On Judeo-Spanish Linguistic Diversity

The author, with Rachel Amado Bortnick and Daisy Braverman, during a Solitreo workshop at UCLA in 2014

By Rey Romero¹

Introduction: Is this Judeo-Spanish?

Recently, during one of eSefarad’s Enkontros de Alhad, a virtual meeting entirely in Judeo-Spanish, one of the participants asked if the Judeo-Spanish currently spoken by Turkish Sephardim, heavily influenced by Turkish pronunciation and vocabulary, should be deemed “Judeo-Spanish enough” to be accepted as a model for instruction and preservation efforts. The participant pointed out that the verb konushear ‘to speak,’ from Turkish konuşmak, was never used in his family, and that the ‘correct’ term should be avlar. Others argued that younger generations, who are more proficient in Turkish than in Judeo-Spanish, tend to incorporate Turkish words because they may not know or occasionally forget the Judeo-Spanish term. Finally, a third participant claimed that konushear was used in Salonika, well before the demise of Judeo-Spanish communities. This question revealed a recurrent anxiety among participants in revitalization efforts: What is and what is not Judeo-Spanish? In other words, which elements of the present spoken language should be considered part of its linguistic repertoire, and which elements should be considered extraneous and foreign. Inevitably, creators of didactic materials, translations, and new literary works seek guidance in an elusive standard as they try to decide which words to employ in their Judeo-Spanish discourse, sometimes using a combination of personal choice, dictionaries, other written works, or loke dizía la nona. From a linguistic perspective, natural languages are not uniform, but rather they exhibit a wide range of variation and variability. Standardized languages are an artificial version idealized by a top-down approach, an imposed set of rules that must be followed in order to obtain a high level of legitimacy. This means that standardization, no matter its intention or level of implementation, tends to efface the true richness of the language and runs the risk of promoting an artificial variety potentially unrecognized by native speakers. In this brief primer, I intend to present the many ways in which Judeo-Spanish exhibits variation. My goal is that activists who spearhead revitalization efforts become aware of this linguistic wealth, and, instead of seeing it as a problem, learn to view it as a resource to promote authentic language restoration.

Inherent variation

The first source of linguistic variation in Judeo-Spanish is inherent variability present in all languages. Languages, as codes, often have more than one way (signifier) to refer to the same concept (signified). Although these forms may not actually be fully synonymous or have the same distribution, we can assume that robust varieties of Judeo-Spanish inherited different words or constructions for same or similar concepts, and that these forms already existed as part of the linguistic component forged in the Iberian Peninsula or later as the Sephardim settled in the Ottoman Empire. For example, Wagner’s (1914) collection of Sephardic folktales from Istanbul attested several synonyms such as djaro and djara ‘jar,’ pruntó and demandó ‘he asked,’ le agradó and le plazió ‘he liked it,’ and the presence of both analytic (vo azer ‘I am going to do’) and synthetic (suviré ‘I will go up’) forms of the future tense. These forms exist in Judeo-Spanish without containing any information about the speakers or the contexts in which they use them. Creators of language materials and other components of language revitalization efforts should be aware of these forms and not give preference or claim that only one form is correct. We must remember that this variation is symptomatic of a healthy language and claiming that one form is better may alienate members of the community who use both forms indiscriminately.

Idiolectal variation

Simply put, idiolectal variation occurs at the individual level. This means that every person will have their own way of speaking and molding their language. This variety is unique, just as every person is unique. Examples include the usage of certain words or phrases in an innovative way, the use of fillers, peculiar pronunciation, and even sentence structures. For example, in Luria’s (1930) interviews from Monastir (Bitola), Mr. Yahuda Negrin uses the phrase ti dishi a mi sinyó ‘I told you, Sir,’ in which the preposition a seems extraneous and the use of ti to signal respect is innovative (to the point that it would be considered incorrect in other varieties!). However, it appears that he is the only interviewee who uses this combination, and thus these structures would not be representative of the dialect of Monastir, but only of the idiolect of Mr. Negrin. Researchers need to be careful how much they can extrapolate from the speech sample of only one participant, as we cannot claim that their features are present throughout the community. For example, Taylor (1965) interviewed only one participant for her study on the Beirut dialect; and Hualde and Şaul (2011) based their phonological study on Istanbul Judeo-Spanish solely on the speech of one of the coauthors. Although in some situations it would be extremely difficult to find a large sample of speakers, researchers must be aware and caution on the limited representativeness of these studies. In the case of revitalization activists, they too must be careful not to assume that their individual variety should be taken as a model to develop instructional and literary materials. It would be best to consult with a team of several speakers from the same community or utilize written resources or recordings if native speakers are unavailable; this would ensure the production of materials representative of that community, rather than of just one person.

Sociolectal variation

Sociolectal variation differs according to social network or social group. This variation could occur in any aspect of the language, including its pronunciation (phonological variation), vocabulary (lexical variation), and grammar (syntactic variation). In a thriving language community, any social group will use a different way of speaking as a way to identify each other. Speakers select certain words or constructions to reveal information about themselves and their social networks. However, it would be difficult to study sociolectal variation in current varieties of Judeo-Spanish because the language is not spoken by all age groups of Sephardim, and it is not spoken in all social situations or social groups. This lack of range prevents identifying sociolects within the community, but certainly these did exist previously. For instance, Bunis (1982) identified several social groups among the Sephardic men in Istanbul at the turn of the 21^st century. According to his research, the community contained at least four social groups: gevirim, benonim, dalad aam, and the hahamim. Each of these groups spoken a different kind of Judeo-Spanish. The gevirim (upper class) and benomim (middle class such as merchants, bankers, and craftsmen) spoke a westernized variety of Judeo-Spanish, heavily influenced by the French they had studied during elementary education. The dalad aam (lower class such as manual laborers, street vendors, maids, porters) spoke the ádeta kabá (ordinary, common) variety of Judeo-Spanish. The men in this group had only received rudimentary Jewish education, preventing them from incorporating more French borrowings. On the other hand, due to proximity with other Ottoman groups, their Judeo-Spanish contained borrowings from Turkish and Greek. Bunis calls this group “the faithful bearers of the language.” Finally, the hahamim (rabbinical class composed of judges, rabbis, and scholars) used a variety of Judeo-Spanish that was influenced by Hebrew and Aramaic borrowings. Thus, one could potentially be able to identify a speaker’s social group by the kind of Judeo-Spanish they spoke. Creators of language materials should be aware of sociolectal variation because speakers have inherited sociolectal vocabulary or grammatical constructions introduced by their families into their home. It is also likely that current speakers have negative or positive attitudes towards a certain way of speaking or specific word usage. Creators of didactic materials should not favor one sociolect over another and should be mindful to include forms understood by most speakers or provide several possible forms for specific constructions whenever possible. They should also be mindful of any biases that could be exhibited directly or indirectly. For instance, claiming that borrowings from Greek and Turkish are not part of Judeo-Spanish, but that those from Hebrew are acceptable, clearly favors the hahamim variety.

Geolectal variation

Geolectal varieties differ according to geography. Outside of the field of linguistics, this is what most people would call “dialects.” Several geolectal varieties of Judeo-Spanish developed in Ottoman territories that contained distinct phonology and vocabulary. Geolectal variation probably arose due to the different patterns of settlement in Ottoman lands, the Iberian origins of the Sephardim, degree of contact with other Judeo-Spanish varieties, and even influence from languages in Ottoman lands such as Turkish, Serbo-Croat, Greek, Rumanian, and others. The major geolectal varieties include the Judeo-Spanish spoken in Istanbul (Varol-Bornes 2008; Romero 2012), Salonika or Thessaloniki (Christodouleas 2008), Monastir or Bitola (Luria 1930), and Bucharest (Crews 1935; Sala 1970). It is debatable if Haketia or Moroccan Judeo-Spanish should be included in this list, since it developed outside Ottoman lands and it was heavily influenced by Arabic, but it is somewhat intelligible with Judeo-Spanish, as proven by its inclusion in several Enkontros de Alhad. Other varieties include that of Rhodes (Clewlow 1990), Beirut (Taylor 1965), Izmir (Gilmer 1986), and from other communities in the Balkans and the Levant. Bunis (1975) provides the following examples to illustrate each major geolectal block. I have transcribed these using the Aki Yerushalayim Latin alphabet:

Istanbul: mi vezino ama la ijika de mi tía
Salonika: mi vezino ama la fijika de mi tía
Bucharest: mi vizinu ama la fijika di mi tía
Monastir: mi vizinu ame la fijike di mi tíe

The examples above illustrate differences in pronunciation, but lexical differences also exist. For instance, in Istanbul Judeo-Spanish ‘far’ is leshos, whereas in the Salonikan variety the equivalent is londje. Similarly, Istanbul Judeo-Spanish uses azer for ‘to do,’ whereas Salonika, Bucharest, and Monastir use fazer. These phonological and lexical differences, as well as borrowings from several contact languages, have created several geolects of Judeo-Spanish. Authors of teaching materials need to be aware of these geolectal differences and try to incorporate a wide variety of texts from different geographical sources. Even when one particular dialect is taken as a model (for instance, a Jewish school in Istanbul might want to focus solely on the Istanbul geolect), effort should be made, whenever necessary, to explain that other equally valid forms exist. Most importantly, revitalization materials should never claim that one geolect is better or “more correct” than others, and these should be developed in an inclusive manner. Inclusivity must be practiced in revitalization events, such as concerts, courses, and talks, as Sephardim from different geographical backgrounds come together to utilize and appreciate the language. For an in-depth account of Judeo-Spanish geolects, the reader should consult Quintana Rodríguez’s (2006) opus Geografía lingüística del judeoespañol: Estudio sincrónico y diacrónico.

Language Contact

A major source of variation in Judeo-Spanish is contact with other languages during the formation of geolectal varieties in the Ottoman Empire or through the speakers’ individual experience with bilingualism. Communities interacted with different linguistic groups in the vast Ottoman territories and consequently borrowed a plethora of words from them. Thus, Istanbul Judeo-Spanish is heavily influenced by Turkish lexicon (for example, kibrites ‘matches,’ arabá ‘car,’ suluk ‘breathing,’ and kulanear ‘to use or employ’), whereas Bucharest Judeo-Spanish borrowed from Romanian (kroitor ‘tailor,’ mazura ‘measurement,’ roke ‘suit,’) (Varol 2006, Varol-Bornes 2008, Crews 1935, Sala 1970). Moreover, especially during the Ottoman period, linguistic communities were not defined by national borders, and thus words were borrowed from Turkish, Greek, Italian, and even Serbo-Croatian without Judeo-Spanish speakers settling in those homelands. During the 19^th and 20^th centuries, the Alliance Israélite Universelle, a France-based organization that sought to ‘modernize’ Sephardim in the Ottoman Empire, North Africa, and the Middle East, imposed French as the language of education. Finally, during the age of nationalism since the early 20^th century, post-Ottoman nations in the Balkans and Middle East forced their own official languages on their local populations, thereby accelerating language contact among Judeo-Spanish speakers. In a recent study on Judeo-Spanish spoken in Istanbul, the community spoke French, Hebrew, Greek, Italian, German, and English, in addition to Turkish and Judeo-Spanish (Romero 2012, 84). In fact, Séphiha claims that modern Judeo-Spanish vocabulary consists of twenty percent French borrowings, fifteen from Turkish, and about ten percent from Hebrew and Aramaic (Séphiha 1997, 99). Although his figures are debatable, this serves to illustrate that multilingualism has been the norm for Sephardic populations. To be sure, each Judeo-Spanish variety utilizes different words according to their linguistic experience. For example, in the same study on the Istanbul community, speakers who had migrated to Israel and decided to return to Turkey employed several Hebrew terms in their Judeo-Spanish discourse such as mediná ‘State (of Israel),’ bétah ‘of course,’ yófi ‘nice, OK,’ and saftá, ‘grandmother’ (Romero 2012, 85). For revitalization efforts, it is important to validate these varieties and their usage of borrowings from other languages, as this is their version of Judeo-Spanish that best reflects their sociolinguistic experience. Activists should emphasize that Judeo-Spanish has always adapted loanwords from its very inception, and favoring an espanyol halis would only deprive the Sephardic language of its richness and history.

Heritage Language

The term ‘heritage language”’can be somewhat elusive, as linguists have used it to label a range of sociolinguistic situations. By ‘heritage language’ I refer to languages acquired in the home or community environment in situations where another language acts as the official or dominant language. Moreover, this power imbalance leads to unbalanced bilingualism; that is, the heritage language is used in fewer and fewer situations and contexts, accelerating its disuse to the point it is no longer transmitted to future generations. This is the exact situation for Judeo-Spanish since the mid-twentieth century, as nationalistic language policies compelled entire communities to shift to the national language, creating bilingual generations that made it difficult to continue the transmission of the home language. Already by the 1980s, Séphiha claimed there were no Judeo-Spanish monolinguals, thereby eliminating its exclusive use by Sephardic communities (1986, 34-5).

Research in heritage languages has demonstrated that these differ from robust, vibrant monolingual varieties of the same language. First, heritage language speakers incorporate a greater amount of vocabulary and phrases from the dominant language, including codeswitching between both languages during the same discourse. Secondly, they may also change the grammar of the heritage language to mimic that of the dominant language. And, thirdly, the heritage language tends to have a reduced number of grammatical categories compared to that of a monolingual variety. In Romero (2012), all these characteristics were attested among Judeo-Spanish speakers in Istanbul. For example, speakers ages 44 and younger failed to agree feminine nouns with feminine adjectives, up to 24% of all cases, producing sentences such as: Esta dia es ermozo and Mi kaza no es muevo (Romero 2012, 156, 190). More research is needed to establish the needs of Judeo-Spanish heritage speakers, especially as they are integral for language revitalization. Revitalization activists should be aware that most heritage speakers have a good grasp on home vocabulary and essential grammar, but they will need help to expand their vocabulary to other contexts, and they will need instruction in differentiating and applying grammatical categories such as gender (masculine/feminine), number (singular/plural), and mood (indicative/subjunctive) agreement. Heritage speakers of Judeo-Spanish should not be discouraged nor criticized for their variety. They have managed to acquire their version of Judeo-Spanish in the home in spite of immense societal pressure. They have inherited their Judeo-Spanish from their parents and grandparents, and they are essential for the language’s future.

Liturgical and Traditional Language

So far, we have been focusing on Judeo-Spanish varieties that are primarily spoken. Now, we turn our attention to those varieties that exist in written form. The liturgical and written variety of Judeo-Spanish is known as Ladino, and, traditionally, it was used as a calque or word-for-word translation from Hebrew and Aramaic for religious texts (Séphiha 1973). Bunis (1996) argues that it is possible that Ladino was affected by regional variation, including pronunciation and lexicon. I would also consider that spoken varieties probably borrowed some words from Ladino, especially for religious and legal concepts. Nonetheless, we should consider Ladino as a separate linguistic entity from Judeo-Spanish, being exclusively written and liturgical, even though modern revitalization efforts use the label to refer to the spoken language. A related variety is the traditional language, especially the one used in kantikas or folk songs. Many of these songs originate in medieval Spain, and therefore they contain vocabulary and grammatical constructions that are not extant or understood in the spoken language. For example, the combinations konmigo ‘with me’ and kontigo ‘with you’ are considered antiquated in the vernacular, as the modern forms are kon mi and kon ti. Similarly, both Ladino and the language of the kantikas overutilize the combination of article plus possessive, as in la mi madre ‘my mother,’ rarely used in the spoken language. Judeo-Spanish revitalization activists should be careful not to use texts from Ladino or kantikas to teach grammatical or vocabulary concepts. Even though these texts are a vital source for learning about Sephardic culture and religion, they do not represent the oral Judeo-Spanish linguistic repertoire faithfully.

Language standardization

Since the late 20^th century, there have been several efforts to standardize Judeo-Spanish. Unfortunately, language activists seem to believe that standardization is essential for revitalization, and a principal focus has been regulating the written language. Perhaps the most significant success in standardization has been the implementation of the Aki Yerushalayim Latin script for modern publications. In 1999, the Israel-based Autoridad Nasionala de Ladino i su Kultura held a conference to discuss the elaboration of a standardized orthography for Ladino in Latin characters. The conference selected the script used by the tri-annual review Aki Yeruhalayim, then the world’s only publication entirely in Judeo-Spanish (Amado Bortnick 2001, 3). This orthography is highly phonetic and, due to its easy application in a western keyboard, it was quickly disseminated through the internet, especially in online communities such as Ladinokomunita where moderators ‘adjusted’ member messages with the new spelling (Amado Bortnick 2001, 7-8). The success of the Aki Yerushalayim has been total, to the point that new publications in Judeo-Spanish employ it nearly exclusively, including already extant journals such as Şalom and El Amaneser, new literary translations, and teaching materials.

Another regulatory institution emerged in 2017, as the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language (henceforth RAE) decided to establish the Akademia Nasionala del Ladino, funded by the Israeli government. Finally accepted as a member of the Association of Spanish Language Academies in 2019, the Akademia Nasionala del Ladino’s primary goal is the assessment, study, and preservation of Judeo-Spanish in Israel (Jones 2017; RAE 2019). It is too early to evaluate how the Akademia Nasionala will impact the standardization of Judeo-Spanish, but its closeness to the RAE, a traditionally prescriptive institution which claims to supervise the purity of the Spanish language, is troubling for Judeo-Spanish diversity. Finally, other efforts at standardization include the production of dictionaries and textbooks that, even though extremely helpful for students, must implicitly decide which entries or aspects of grammar should be included or excluded as part of the Judeo-Spanish language.

A major drawback of language standardization is that the standardized version could be based on one variety. This means that speakers of the model variety would have an easier time learning and implementing these rules, unlike speakers of divergent varieties. For example, speakers from Istanbul could very easily learn the Aki Yerushalayim orthography, unlike those from Monastir and Bucharest, namely because of vowel raising in the latter. To illustrate, following this spelling, we can write the words gato ‘cat’ and kaza ‘house,’ which are pronounced /gato/ and /kaza/ in Istanbul, but /gatu/ and /kaze/ in Monastir and /gatu/ and /kaza/ in Bucharest. Indeed, we can see how standardization that favors one variety over others may lead to intracommunal discord, and could be counterproductive, alienating the few remaining speakers. Revitalization activists should be careful not to use a standardized variety to claim correctness or exclusion, but rather accept freely other varieties that deviate from the proclaimed norm. If the message is understood, then communication has been achieved. If there is vocabulary that may not be understood by the audience at large, especially from geolects or due to language contact, parenthetical notations or other explanations could be introduced in the text. In performances, classrooms, or other events, the idea of “only one version is correct” must be avoided, as the standard is a contrived version of the language, and native speakers should always take precedence over artificial language.

Post-Vernacular Language

One could claim that a post-vernacular language is not a variety, but rather the status of a language. A post-vernacular language is no longer used in daily life, but speakers may choose to actively use it in certain situations, especially to reconnect with their culture, entertainment, and other functions. Speakers do not need to be fluent and sometimes may only command a few phrases used as a symbolic gesture. This describes the current state of Judeo-Spanish worldwide, as speakers no longer need the language for daily activities, and instead choose to speak it or write it for its own preservation and transmission. By this definition, we can consider the messages in Ladinokomunita, the presentations in Enkontros de Alhad, the posts in several Facebook and WhatsApp groups, and the current literary and journalistic works as part of the post-vernacular Judeo-Spanish language. Because the language is not used daily, writers may consult dictionaries, grammar books, and other didactic sources in order to compose messages. When speaking the language, a post-vernacular version may seem more paused, more contrived, being careful not to switch to the dominant language. Students may acquire a post-vernacular variety from the classroom, but they should be ready to not understand or not be understood by those who grew up speaking the language in more contexts. Language activists should be mindful not to include only post-vernacular materials in the classroom. On the contrary, texts when Judeo-Spanish was spoken with greater vitality, especially from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, should be incorporated to a greater extent. If the language instructor is not a native speaker, then every effort should be made to collaborate with these as mentors, consultants, and language partners. This will provide students with a well-rounded, living, and realistic experience of the language, as opposed to only acquiring it from books. The greatest current challenge for Judeo-Spanish speakers is to keep the language alive, albeit as a post-vernacular, enough to secure its usage and transmission into the next generation.

Artistic Language

Finally, we can claim that there is another variety of Judeo-Spanish used solely for artistic purposes. As part of a creative endeavor, usually in songs, poetry, or even television, the language is shaped according to the artist’s imagination, a version not rooted in linguistic reality, but rather concocted to convey certain emotions in the audience. In this variety, Judeo-Spanish per se is a performative and artistic act, detached from its communicative function and displayed as a molded, abstract sculpture. We can include in this variety the many “Judeo-Spanish” songs performed by groups who artificially emphasize medieval and Middle Eastern elements in the language, especially in vocabulary or pronunciation, or even by singers who speak the language as if it was Italian or Peninsular Spanish, unaware of the language’s true phonology. Therefore, it is not rare to hear Judeo-Spanish songs performed by bands of takht, flamenco dancers, and troubadours.

In literature, the best example of the artistic variety of Judeo-Spanish is Dibaxu, a collection of poems written by Juan Gelman in 1994. In his work, Gelman claims to have been inspired by the poetry of Clarisse Nicoïdski and her Judeo-Spanish language. However, Gelman’s Judeo-Spanish is artificial, creating new words and inventing new grammatical constructions and pronunciation. To illustrate, an excerpt from his Poem III is reproduced below:

Lembrara tu nagûita curilada
Tus fluris curiladas
Tus bezus curilados
Tu blanco curasón
(Gelman 1994).

In this short stanza, Gelman uses a Portuguese word (lembrar) instead of the Judeo-Spanish (akodrarse), misapplies vowel raising (fluris, instead of Judeo-Spanish floris in vowel raising dialects; and by the same rule, it should be blanku and kuriladus), and fails to use the Judeo-Spanish diminutive -ika in nagûita (although the latter is a made-up word for petticoat, based on Castilian enagua). Reading Gelman’s poetry, it appears the author believes that Judeo-Spanish is created by randomly mixing Portuguese with Spanish, and sporadically changing o’s to u’s and e’s to i’s.

A third example of the utilization of Judeo-Spanish for artistic purposes comes from television series that try to incorporate the language as part of the personae of Sephardic characters. The best contemporary example comes from the Israeli series Malkat haYofi shel Yerushalayim (The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem), where Hebrew dialogues are interspersed with Judeo-Spanish words. However, the language used in the series does not represent the Jerusalem dialect, and the codeswitching between Hebrew and Judeo-Spanish is unrealistic. The characters speak isolated words or expressions, never uttering a complete sentence or thought in Judeo-Spanish. The Judeo-Spanish language in the series avoids any Turkish borrowings, and some words are closer to usage and pronunciation to Castilian Spanish than to Judeo-Spanish (the main character Luna is nicknamed chikitita instead of the Judeo-Spanish chikitika). Language activists need to be aware of these artistic representations of Judeo-Spanish and appreciate them as creative endeavors, but not as authentic language examples. Creativity is a wonderful gift, but language revitalization needs to be grounded in true representation, or we risk creating a version of the language completely disconnected from its community.

Conclusion: This is Judeo-Spanish

In this brief primer on language diversity in Judeo-Spanish, I have attempted to summarize the different varieties of the language as well as their implications for language revitalization efforts. From the inherent and idiolectal variation at the individual level, to the issues in language standardization and post-vernacular production, every version reflects a moment in the history of Judeo-Spanish, and every variety is valid in its own way. Even the artistic variety reflects the idealized notions and fascination that non-speakers have of the Sephardic language and culture, an interest that can be seized as an opportunity to educate on linguistic representation. To answer the question posed during the Enkontros de Alhad, someone who uses konushear is using a language contact and a geolectal variety of Judeo-Spanish. It is one of the many Judeo-Spanishes available to us now through native speakers, heritage speakers, second language learners, written texts, and modern artists, actors, poets, and writers. Activists in charge of revitalization efforts must learn to embrace these varieties and utilize their unique potential, instead of dismissing them and seeking an idealized version of the language. And they must do so quickly, before no more words remain.

Works Cited

Amado Bortnick, Rachel. 2001. The Internet and Judeo-Spanish: Impact and implications of a virtual community. In H. Pomeroy and M. Alpert (eds.) Proceedings of the Twelfth British Conference on Judeo-Spanish Studies, 24-26 June 2001 (Sephardic Language, Literature and History). Leiden: Brill.

Bunis, David M. 1975. A guide to reading and writing Judezmo. New York: Adelantre! The Judezmo Society.

Bunis, David M. 1982. Types of nonregional variation in Early Modern Judezmo. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 37. 41-70.

Bunis, David M. 1996. Translating from the head and from the heart: The essential oral nature of the Ladino Bible-Translation Tradition. In Busse, Winfried and Marie-Christine Varol-Bornes (eds.) Hommage à Haïm Vidal Sephiha. Bern: Peter Lang. pp. 337-357.

Christodouleas, Tina P. 2008. Judeo-Spanish and the Jewish Community of 21st Century Thessaloniki: Ethnic language shift in the maintenance of ethno cultural identity. Doctoral Thesis: The Pennsylvania State University.

Clewlow, David F. 1990. Judeo-Spanish: An example from Rhodes. Master of Arts Dissertation. The University of British Columbia.

Crews, Cynthia M. 1935. Recherches sur le judéo-espagnol dans les pays balkaniques, Paris: Droz.

Gelman, Juan. 1994. Dibaxu. Buenos Aires: Espasa Calpe, 1994.

Gilmer, Paul G. 1986. Judeo-Spanish to Turkish: Linguistic correlates of language death. Doctoral Dissertation: University of Texas at Austin.

Hualde, José Ignacio & Mahir Şaul. 2011. Istanbul Judeo-Spanish. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 41(1), 89–110. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44526594

Jones, Sam. 2017. “Spain honours Ladino language of Jewish exiles.” The Guardian, August 1, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/01/spain-honours-ladino-language-of-jewish-exiles

Luria, Max A. 1930. A Study of the Monastir Dialect of Judeo-Spanish Based on Oral Material Collected in Monastir, Yugo-Slavia. New York: Instituto de la Españas.

Quintana Rodríguez, Aldina. 2006. Geografía lingüística del judeoespañol: Estudio sincrónico y diacrónico. Bern: Peter Lang.

RAE. “El pleno de la RAE aprueba por unanimidad la constitución de la Academia Nacional del Judeoespañol.” Boletín mensual de la RAE, October 4, 2019. https://www.rae.es/noticia/el-pleno-de-la-rae-aprueba-por-unanimidad-la-constitucion-de-la-academia-nacional-del

Romero, Rey. 2012. Spanish in the Bosphorus: A sociolinguistic study on the Judeo-Spanish dialect spoken in Istanbul. Istanbul: Libra.

Sala, Marius. 1970. Estudios sobre el judeoespañol de Bucarest. Mexico: UNAM.

Séphiha, Haïm-Vidal. 1973. Le ladino, judéo-espagnol calque, Deutéronome, Versions de Constantinople (1547) et de Ferrare (1553), édition, étude linguistique et lexique. Paris: Institute d’Etudes Hispaniques.

Séphiha, Haïm-Vidal. 1986. Le Judéo-Espagnol. Paris: Entente.

Séphiha, Haïm-Vidal. 1997. Judeo-Spanish: A European Heritage. Brussels: Vanden Broele.

Taylor, Dorothy-Ann. 1965. A Study of the Beirut Dialect of Judeo-Spanish as Spoken by One Informant. Master of Arts Dissertation. The University of British Columbia.

Varol, Marie-Christine. 2006. El judeoespañol en contacto: el ejemplo de Turquía. Revista Internacional de Lingüística Iberoamericana, vol. 4, no. 2 (8), 2006, pp. 99–114.

Varol-Bornes, Marie Christine. 2008. Le judéo-espagnol vernaculaire d’Istanbul. Bern: Peter Lang.

Wagner, Max L. 1914. Beiträge zur kenntnis des Judenspanischen von Konstantinopel. Wien: Alfred Holder.

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1 Dr. Rey Romero is Associate Professor of Spanish Linguistics and Translation at the University of Houston-Downtown. He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles on Judeo-Spanish and has presented in over 50 conferences on topics related to Judeo-Spanish, translation, and language access. His book Spanish in the Bosphorus: A sociolinguistic study on the Judeo-Spanish dialect spoken in Istanbul (2012) analyzes language transmission and linguistic change among the Sephardic community in Istanbul.