Yiddish and Ladino: Two Vernacular Languages of the Jews (with a Note on Hebrew)

When the Jewish diaspora began in the 6th century BCE, the Jews were scattered in different directions. By the middle ages, although there were Jews in many places all over Europe, Africa and Asia, there were two main groups in Europe. One group centered in Spain and one group in central Europe. Further pogroms, expulsions, edicts and waves of prejudice spread the Jews further. In particular, in 1492 the Jews were expelled from Spain.

But the two main groups of Jews are known for those places in Europe: Those who are descended from the Jews of Spain (and the middle east, and northern Africa) are known as Sephardim from the Hebrew word for Spain: Sfarad. Those who are descended from the Jews of central Europe are known as Ashkenazim, from the medieval Hebrew word Ashkenaz, which was part of what is now Germany. Nearly all the Jews in the United States are Ashkenazim. I wrote about Ashkenazim and Sephardim in this article.

Throughout history, many Jews spoke or read at least three languages: Hebrew (for reading the Bible and for prayer), the local language of whatever land they were in, and either Ladino or Yiddish. There is no language called Jewish (any more than there is a language called "Catholic" or "Protestant", although, for a long time, Hebrew was only a religious language, in the same way that Latin was only a religious language for many Catholics.

These are two completely different languages. The Ashkenazim spoke Yiddish and the Sephardim spoke Ladino.

Yiddish

Yiddish is based on German (really an older form of German) mixed with Hebrew and some Russian, Polish and other Slavic languages. It is written in Hebrew characters. People who are truly fluent in German can often at least partially understand Yiddish.

Forward is a Yiddish language newspaper published in the United States (also available in English)

For some sample transliterated Yiddish, try [Vini der pu http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0525463380/judaism101#reader_0525463380]

Ladino

Ladino (also known as Judeo-Spanish, Judesmo and other terms) is based on Old Spanish, mixed again with Hebrew and also with Aramaic, Arabic, Turkish and other languages of the middle east. It is sometimes written in Hebrew characters and sometimes in Latin characters, or in the modern Spanish alphabet. Its pronunciation is closer to Catalan or Portuguese than to modern Spanish.

Here is a sample of some Ladino (from Wikipedia)

El djudeo-espanyol, djudio, djudezmo o ladino es la lingua favlada por los sefardim, djudios ekspulsados de la Espanya enel 1492. Es una lingua derivada del espanyol i favlada por 150.000 personas en komunitas en Israel, la Turkia, antika Yugoslavia, la Gresia, el Maruekos, Mayorka, las Amerikas, entre munchos otros.

which translates into English as

Judeo-Spanish, Djudio, Judezmo, or Ladino is a language spoken by the Sephardi Jews expelled from Spain in 1492. It is a language derived from Spanish and spoken by 150,000 people in communities in Israel, Turkey, the former Yugoslavia, Greece, Morocco, Majorca, the Americas, among many others.

Hebrew

From the diaspora until modern times, Hebrew was a religious language, used in prayer and Biblical study by Jews all over the world, but not spoken in the vernacular. One goal of the Zionists in founding Israel was the resurrection of Hebrew as an everyday language. In this they succeeded. Nearly all Israelis speak Hebrew. But it is very different from either Yiddish or Ladino. As far as I know, this is the only time when a language was resurrected successfully in this way.

Sources: Wikipedia and personal knowledge