Present Status
Judeo-Latin, Zarphatic, Shuadit, Catalanic and Judeo-Aragonese are all now dead languages. Judeo-Latin since ancient times, Zarphatic and Judeo-Aragonese in the Middle Ages, and Shuadit, upon the death of its last speaker in 1977.
Judeo-Portuguese remain primarily only as vestiges in the speech of the Crypto-Jewish communities of Portugal.
Italkian, spoken only two generations ago by as many as 5,000 Italian Jews is, today, spoken by fewer than 200, mostly elderly.
Ladino or Judezmo is spoken by the remaining Sephardic communities of the Maghreb in northern Africa, in the Middle East, especially in Turkey, and in the State of Israel itself by as many as 150,000 people, the vast majority of whom are at least bilingual.
Like most Jewish languages, the future of the Judeo-Romance languages is uncertain. Given the rise to dominance of Hebrew as a means of communication among Jewish communities in the Middle East, and the increasing prestige of English, as well as the economic importance of local vernaculars (especially Turkish), the situation appears grim.
Read more about this topic: Judeo-Romance Languages
Famous quotes containing the words present and/or status:
“We shall be better prepared for the future if we see how terrible, how doomed the present is.”
—Iris Murdoch (b. 1919)
“[In early adolescence] she becomes acutely aware of herself as a being perceived by others, judged by others, though she herself is the harshest judge, quick to list her physical flaws, quick to undervalue and under-rate herself not only in terms of physical appearance but across a wide range of talents, capacities and even social status, whereas boys of the same age will cite their abilities, their talents and their social status pretty accurately.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)