Yevanic, also known as Judaeo-Greek, Romaniyot, Romaniote, and Yevanitika, is a Greek dialect formerly used by the Romaniotes and by the Constantinopolitan Karaites (in whose case the language is called Karaitika or Karaeo-Greek). The Romaniotes are a group of Greek Jews whose presence in

the Levant The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultura ...

is documented since the

Byzantine period The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...

. Its

linguistic Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

lineage stems from the Jewish Koine spoken primarily by

Hellenistic Jews Hellenistic Judaism was a form of Judaism in classical antiquity that combined Jewish religious tradition with elements of Hellenistic culture and religion. Until the early Muslim conquests of the eastern Mediterranean, the main centers of Helleni ...

throughout the region, and includes

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

and

Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...

elements. It was mutually intelligible with the Greek dialects of the Christian population. The Romaniotes used the

Hebrew alphabet The Hebrew alphabet (, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is a unicase, unicameral abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewish languages, most notably ...

to write Greek and Yevanic texts. Judaeo-Greek has had in its history different spoken variants depending on different eras, geographical and sociocultural backgrounds. The oldest

Modern Greek Modern Greek (, or , ), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the language sometimes referred to ...

text was found in the

Cairo Geniza The Cairo Geniza, alternatively spelled the Cairo Genizah, is a collection of some 400,000 Judaism, Jewish manuscript fragments and Fatimid Caliphate, Fatimid administrative documents that were kept in the ''genizah'' or storeroom of the Ben Ezra ...

and is actually a Jewish translation of the Book of Ecclesiastes (Kohelet).

Origin of name

The term ''Yevanic'' is an artificial creation from the

Biblical The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) biblical languages ...

word () referring to the

Greeks Greeks or Hellenes (; , ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Greece, Greek Cypriots, Cyprus, Greeks in Albania, southern Albania, Greeks in Turkey#History, Anatolia, parts of Greeks in Italy, Italy and Egyptian Greeks, Egypt, and to a l ...

and the lands that the Greeks inhabited. The term is an overextension of the Greek word (

Ionia Ionia ( ) was an ancient region encompassing the central part of the western coast of Anatolia. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements. Never a unified state, it was named after the Ionians who ...

in English) from the (then) easternmost Greeks to all Greeks. The word for Greece in

is ; likewise, the word is used to refer to the Greek language in

Geographical distribution

A small number of

Romaniote Jews The Romaniote Jews or the Romaniotes (, ''Rhōmaniôtes''; ) are a Greek language, Greek-speaking Jewish ethnic divisions, ethnic Jewish community. They are one of the oldest Jewish communities in existence and the oldest Jewish community in Eu ...

in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

, and

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

have some knowledge of the Judaeo-Greek language. The language is highly endangered and could completely die out. There are no preservation programs to promote or to revive the language, but starting in April, 2022, the Oxford School for Rare Jewish languages will be offering a beginner's course. In 1987, there were 35 speakers left in

, the majority located in

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

. This population may have died out. , a few elderly Jews in

Ioannina Ioannina ( ' ), often called Yannena ( ' ) within Greece, is the capital and largest city of the Ioannina (regional unit), Ioannina regional unit and of Epirus (region), Epirus, an Modern regions of Greece, administrative region in northwester ...

, Greece still speak the language. As of 2021 there is a small population of speakers in Iran.

Historical background

Greece, Constantinople, Asia Minor, Southern Italy, the Balkans and Eastern Europe had originally a Greek-speaking Jewish community. After the arrival of Jewish refugees into these areas from the Iberian Peninsula, Northern Italy, and Western Europe, the Greek-speaking Jewish communities began to almost disappear while integrating into the group of the newcomers, which did not constitute in every area of their new homeland the majority. The immigration of Italian and Spanish-speaking people into Greece in the late 15th century altered the culture and vernacular of the Greek Jews. A lot of locales picked up on Judeo-Spanish language and customs, however some communities in Epirus, Thessaly, the Ionian Islands, Crete, Constantinople and Asia Minor kept the old, so-called "Romaniote minhag" and the Judaeo-Greek language. During the 19th century Yevanic switched from Hebrew to letters to Greek letters. By the early 20th century, the Jews living in places such as

, Arta,

Preveza Preveza (, ) is a city in the region of Epirus (region), Epirus, northwestern Greece, located on the northern peninsula of the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf. It is the capital of the Preveza (regional unit), regional unit of Preveza, which is the s ...

, and Chalkida still spoke a form of Greek that slightly differentiated the Greek of their Christian neighbors. These differences, semantically, do not go beyond phonetic, intonational, and lexical phenomena. It is different from other Jewish languages, in that there is no knowledge of any language fragmentation ever taking place. At the start of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

Northern Greece Northern Greece () is used to refer to the northern parts of Greece, and can have various definitions. Administrative term The term "Northern Greece" is widely used to refer mainly to the two northern regions of Macedonia and (Western) Thra ...

alone had ten thousand speakers, but the language was almost totally annihilated during the

Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

with only 149 speakers surviving.

Features

Yevanic is based on Greek, but it contains large amounts of influence from

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

, and

. It also used a different alphabet than Greek using Hebrew letters instead of Greek letters. The languages also has loan translations from Ladino.

Current status

The assimilation of the Romaniote communities by the Ladino-speaking

Sephardi Sephardic Jews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the historic Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and their descendant ...

Jews, the

emigration Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...

of many of the Romaniotes to the United States and Israel, and the murder of many of the Romaniotes during the

have been the main reasons of the decline of Judaeo-Greek. The survivors were too scant to continue an environment in which this language was dominant and more recent generations of the survivors have moved to new locations such as Greece, Israel, and the United States and now speak the respective languages of those countries:

Standard Modern Greek The linguistic varieties of Modern Greek can be classified along two principal dimensions. First, there is a long tradition of sociolectal variation between the natural, popular spoken language on the one hand and archaizing, learned written forms ...

, and English. The Jews have a place of note in the history of Modern Greek. They were unaffected by

Atticism Atticism (meaning "favouring Attica", the region of Athens in Greece) was a rhetorical movement that began in the first quarter of the 1st century BC. It may also refer to the wordings and phrasings typical of this movement, in contrast with vari ...

and employed the current colloquial vernacular which they then transcribed in Hebrew letters. The Romaniotes were Jews settled in the Eastern Roman Empire long before its division from its Western counterpart, and they were linguistically assimilated long before leaving the Levant after

Hadrian Hadrian ( ; ; 24 January 76 – 10 July 138) was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. Hadrian was born in Italica, close to modern Seville in Spain, an Italic peoples, Italic settlement in Hispania Baetica; his branch of the Aelia gens, Aelia '' ...

's decree against them and their religion. As a consequence, they spoke Greek, the language of the overwhelming majority of the populace in the beginning of the Byzantine era and that of the Greek élite thereafter, until the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Some communities in Northern Greece and Crete maintained their specific Romaniote practices since these communities were either geographically apart from the Sephardim or had different synagogues, and because their liturgies differed greatly. At the end of the 19th century, the Romaniote community of Greece made an effort to preserve the Romaniote liturgical heritage of Ioannina and Arta, by printing various liturgical texts in the Hebrew printing presses of Salonika.The Jewish Museum of Greece, The Jewish Community of Ioannina: The Memory of Artefacts, p. 40 (Booklet). 2017 Yevanic has some samples on the internet but it lacks translations or spell checking, unlike larger more established languages.

Literature

There is a small amount of literature in Yevanic dating from the early part of the modern period, the most extensive document being a translation of the

Pentateuch The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () o ...

. A polyglot edition of the

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

published in

Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...

in 1547 has the Hebrew text in the middle of the page, with a Ladino (

Judaeo-Spanish Judaeo-Spanish or Judeo-Spanish (autonym , Hebrew script: ), also known as Ladino or Judezmo or Spaniolit, is a Romance language derived from Castilian Old Spanish. Originally spoken in Spain, and then after the Edict of Expulsion spreading ...

) translation on one side and a Yevanic translation on the other. In its context, this exceptional cultivation of the vernacular has its analogue in the choice of Hellenistic Greek by the translators of the

Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

and in the

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

.Lockwood, W. B. 1972. "A Panorama of Indo-European Languages." Hutchinson. London.

Sample Text

References

External links

On Judaeo-Greek
Jewish Language Research Website: Judeo-Greek

Yevanic Language Endangered Languages Project Website

The Greek Bible in Byzantine Judaism
On Karaeo-Greek

pdf-document

A recording
{{Languages of Greece Varieties of Modern Greek Jewish languages Jews and Judaism in Greece Languages of Greece Languages of Turkey Extinct languages of Europe Romaniote Jews topics Languages of Israel Critically endangered languages Endangered diaspora languages