Zarphatic language

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Wikipedia

Zarphatic
Judæo-French
צרפתית Tzarfatit
Native toFrance, western Germany and England
EthnicityAshkenazi Jews
Extinct14th century[1]
Early forms
Language codes
ISO 639-3zrp
zrp.html
Glottologzarp1238

Zarphatic, also called Judeo-French (Zarphatic: צרפתית Tzarfatit) or Western Loez,[3] is a language that was spoken by the French Jews of northern France and in parts of western Germany, such as Mainz, Frankfurt am Main and Aix-la-Chapelle. It was also spoken by French Jews who moved to Norman England.[4] Some have conjectured that the language influenced the development of Yiddish.[5][6]

Etymology

The term Zarphatic, coined by Solomon Birnbaum,[7] comes from the Hebrew name for France, Tzarfat (צרפת), which was originally used in the Hebrew Bible as a name for the city of Sarepta, in Phoenicia.

Unlike most other Jewish languages which had many loan words from Hebrew, it had relatively few. This has led to the conclusion that it may not have been a far-distant language but, instead, a dialect of Old French.[citation needed]

History and use

Zarphatic was written using a variation of the Hebrew alphabet. It first appeared in this form in the 11th century in glosses of the Torah and Talmud written by the rabbis Moshe HaDarshan and Rashi.[3] The language became secularised during the 13th century, becoming used in varied domains such as poetry, medicine, astronomy, and commerce.[3]

Most linguists agree that Zarphatic was not fundamentally different from Old French, and that it was more of a writing system and literary tradition that reflected the Jewish culture of the day. According to some researchers,[8][full citation needed] it was different from the Christian majority dialect, and thus a specific Judeo-Romance language. However, other linguists contend that it was essentially the same as Christian dialects of the same regions, with only some Hebrew influences.[9]

It seems that Zarphatic was probably never a vernacular language, and that the Jews of the area did not speak a differing language or dialect, at least not one distinguished by phonology or lexicon beyond that specific to a community.[10][full citation needed] Rather, it acted more as a liturgical language, for exegesis and literature. Its primary use was for explanation and vulgarisation of biblical and rabbinical literature. Most of the elements from the Hebrew language are found in the function words (articles, prepositions, etc.), though there are some changes to verbs and vocabulary.[11]

Extinction

Due to the constant persecution, killing and expulsion of Jews from France[12] and other European nations, the Zarphatic language likely went extinct in the 14th century; documentation of the language slows in the mid-14th century.[3] The last known example of Zarphatic is a recipe for charoset written in 1470.[9]

Writing system

Zarphatic was written using the Hebrew writing system and the Tiberian system for diacritical markers and reflected some Latin writing traditions that help to distinguish it from a solely phonetic reproduction of spoken language.[3][9]

Not all Hebrew graphemes are used in Zarphatic: the graphemes kaph (כ), samekh (ס), and tav (ת), are rare, and ḥet (ח) and ʕayin (ע) are omitted entirely.[3]

Sample text[11]
Language Example text
Old French

(Hebrew script)
קוֹזָא קִיאֵייט אַקוֹטֶוּמֵייאָה זֵייט אַטְרָא טוֹאוּטְ אוֹטְרִייֵאָה
Transliteration q̄ōzə qīyēyṭ aqōṭūmēyəh dēyṭ aṭre ṭōūṭ ōṭryēəh
Old French

(Latin script)

 Chose qui eit acotumeie, deit etre tout otreieie
English translation Something that is customary must be granted freely
French translation Ce qui est coutumier doit être accordé librement

See also

References

  1. ↑ Kiwitt, Marc; Zwink, Julia. "Judeo-French". Jewish Languages. Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion. Archived from the original on 13 October 2022. Retrieved 13 October 2022.
  2. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian (24 May 2022). "Oil". Glottolog. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Archived from the original on 8 October 2022. Retrieved 7 October 2022.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Edzard, Alexandra B. (2021). "Judeo-French". Jewish Languages: Text specimens, grammatical, lexical, and cultural sketches. Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 557, 561–75. ISBN 978-3-447-11708-1. JSTOR j.ctv2h439g6.
  4. ↑ Hillaby 2013, pp. 1, 112, 194–195.
  5. ↑ Katznelson, Itzhak (2008). "Yiddish Language". Encyclopedia Judaica – via Jewish Virtual Library.
  6. ↑ Weinreich, M. (1959). "History of the Yiddish Language: The Problems and Their Implications". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 103 (4): 563–570. JSTOR 985559.
  7. ↑ Birnbaum, S. A. (2016). Yiddish: A Survey and a Grammar (2nd ed.). University of Toronto Press. p. 33.
  8. ↑ M. Weinreich et S. A. Birnbaum, cited by Marc Kiwitt, cf sources
  9. 1 2 3 Kiwitt, Marc; Zwink, Julia. "Judeo-French". Jewish Languages. Retrieved 23 September 2024.
  10. ↑ Jean Baumgarten in La question du judéo-français vue par les philologues allemands et français, citing M. Bannitt; cf bibliographie
  11. 1 2 Edzard, Alexandra B. (2021). Jewish Languages: Text specimens, grammatical, lexical, and cultural sketches. Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 579, 585–589. ISBN 978-3-447-11708-1. JSTOR j.ctv2h439g6.
  12. ↑ "King Charles VI of France orders all Jews expelled from the kingdom". History.com. Archived from the original on 5 June 2024.

Further reading