Judeo-Latin

Judeo-Latin (also spelled Judaeo-Latin) is the use by Jews of the Hebrew alphabet to write Latin.[2] The term was coined by Cecil Roth to describe a small corpus of texts from the Middle Ages.[2] In the Middle Ages, there was no Judeo-Latin in the sense of "an ethnodialect used by Jews on a regular basis to communicate among themselves", and the existence of such a Jewish language under the Roman Empire is pure conjecture.[3]

An example of Judeo-Latin magical text from the Cairo Geniza. It is a quotation attributed to the 2nd-century philosopher Secundus the Silent when asked who God was: "An intelligible unknown, a unique being who has no equal, something sought but not comprehended".[1]

The Judeo-Latin corpus consists of an Anglo-Jewish charter and Latin quotations in otherwise Hebrew works (such as anti-Christian polemics,[4] incantations and prayers).[2] Christian converts to Judaism sometimes brought with them an extensive knowledge of the Vulgate translation of the Bible. The Sefer Nizzahon Yashan and Joseph ben Nathan Official's Sefer Yosef ha-Mekanne contain extensive quotations from the Vulgate in Hebrew letters.[2] Latin technical terms sometimes appear in Hebrew texts.[2] There is evidence of the oral use of Latin formulas in dowsing, ordeals and ceremonies.[2]

Leo Levi found some Hebraisms in a few epigraphs in Italy.[5]

References
  1. Gideon Bohak, "Catching a Thief: The Jewish Trials of a Christian Ordeal", Jewish Studies Quarterly 13.4 (2006): 344–362.
  2. Ivan G. Marcus, "Judeo-Latin", in Joseph R. Strayer (ed.), Dictionary of the Middle Ages, Vol. 7 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1986), pp. 176–177.
  3. Gad Freudenthal, "Latin-into-Hebrew in the Making: Bilingual Documents in Facing Columns and Their Possible Function", pp. 59–67 in Resianne Fontaine and Gad Freudenthal (eds.), Latin-into-Hebrew: Texts and Studies, Volume One: Studies (Leiden: Brill, 2013), p. 61 and n., who quotes an earlier version of this Wikipedia article to characterize the conjecture: "a presumed Jewish language for many scattered Jewish communities of the former Roman Empire, but especially by the Jewish communities of the Italian Peninsula and Transalpine Gaul."
  4. Philippe Bobichon, Controverse judéo-chrétienne en Ashkenaz (XIIIe s.). Florilèges polémiques : hébreu, latin, ancien français (Paris, BNF Hébreu 712). Édition, traduction, commentaires, Bibliothèque de l’EPHE, Paris, 2015.
  5. Leo Levi, "Ricerca di epigrafia ebraica nell'Italia meridionale," La Rassegna mensile di Israel, vol. 28 (1962), pp. 152–153

Further reading
  • Paul Wexler, Three Heirs to a Judeo-Latin Legacy: Judeo-Ibero-Romance, Yiddish and Rotwelsch (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1988).
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