Lottery Certificate in Support of Jewish Orphan Girls
Turkey, 1874
Courtesy of Asaf Galay
Must Know
Ladino was the language spoken in Spain in the 15th century. After the Spanish inquisition and the subsequent expulsion of Jews from Spain, the Jews who moved to other countries retained the Ladino language. Until the Second World War, Ladino was the most widely spoken language amongst Middle Eastern Jews. Ladino speakers usually knew at least one other language, usually the local language, unlike Yiddish speakers who lived in isolated Jewish communities and who did not learn another language. As of 2018, there were approximately 250,000 Ladino speakers in Israel, most of them over the age of 70. The definition includes all those who know the language, both partially and fluently; very few know how to write and to read in Ladino. The interwar period saw a growth in Yiddish in the Jewish world. During this period there was a large variety of Yiddish language newspapers being published, more than in any other language. After the Second World War there was a severe decline in Yiddish speakers and in popular Yiddish newspapers. There were two main reasons for this. Firstly, the extermination of European and Eastern European Jews and secondly, the prohibition and erasing of the Jewish culture in the Soviet Union. Over the years newspapers and books were released in the Yiddish language, especially in South America, the U.S. and Israel.
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Ladino has not changed in the way that modern Spanish has: the development of Spanish can be seen throughout the centuries, from the Middle Ages until today. Because Ladino was commonly spoken in many different countries, its vocabulary contains words from other languages, such as Portuguese, Italian, Arabic, Turkish and hebrew. Over the years there has been a decline in the number of Ladino speakers across the world which stems from implications in existing culture and the efforts to use the local language in the speakers’ country of residence, as well as from the negative connotations associated with the language itself. Nowadays, Ladino radio shows can be found in Israel and Spain, and many centres seek to explore and preserve the declining language. In 1908 there was a conference in Chernivtsi attended by well-known Jewish writers where it was decided that Yiddish would be the national language of the Jewish people. In response, a conference in Vienna in 1913 was convened in the hebrew language. Separate Yiddish schools for ‘Spanish’ and Ashkenazi hebrew were established; the competition between the Yiddish and hebrew languages was widespread and forceful. hebrew was persecuted in the Soviet Union as was Yiddish in Israel. In the U.S. two literary centres were established – one in Yiddish and one in hebrew. After the First World War, Yiddish was the prevailing language in Europe, whilst in Israel hebrew was dominant.
After the Second World War the number of Yiddish newspapers in Poland rose, however as the Jews left Poland and communism rose to power, the numbers declined until 1948 when they ceased completely. In the 1950’s and 1960’s a number of Yiddish newspapers were published daily, weekly and monthly, mainly in Argentina, Uruguay, the U.S., Canada, France and Israel. Around 1980, there was a resurgence of Yiddish and Ladino in Israel. After the political upheaval in Israel in 1977, they began to make room for different nationalities: The National Ladino Authority was established by President Yitzhak Navon, whilst at the same time the National Yiddish Authority was established. Even the first Harry Potter book was translated into Yiddish in 2020, and the first thousand copies flew off the shelves. However, Yiddish has not received serious consideration as a day-to-day language owing to its nostalgia towards the past.
