LA Times on Ladino: Israelis Hoping They Won't Hear the Last Word on Ancient Dialect

[Stan-Sandy Anonby]

I'd like to comment on the note about the incongruity of "Ladino surging, even as it is fading". I've come to expect that.  Here in Brazil, the Indian languages one hears the most about, the ones the Indians speak most enthusiastically about teaching in a bilingual setting, the villages that are clamouring for primers; are usually in areas where the languages are fading.  In reserves where the languages are strong, there is very little talk about the language.  In fact, in most all the villages where the languages are strong, there is a push to hire non-Indian teachers who will not teach in the language.

Stan Anonby

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 10:37:59 -0400
 "P. Kerim Friedman" <kerim.list at oxus.net> wrote:
> <http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg- ladino13jun13,1,7711681.story?coll=la-headlines-world>
>
> THE WORLD
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> Israelis Hoping They Won't Hear the Last Word on Ancient Dialect
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> Ladino, derived from Spanish and spoken by Sephardic Jews, is being  preserved in academia as well as song, story. By Ken Ellingwood Times  Staff Writer
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> June 13, 2004
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> JERUSALEM — More than 500 years after Jews were expelled from Spain, an  effort is afoot here to save Ladino, a medieval dialect that helped  preserve the exiles' culture as they scattered across Europe and the  Middle East.
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> Ladino, also called Judeo-Spanish, is slowly dying. Israel is believed  to have the largest number of people — perhaps as many as 200,000 — who  can speak or understand the language. But many are older than 60.
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> Recognizing that the oldest generation of Sephardic Jews soon will  disappear, some Israelis are trying to pump life into the flickering  language — collecting written works, recording Ladino love songs and  teaching Ladino to young people.
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> The Israeli government joined the efforts seven years ago, establishing  the National Ladino Authority, which has prompted a surge of interest  in the language and culture. The agency spends $275,000 a year on  organizing lectures, promoting festivals and sponsoring language  courses.
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> Thanks to the push, Ladino is now taught in several of the largest  Israeli universities. Two schools recently opened centers devoted  exclusively to the study of Ladino language and culture.
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> And the second national Ladino music festival, to take place here  today, already is a popular showcase for young composers and musicians  from all over the world, including the United States.
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> "It is a disappearing language, but more and more people I know are  starting to play it," said Yasmin Levy, a 28-year-old Israeli singer  who has recorded two CDs in Ladino and performs often in Europe. "It's  beautiful."
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> Ladino is a recognizable cousin of modern Spanish, though some sounds  and spellings vary. For example, pobre, the Spanish word for "poor," is  rendered in Ladino as prove. The letter "j," pronounced like "h" in  Spanish, sounds more like "zh" in Ladino.
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> The language is a form of 15th century Spanish bearing influences of  Portuguese, Catalan and Hebrew. It remained largely intact after  Spanish Jews were expelled en masse in 1492 and sought refuge in places  such as the Balkans, the Netherlands, Greece and Turkey.
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> A large number of Ladino speakers perished during the Holocaust, but  many survivors made their way to Israel.
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> Unlike Yiddish, an old language that has survived because it is  commonly spoken in the homes of ultra-Orthodox Jews of European  descent, enthusiasts say Ladino can no longer be expected to thrive on  its own.
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> Yet even the most optimistic activists acknowledge that Ladino will not  reassert itself as the mother tongue of Mazkaret Moshe and Baka, two  Jerusalem neighborhoods once populated almost entirely by Sephardic  Jews.
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> The term "Sephardic" originally referred to Jews of Spanish ancestry,  but also is used to describe Jews from the Middle East and North  Africa.
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> "It's not that we think we're going to use this language in the  supermarket," said Moshe Shaul, who edits a Ladino magazine, Aki  Yerushalayim, or Here Jerusalem. "It's a cultural language. We sing it.  We read it."
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> Long before the Israeli government invested in promoting Ladino  culture, a few activists collected folk stories, poems and songs.  Perhaps the most ambitious was Levy's father, Yitzhak Levy, who  compiled 10 volumes of Ladino liturgy before his death in the 1970s.
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> Ladino language and culture enthusiasts in Israel and abroad are  continuing the work, scouring bookshops and attics for overlooked  Ladino writings. Some of the literature has been saved in the original  language, some translated into Hebrew. One Israeli enthusiast is at  work translating Homer's "The Iliad" into Ladino from ancient Greek.
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> Eliezer Papo, the coordinator of a new Ladino culture center at  Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba, said Ladino  enthusiasts are taking their cue from the United States, where people  are encouraged to celebrate their diverse cultures.
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> "Being different is beautiful," said Papo, a Ladino speaker who arrived  from Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, 12 years ago. "Now everybody speaks  about his roots. It's antisocial activity not to have roots."
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> Dorit Efrat, a 24-year-old university student in Haifa, said she signed  up for a Ladino class to be able to communicate better with her  grandparents, now in their 80s.
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> "It's more personal reasons than historical reasons," she said.
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> Not everyone is responding to the tug of ancestral identity. Many  Israelis have signed up for Ladino classes after learning some Spanish  words and grammar from Spanish-language soap operas, which are popular  here.
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> Some say the recent bustle has created an apparent incongruity: Ladino  is surging even as it is fading.
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> Levy, the singer, said that though she has been surprised by the  appetite for Ladino music in Europe, sales in Israel have been  disappointing. Her older brother has urged her to switch to a genre  with broader appeal.
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> But Levy said she has no plans to abandon the language of her father.
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> "I'm going to keep fighting for this culture," she said. "I'm going to  sing it."
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> If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at  latimes.com/archives.
>
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>