Ladino language

Judaeo-Spanish
Judaeo-Spanish
Ladino; ﬥﬡטﬞין
Pronunciation	[laˈðino]
Native to	Israel ; Turkey ; USA ; France ; Greece ; Brazil ; UK ; and others
Ethnicity	Sephardim
Native speakers	Between 70,000 and 200,000. Most recent estimates around 95,000.; 72,000 in Israel,; 7,000 in Turkey,; 3,500 in the USA,; 2,500 in France,; around 1,000 each in Greece, Brazil and the UK. (2013)
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Western Ibero-Romance West Iberian Castilian Judaeo-Spanish; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Dialects	Haketia Variant - Morocco, Canada Levantine Variant - main variant, two branches ; Occidental branch - originally spoken in Albania, Romania, Western Bulgaria, Western Greece and Yugoslavia ; Oriental branch - originally spoken in Eastern Bulgaria, Eastern Greece, the Middle East, North Africa (except for Morocco) and Turkey. Ponentine Variant - extinct
Writing system	Mainly Latin script ; Original script Rashi and Solitreo ; Other scripts; Persian, Cyrillic, Greek and Hebrew.
Official status
Regulated by	Autoridad Nasionala del Ladino in Israel (using Latin alphabet)
Language codes
ISO 639-2	lad
ISO 639-3	lad
Linguasphere	51-AAB-ba ... 51-AAB-bd
	This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.
	This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Ladino (also called Judeo-Spanish) is a Jewish Romance language that is very close to the Spanish language. It has many old Spanish words and Hebrew words.

History

During the Middle Ages, many Jews lived in Spain. They were called Sephardic Jews or Sephardim (in Hebrew). Forced to leave Spain after the country was taken over by Christians, they brought the old Spanish with them to their new countries.^{[clarification needed]} Some Sephardic Jews still speak Ladino in Israel, Turkey, Bulgaria, the United States and other countries.^[2]

Just as many other Jewish languages, Ladino is an endangered language and is in danger of language death. It could become an extinct language. Most native speakers are old because many of them emigrated to Israel and did not pass on the language to their children or grandchildren. In some Sephardic Jewish communities in Latin America and elsewhere, there is a threat of language extinction because of assimilation into modern Spanish.^[2]

Writing

Ladino is usually written by using the Latin alphabet, but in Israel it uses the Hebrew alphabet.

Ladin language

Ladino should not be confused with the Ladin language, which is related to the Swiss Romansh and Friulian languages and is mostly spoken in the Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol region of Northern Italy.

Ladino Language Media

A 1902 Issue of La Epoca, a Judeo-Spanish newspaper from Salonica (Thessaloniki) during the Ottoman Empire
Judaeo-Spanish speaking communities in the Mediterranean
The Rashi script, originally used to print the language
Nuevo Silibaryo Espanyol. Judaeo-Spanish textbook, Salonica, 1929
Cover of Me-'am lo'ez
Inscription at Yad Vashem in Hebrew, English, Yiddish, and Judaeo-Spanish