of assimilation. This occurred, for example, with many educated German Jews who transitioned from Western Yiddish to German. This variety of German, used between 1760 and the end of the 19th century (the [[Haskala]]), was written with the [[Hebrew alphabet]], and contained a small number of Hebrew and Yiddish loans. An example is [[Moses Mendelssohn]]'s translation of the Hebrew Bible into German written with Hebrew letters.

[[Judaeo-Papiamento|Judeo-Papiamento]], the only living Jewish [[ethnolect]] endemic to the [[Americas]] and likely the only one that is also a [[creole language]], has lexical differences from its non-Jewish counterpart that go beyond the influence of Hebrew and Aramaic. In formal contexts, Sephardic Jewish speakers of [[Papiamento]] tend to use extensive borrowing from [[French language|French]] and [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]], whereas non-Jewish [[Curaçao]]ans mostly use [[Spanish language|Spanish]] loanwords in similar contexts.<ref>{{cite magazine|last = Shabashewitz|first = Dor|date = 2023|title = A yidishe kreol-shprakh in di Karibishe indzlen [A Jewish creole language in the Caribbean]|url = https://forward.com/yiddish/551529/a-jewish-creole-language-in-the-caribbean/|language = yi|magazine = [[Forverts]]|accessdate = 2023-06-26}}</ref>

[[File:Nayot 1.JPG|thumb|240px|Signpost in [[Israel]], showing directions in [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]], [[Arabic language|Arabic]], and transliterated into [[Latin script]].]]
[[File:KJ bus stop sign.jpg|thumb|150px|left|Signs in [[English language|English]] and [[Yiddish]] in the predominantly [[Hasidic Judaism|Hasidic]] area of [[Kiryas Joel, New York]]]]