Jewish Languages: Diglossia in Judaism

Dear Colleagues,

Jewish religious culture has for millennia been characterized by a state of diglossia. According to Ferguson’s (1959) and Hudson’s (2002) definitions, diglossia is a situation where the same community employs two different languages in different domains of life. The ‘L’, or ‘low’ language, is the everyday vernacular, which may also be used in various less prestigious written contexts. By contrast, the ‘H’, or ‘high’ language, exists primarily or solely in written form and is acquired via education instead of through the family. The H language often gains its high prestige because it is the vehicle of holy texts and other highly respected written documents with a central place within the religion in question and, by extension, within the associated culture’s intellectual elite. In Christian Europe, Latin occupied the H position for many centuries in a diglossic relationship with numerous vernaculars, as it was the language of the Vulgate and was therefore regarded as the natural vehicle for high-register written materials. Indeed, until today, remnants of the prestigious role of Latin can be seen in its use in medical and scientific terminology.

In Jewish society, Hebrew has played the role of the H language for at least two thousand years: it is the language of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), the Mishnah, and most Jewish liturgy. While its transmission as a spoken language ceased around 200 CE and did not become a vernacular again until the end of the 19th century, it retained its prominent position as a language of Jewish religious and intellectual culture throughout the intervening centuries. In Diaspora Jewish communities, Hebrew always coexisted in a diglossic state alongside the vernacular Jewish languages, such as Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo–Arabic, Judeo–Persian, Judeo–Greek, and many others. The Diaspora Jewish languages have been shaped by their ongoing interaction with Hebrew: one of their characteristic features is that they contain Hebrew phonological, grammatical, and lexical elements and are typically written in the form of the Hebrew script. Moreover, Diaspora Jewish languages have frequently served as the vehicle of literal Bible translations, which strived to preserve the syntax of the Hebrew source text, as well as translations of other popular Hebrew-language Jewish texts such as the Passover Haggadah and the siddur (daily and Sabbath prayerbook) and machzor (holiday prayerbook).

This state of diglossia is likewise reflected in the traditional Jewish educational system whereby the vernacular serves as the language of instruction, while the texts studied are in Hebrew and Aramaic at the more advanced levels. Within the Jewish diglossic tradition, Aramaic occupies a unique role: arguably the first Jewish Diaspora vernacular, adopted at the time of the Babylonian Exile (586-538 BCE), it remained a Jewish spoken language until the latter centuries of the first millennium CE, when Judeo–Arabic largely replaced it. However, like Hebrew, it continued to be studied in Jewish communities around the world as the vehicle of prominent Jewish texts such as the Talmud, the targums (Aramaic Bible translations), mystical writings such as the Zohar, and some prominent liturgical pieces such as the Kaddish (prayer for the dead).

Jewish diglossia can serve as a fascinating case study of multilingualism shaped by a religious tradition, shedding light on the relationship between sacred and everyday language use and inviting comparisons with diglossic situations in other religious communities (e.g., the use of Arabic vs. Turkish, Persian, Urdu, Malay, and other spoken languages in the Islamic world).

This Special Issue invites contributions to all aspects of the Jewish diglossic tradition, seeking to bring together interdisciplinary perspectives. Submissions may include but are not limited to the following topics:

• Hebrew Bible translations into Diaspora Jewish languages;
• Hebrew–Aramaic diglossia in the late biblical and early rabbinic periods;
• Hebrew–Aramaic–Greek multilingualism in the early rabbinic period;
• Codeswitching in the Talmud;
• Hebrew and Judeo–Persian diglossia;
• Jewish texts, including Hebrew and one or more other Jewish languages;
• Codeswitching in medieval and early modern Jewish sources (e.g., Responsa literature);
• Hebrew–Yiddish diglossia in Central and Eastern Europe;
• Medieval Hebrew and Judeo–Arabic diglossia (e.g., in Al-Andalus);
• Hebrew and Ladino diglossia in the Ottoman Empire;
• The multilingual Jewish press in the Diaspora;
• Hebrew and Haketia diglossia in North Africa;
• Jewish secret languages (e.g., Lotera’I, Ivri BeLoy, Khokhmer Loshn/Rottwelsch);
• The productive use of Hebrew in the Diaspora vs Diaspora Jewish languages;
• Diglossia in contemporary Haredi communities;
• The relationship between English and Hebrew in the contemporary Anglophone Jewish world

Prof. Dr. Lily Kahn
Dr. Sonya Yampolskaya
Guest Editors

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• Judaism
• Jewish languages
• diglossia
• codeswitching
• multilingualism
• Hebrew
• Ladino
• Judeo–Arabic
• Aramaic
• Yiddish