The Factors Regulating the Use of the Hebrew-Aramaic Component in Judeo-Spanish

Abstract

Abstract This article focuses on the quantitative and qualitative weight of the Hebrew-Aramaic (HA) component in Judeo-Spanish (JS) by examining three characteristics of language usage: 1. linguistic features of HA words: morphological—nouns vs. other categories (e.g., mazál ‘luck.N’ vs. maxamá ‘because of.PREP’); semantic—HA words and phrases related to Jewish religious concepts as opposed to other HA words and phrases (e.g., rošaná ‘New Year’ vs. xavér ‘friend, partner’), and syntactic. 2. The HA inventory in JS: which sources and texts produced HA words and expressions used in JS (e.g., the Passover Haggadah)? 3. The actual distribution of the HA component as it appears in various sociolinguistic circumstances and literary texts (e.g., male vs. female, spoken vs. written, Halakhic vs. non-Halakhic). These characteristics suggest a hierarchy of factors that influence the quantity and quality of the HA component in JS.