Search

A language that has a substratum of another language and also has a superstratum of the same language as the substratum is known as a ‘sandwich language’. The term describes Jewish languages spoken in Israel. One of the most widely studied characteristics of Jewish languages is the Hebrew component. This component is what remains of the substratum of Biblical, post-biblical, and Medieval Hebrew. When immigrating to Israel, the minority language becomes an immigrant language, with Modern Hebrew—including Israeli slang—as superstra…

Judeo-Persian has a relatively small Hebrew component, showing a low level of fusion. The term Judeo-Persian (JP) refers to a group of very similar, usually mutually comprehensible dialects of Persian, spoken or written by Jews in greater Iran over a period of more than a millennium. JP is documented only in its New Persian (NP) stage, although there is indirect evidence of Jewish Middle Persian as well (Shapira 2001). JP roughly divides into two periods: pre-Mongol Judeo-Persian, known as Early Judeo-Persia…

Jewish Bible translations traditionally employ numerous calques, and Hebrew calques also exist in the exegetical parts of the medieval tafsīrs. These include the 226-page tafsīr of Ezekiel (TE; Salemann 1900; Gindin 2000; 2003; 2007; forthcoming), and the fifty-page tafsīr of Genesis (Shaked 2003), which are the longest surviving Early Judeo-Persian (EJP) texts. The exegetes were naturally influenced by the slavishly imitative syntax of Bible translations. EJP exegetes occasionally use the present participle with a copula instead of a simple present, e.g., אגר אניז לוגת אישא…

Luterāʾī, the Jewish jargon of Iran, combines mostly-Hebrew vocabulary with Persian morphology and syntax. Today, most Iranian Jews speak New Persian. Local dialects are almost extinct, as is the jargon that allowed them to speak in the presence of strangers. Luterāʾi, like the dialects, changes from place to place, and so does its name: in most places Luterāʾī or Loterāʾī, Luflāʾī in Kashan, Lutrāʾī in Golpaygan, and Lʾutrūʾī in Kermanshah. Iranian Jews interpret the name as lu-tūrāʾi (< Heb. lo tora + Persian adjectival suffix - ī), ‘not [the language] of the Torah’, i.e., not …

The Hebrew language has borrowed Persian words from biblical times to the present. Loanwords from all stages of the Persian language have been borrowed into all layers of Hebrew. 1. Persian Language Iranian languages are known from roughly three periods: old, middle, and new. The Old period corresponds roughly to biblical times: Old Persian, the latest language of the old period, is documented in rock inscriptions made by the Achaemenid kings, some of whom are mentioned in the Bible. The middle period is roughly parallel to po…