Ladino Language - Variants

Variants

At the time of the expulsion from Spain, the day to day language of the Jews of different regions of the peninsula was little if at all different from that of their Christian neighbors, though there may have been some dialect mixing to form a sort of Jewish lingua franca. There was however a special style of Castilian used for purposes of study or translation, featuring a more archaic dialect, a large number of Hebrew and Aramaic loan-words and a tendency to render Hebrew word order literally (ha-laylah ha-zeh, meaning "this night", was rendered la noche la esta instead of the normal Spanish esta noche). As mentioned above, some authorities would confine the term "Ladino" to this style.

Following the expulsion, the process of dialect mixing continued, though Castilian remained by far the largest contributor. The daily language was increasingly influenced both by the language of study and by the local non-Jewish vernaculars such as Greek and Turkish, and came to be known as Judezmo: in this respect the development is parallel to that of Yiddish. However, many speakers, especially among the community leaders, also had command of a more formal style nearer to the Spanish of the expulsion, referred to as Castellano.