# Ladino: Is it understood by Spanish natives?



## JLanguage

I invite all native speakers of Spanish and even those who aren't native to try reading this website:
http://www.sephardicstudies.org/ladinoa1.html

Here are two more samples:
http://www.omniglot.com/babel/ladino.htm
http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Spanish-Ladino/Texts/Stanzas_of_Joseph_by_De_Toledo.html

I believe that Ladino is based on medieval Castillian (Old Spanish), but I do not know if that means that it is too different from Modern Spanish to be understood by Spanish-speakers.

Cheers,
-Jonathan


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## Tabac

I'm not a native speaker of Spanish, but I was able to understand the first example almost totally. The second had some forms and words I couldn't understand.  I suspect it is older than the first.


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## JLanguage

So, if I become fluent in Spanish, I will be able to understand Ladino?


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## Marcus

I a m a native spanish and catalan speaker from Spain, and I just wonder why in the world would someone want to understand some kind'a weird bad-written variation of spanish called ladino.
I have been taking a look at the links above. My conclusion is that Ladino is a way to write spanish in a diferent way, without loosing the sounds of the language.

Here's an example for your understanding: 

- the Lord scattered them over the face of all countries. - original english

-"the Lord scaterede hem on the face of alle cuntrees." - I would call it Engleese


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## beatrizg

I can understand quite well.

The spelling in the three texts is slightly different. 

Regards to all.


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## JLanguage

Marcus said:
			
		

> I a m a native spanish and catalan speaker from Spain, and I just wonder why in the world would someone want to understand some kind'a weird bad-written variation of spanish called ladino.
> I have been taking a look at the links above. My conclusion is that Ladino is a way to write spanish in a diferent way, without loosing the sounds of the language.
> 
> Here's an example for your understanding:
> 
> - the Lord scattered them over the face of all countries. - original english
> 
> -"the Lord scaterede hem on the face of alle cuntrees." - I would call it Engleese


 
There are some interesting Jewish writings in Ladino. Admittedly, not enough to justify learning it before Spanish, but what you say about Ladino is not true. Ladino may have been a dialect of medieval Spanish, but I think the way the language is today it should always be considered a separate language from Spanish. Verbally, they're not really even mutually intelligible.

Oh yeah, and the reason it's spelled differently from Spanish is because there's no real fixed spelling system. It could be written using modern Spanish spelling, which would make it look a lot closer to Spanish.


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## Marcus

What I've seen, reading the text is that I understood it all without any trouble... I just had the need to get used to the different spelling, and that's it. No problems of comprehension. Not a word... I wouldn't consider it as a whole different language, maybe a dialect, but I think it shouldn't even be called a dialect... I'll really go over it again to see if I find some grammar or lexicon variations.

I have the luck to be grown in a part of the world where there's 2 official languages. The luck to have as native languages, spanish and catalan. Both coming from the latin and both pretty similar, but the luck to speak both at the same time, with the same fluency makes the difference. 
Having both of them takes you closer to other parent languages as portugese, italian and french making it easier to understand. There's a simple reason for it, all of them com directly from the latin, and most of the words are pretty much the same... Just let me demonstrate it:

spanish + catalan - italian - french - english
hierro + ferro - fierro - fer - iron
higo + figa - fico - figue - prickly pear
mesa - taula - tavola - table - table

Adding languages sometimes makes it easier to understand.

Now, going back to subject... Ladin has no grammar neither lexicon differences with spanish and/or catalan. My impressions are:
1)Ladin is the result of the loose of the the written language
2)Ladin looks to be written as a foreigner would speak it. With pronunciation problems.
3) Ladin even have very close similarities with catalan. (let's see them)

Ladin: Estimadas sinyoras i estimados sinyores,
Español: Estimadas señoras y estimados señores
català: Estimades senyores i estimats senyors

Ladin:  i les digo "grasias" des del fondo de mi korason
Español: Y les digo "gracias" des del fondo de mi corazón

Ladin: estudios akademikos i *lavoros *sientifikos sovre la lingua i la istoria sefaradi
Español:Estudios academicos y trabajos científicos sobre la lengua y la historia sefaradi
("lavoros")<-- comes from the italian verb "lavorare" = to work

So my conclusion is that Ladin is a misspelling from the spanish language.

Sorry for the length of the text and also for my lack of words in english as long for my grammar... ) hahaa


			
				JLanguage said:
			
		

> I believe that Ladino is based on medieval Castillian (Old Spanish), but I do not know if that means that it is too different from Modern Spanish to be understood by Spanish-speakers.
> -Jonathan



Ladin doesn't come from old spanish because there's no old words written in the whole text. As well as in english, you use to use old words as "thee" referring to the lord, etc... All the words used in the text are used in the modern spanish. I even noticed that there's some slang words in it.

Best Regards...


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## Outsider

Ladino is not an invention, or misspelled Spanish. It was the Romance language (or dialect) used by the Jews in the Iberian Peninsula before they were either expelled or forced to convert in the 16th century. It has continued to be used by Jewish communities abroad until today.

Here are two links about Ladino:

http://home.earthlink.net/~benven/ladino.html
http://www.sephardicstudies.org/quickladino.html


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## JLanguage

Marcus said:
			
		

> Ladin doesn't come from old spanish because there's no old words written in the whole text. As well as in english, you use to use old words as "thee" referring to the lord, etc... All the words used in the text are used in the modern spanish. I even noticed that there's some slang words in it.
> Best Regards...


 
Not sure how accurate this is, but according to wikipedia, Ladino is a derivative of medieval Spanish: 



> Ladino is a Romance language, derived mainly from Old Castilian (Spanish) and Hebrew. Speakers are currently almost exclusively Sephardic Jews, but historically there have also been Ashkenazi speakers — for example, in Thessaloniki and Istanbul. The language is also called Judæo-Spanish, Sefardi, Dzhudezmo, Judezmo, and Spanyol; Haquitía (from the Arabic haka حكى, "tell") refers to the dialect of North Africa, especially Morocco. The dialect of the Oran area of Algeria was called Tetuani or Tetauni, after the Moroccan town Tétouan, since many Oranais Jews came from this city. In Hebrew, the language is called Spanyolit.


 
How is it possible that Ladino is has so few diffferences from Spanish, when most of the extant speakers had/have been living in the Ottoman Empire/Turkey, separated from spanish speakers for 500 years?

I think I found the answer to my own question, From the Jewish Languages Research Website:
Judeo-Spanish/Judezmo/Ladino - Jewish Language Research Website



> After the expulsion from Spain in 1492, Judeo-Spanish developed independently of Iberian Spanish. Written Judeo-Spanish in the 16th century followed Iberian Spanish literary norms, but the distance from Spain and the development of Judeo-Spanish resulted in literary and linguistic differences in the Judeo-Spanish of later centuries. Vernacular forms entered the written language, and many words and expressions from the local languages (Turkish, Greek, and Balkan languages) were fused in Judeo-Spanish.


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## Camui

There aren't any differences betwen that text and a standard spanish, just the spelling

 Es kon una immensia alegria i agradesimiento ke saludo vuestra honoravle prezensia en la inaugurasion del Sentro para los Estudios de Ladino ke yeva el nombre de mi mujer i el mio ; el primer sentro ke dedikara estudios ...

En con una inmensa alegría y agradecimiento que saludo vuestra honorable presencia en la inauguración del Centro para los Estudios Ladinos que lleva el nombre de mi mujer y el mío; el primer centro que se dedicara a...

And I understad everything in the audio example in that page, the speaker just change the j for ll. "muller (mujer) que" "una tillera (tijera)" 

El segundo mp3s parece que es una turista britanica que ha vivido unos años en España... la verdad jeje


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## Outsider

Otro hilo donde se habló de esto.


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## elroy

Marcus said:
			
		

> I have the luck to be grown in a part of the world where there's 2 official languages. The luck to have as native languages, spanish and catalan. Both coming from the latin and both pretty similar, but the luck to speak both at the same time, with the same fluency makes the difference.
> Having both of them takes you closer to other parent languages as portugese, italian and french making it easier to understand. There's a simple reason for it, all of them com directly from the latin, and most of the words are pretty much the same... Just let me demonstrate it:
> 
> spanish + catalan - italian - french - english
> hierro + ferro - fierro - fer - iron
> higo + figa - fico - figue - prickly pear
> mesa - taula - tavola - table - table
> 
> Adding languages sometimes makes it easier to understand.
> 
> Now, going back to subject... Ladin has no grammar neither lexicon differences with spanish and/or catalan. My impressions are:
> 1)Ladin is the result of the loose of the the written language
> 2)Ladin looks to be written as a foreigner would speak it. With pronunciation problems.
> 3) Ladin even have very close similarities with catalan. (let's see them)
> 
> Ladin: Estimadas sinyoras i estimados sinyores,
> Español: Estimadas señoras y estimados señores
> català: Estimades senyores i estimats senyors
> 
> Ladin:  i les digo "grasias" des del fondo de mi korason
> Español: Y les digo "gracias" des del fondo de mi corazón
> 
> Ladin: estudios akademikos i *lavoros *sientifikos sovre la lingua i la istoria sefaradi
> Español:Estudios academicos y trabajos científicos sobre la lengua y la historia sefaradi
> ("lavoros")<-- comes from the italian verb "lavorare" = to work
> 
> So my conclusion is that Ladin is a misspelling from the spanish language.
> 
> Sorry for the length of the text and also for my lack of words in english as long for my grammar... ) hahaa



Just one thing: "higo" is "fig" in English - not "prickly pear."

And it seems to me as well that Ladino is very similar to modern Spanish except for the spelling.  I don't know anything about it, but that's just the impression I get.


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## Edwin

It seems likely that Ladino is to Spanish as Yiddish is to German.  See the article on Yiddish at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiddish  where it says:


> ......there are those who suggest that Yiddish is merely a dialect of German, not different enough to be classed as a separate language. Yiddish and German share a large portion of their respective vocabularies, and a number of similar grammatical structures. *Some German speakers are reportedly able to understand spoken Yiddish, considering it similar to German spoken by Slavs.* These observations lead some observers to describe Yiddish as a German dialect rather than an independent language.


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## BTCarroll

I see this thread has been without action for a year, but I recently learned that _munchos_ for _muchos_ and _asina_ for _asi_ were characterists of Ladino, spoken by Conversos, or Crypto-Jews, families that converted from Judism to Catholicism to escape the Inquisition. Many of these families maintained secret communities to practice their traditions.

Many of my students in Central California (virtually all of them immigrants from Michoacan or Jalisco) use _munchos_ and _asina_ in their everyday Spanish.

So I'm curious:

1) Are these simply part of the regional Spanish of Jalisco and Michoacan?

2) Is the Spanish of Jalisco and Michoacan influenced by Ladino, or does this commonality demonstrate that it shares with Ladino a common background in Proto-Castillian? (i.e., Proto-Castillian had the 'n', but modern Spanish lost it.)

3) What is the possibility that my students represent a community with roots in the 16th and 17th Century Sefardic Converso migration to Mexico?

Anybody have any answers?

--Brian


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## diegodbs

BTCarroll said:
			
		

> I see this thread has been without action for a year, but I recently learned that _munchos_ for _muchos_ and _asina_ for _asi_ were characterists of Ladino, spoken by Conversos, or Crypto-Jews, families that converted from Judism to Catholicism to escape the Inquisition. Many of these families maintained secret communities to practice their traditions.
> 
> Many of my students in Central California (virtually all of them immigrants from Michoacan or Jalisco) use _munchos_ and _asina_ in their everyday Spanish.
> 
> So I'm curious:
> 
> 1) Are these simply part of the regional Spanish of Jalisco and Michoacan?
> 
> 2) Is the Spanish of Jalisco and Michoacan influenced by Ladino, or does this commonality demonstrate that it shares with Ladino a common background in Proto-Castillian? (i.e., Proto-Castillian had the 'n', but modern Spanish lost it.)
> 
> 3) What is the possibility that my students represent a community with roots in the 16th and 17th Century Sefardic Converso migration to Mexico?
> 
> Anybody have any answers?


 
*muncho, cha.
1.* adj. ant. *mucho.* U. c.* vulg.*


*asina.*
(De _asín_).
*1.* adv. m. *vulg.* *así.*

_Real Academia Española © Todos los derechos reservados_

1.- Es una forma vulgar del español moderno. También se daba y aún se puede dar en España, pero se considera un vulgarismo y está prácticamente extinguido.

2.- No está influenciado por el ladino. El ladino representa una forma antigua del castellano.

3.- Posibilidad prácticamente ninguna. Los conversos no podían ir a América. A Cervantes se le negó esa posibilidad porque no era "cristiano viejo".


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## SofiaB

The reaon Ladino is spelled differently is because various alphabets have been used for it. Also there are some minor difference in vocabulary and pronuciation depending on where the speaker comes from.As previously mentioned words from other languages and Hebrew are mixed in. Some speakers have retained the old Spanish pronunciation. Which reminds me of Portuguese as well, ex. jand g are sometimes pronounced as in French or Portuguese.


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## jester.

I'm not a native but I tried to read it, too.

It wasn't too difficult, but it just looks terrible to me, especially the K.


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## Outsider

SofiaB said:
			
		

> The reaon Ladino is spelled differently is because various alphabets have been used for it.


These are not just differences in spelling. The pronunciation is different, as well.

When I saw the word _muncho_ for the first time, I couldn't help being reminded of Portuguese _muito_. Although you can't tell from how we spell it, the _u_ is actually nasal in this word. If we ignored the _i_, we would be able to write it _munto_.



			
				j3st3r said:
			
		

> I'm not a native but I tried to read it, too.
> 
> It wasn't too difficult, but it just looks terrible to me, especially the K.


There are alternative spellings for Ladino. See the links in this thread.


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## Cicerón

I could undestand it perfectly.


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## Thomas F. O'Gara

???

I always thought Ladino was written with the Hebrew alphabet, just like Yiddish.


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## Grekh

I could totally understand it! It's very similar to the bad-written spanish young people like me use in the "sms-language"


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## marz81

Hi!!
I have only have a look to the first link and the text reminds me of something, as Grekh recalls... This Ladino seems quite similar to sending texts with the mobile/cell phone in Spain.
There is always some controversy (I don't know if that is the right word, I'm sorry for the possible mistakes) about if sending texts is making the education become poor in Spain. Since people, especially teenagers, want to write as much as possible in just one text (and so they don't have to pay more), we use some abreviations, which make people who is still learning the laguage make lots of mistakes... it's similar as when in English people write "2" for "to" or "U R" for "you are"...
here it's an example:
"Hi! how are you? can we meet later?"
Spanish: "Hola! Cómo estás? podemos quedar más tarde?"
A text in the mobile phone could be: "Ola! komo stas? podemos kedar mas tarde?"
There are people who also change "ll" for "y" like "llegar" for "yegar" but it's only to save characters and being able to write more!
I know this is not a great post about Ladino, culturally speaking, but I just wanted to highlight the similarities!!!!


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## yarden be yehudah

beatrizg said:


> I can understand quite well.
> 
> The spelling in the three texts is slightly different.
> 
> Regards to all.


I am fluent in Spanish and can speak Ladino pretty well, I can also read it in the Hebrew script. It is very similar. If you are fluent in Spanish, you can understand fairly well, but won't be able to understand every word.

I am a speaker of Judaeo Spanish (Ladino, but we usually call Judaeo- Espanyol) I can read it in Hebrew script, in fact I usually refuse to write in an other way. I am also fluent in Spanish. Judaeo Spanish is fairly easy to understand by speakers of Spanish. On a scale of 1 to 10 I'd say about 6.
Judaeo Spanish is 1492 Spanish mixed with 4% Hebrew, about 20% Turkish and Arabic, 60% Old Spanish and Portuguese and 7% other. It's really neat.


Marcus said:


> What I've seen, reading the text is that I understood it all without any trouble... I just had the need to get used to the different spelling, and that's it. No problems of comprehension. Not a word... I wouldn't consider it as a whole different language, maybe a dialect, but I think it shouldn't even be called a dialect... I'll really go over it again to see if I find some grammar or lexicon variations.


There ARE differences. This language is mixed with Hebrew, Arabic, and Turkish. Did you know that up to 31% of ALL Ladino words is not from Spanish?

Here's a sample:

*Shalom* (or *Bonjur*) Komo *estash *vozotros? Yo esto muy bien, gracias. Esto es lo ke me paso oy: Primeiro, yo me levanto i entonses desayuno. Me visto i pongo mi *chapeo* i salgo de la kaza. Yo *vo* al *trabasho *i kuando regreso, *dayaneo.* Despues ke yo me levanto miro de la bentana i veo ke mis amigos van a *Bet Knesset.* Esto tarde, tyengo *menester *de darme prisa porke tyengo la *avtaha* de avlar kon el rabi. Despues ya es ora de acostarme. Shalom!
¡*Hola*! ¿Como *estais (*estan)? *Estoy *muy bien gracias. Esto es lo que me paso *hoy*: *Primero*, me levanto y entonces desayuno. *Pongo la ropa* (Me visto , only in Spain) y pongo mi *sombrero y *salgo de la *casa. Voy *al trabajo y cuando regreso, *descanso. *Despues que me levanto. miro de la ventana y veo que mis amigos van a la *sinagoga. Estoy *tarde, *necesito* de darme prisa proque tengo la *esperanza *de hablar con el rabi. Despues, ya es hora de acostarme.

Hello! How are you (all)? I am very well thanks. This is what happened to me today: First, I get up and then I eat breakfast. I get dressed and I put on my hat and I leave the house. I go to work and when I return, I rest. After I get up I look out of the window and I see that my friends are going to the synagogue. I am late, I need to hurry because I have the hope to speak with the rabbi. Afterward, it is already time to go to bed.

List of languages from which each Ladino word is:
Shalom- Hebrew (hello)
Bonjur- French (duh!) (hello)
estash- Old Castillian Sp. (you pl. are)
chapeo- Old Portuguese
vo- old form of voy in Old Sp.(meaning I go)
trabasho- Sp (modern= trabajo)
dayaneo- Turkish- it means "I rest" it is conjugated
like all Spanish verbs. It is slightly adapted from
Turkish so you can conjugate it like Sp.
Bet Knesset- Hebrew- synagogue
menester- Old Sp and Portuguese (to need)
avtaha- Turkish ( meaning hope)


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## Zona

When in Istanbul in 2004 studying Ladino as spoken by Sephardic Jews in Turkey for the last 500 years, the song Ben seni severim was a very popular song.  I bought the CD on which there were both Turkish and Ladino songs.  I enjoyed the music, understood the Ladino (Djudeo-espanyol) but am just learning Turkish on my own.  I bought their newest CD while in Turkey this year.

*Note: *This post has been moved from this thread.


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## avok

^
That's interesting, I think any Spanish or Portuguese speaker is  able to understand Ladino. I don't think there are many Ladino speakers left in Istanbul, though.
Good luck with Turkish 

*Note: *This post has been moved from this thread.


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## Zona

There are about 8,000 Ladino speakers still in Istanbul.  Most are older and many younger Sefardics understand their grandparents but do not speak Ladino except for day to day basics.  After the establishment of the state of Israel, many Sefardics moved there.  Many return for the summer.  At one time there were over 40,000 Ladino speaking Sefardics in Istanbul; guests of the Ottoman sultan.  They lived there in relative peace for about 500 years.

*Note: *This post has been moved from this thread.


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## Zona

Ladino is not a derivative of Spanish, it is 16th century Spanish spoken as it was spoken than in Spain by Jews and non-Jews.  Expelled from Spain in 1492, it was taken with the Jews through many countries; Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey as well as across north Africa.  Each place added a few words and some structures.  Hebrew actually had the least influence because only the rabbis spoke Hebrew; the people spoke Aramaic and Spanish (dialects of the regions from whence they came; ie. Aragonese, Castillian, Andalucian etc) and hence variances with the the Ladino population.  It is still spoken by the older generation of Sephardic Jews in Istanbul...I speak 21st century Spanish and had little trouble understanding them and they understood me.  Vocabulary is different from 21st century.  Spelling reflects Turkish use of Latin alphabet which is completely phonetic.  You write the word the way you say it: hence, taxi is taksi.  Ladino has been written with Hebrew letters, Arabic letters, and Latin letters; depending on the era.


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## estro

yarden be yehudah said:


> Shalom- Hebrew (hello)
> Bonjur- French (duh!) (hello)
> estash- Old Castillian Sp. (you pl. are)
> chapeo- Old Portuguese
> vo- old form of voy in Old Sp.(meaning I go)
> trabasho- Sp (modern= trabajo)
> dayaneo- Turkish- it means "I rest" it is conjugated
> like all Spanish verbs. It is slightly adapted from
> Turkish so you can conjugate it like Sp.
> Bet Knesset- Hebrew- synagogue
> menester- Old Sp and Portuguese (to need)
> avtaha- Turkish ( meaning hope)


To be fair, at least four of those words are still used in modern Spanish: "estash" = "estáis" (used in Spain), "vo" = "vos" (the voseo form is used by millions of people in the Southern Cone and Central America), "trabasho" = "trabajo", "menester" = "menester"... and are written almost exactly (or) the same. As for "Shalom" and "Bonjur", come on...

All I can say is, judging from what I've seen, the Jews who were expelled from Spain preserved their language amazingly well because I have not read a single text in Ladino that, baring a few bits of vocabulary, I haven't been able to understand like at least 95%. The grammar seems exactly the same to me. In fact, it just looks like Spanish written by a bad speller.

I think I will add Ladino to the short list of languages I know, because without having studying it, or even knowing about it until a short while ago, I can understand it almost perfectly, and I'm not even a native Spanish speaker. I can't believe that any hispanohablante wouldn't be able to understand written Ladino (when written in the latin alphabet, obviously) with great ease.


yarden be yehudah said:


> I am a speaker of Judaeo Spanish (Ladino, but we usually call Judaeo- Espanyol) I can read it in Hebrew script, in fact I usually refuse to write in an other way. I am also fluent in Spanish. Judaeo Spanish is fairly easy to understand by speakers of Spanish. On a scale of 1 to 10 I'd say about 6.


No offence, but what from what I've seen on this site, Wikipedia and a few other pages I would say it is more like a 9 and a half. I can understand it much better than Portuguese, Catalan, Galician, Asturian or any other Romance language that I've seen (written). In fact, I can understand it better than Scots or even the local dialect still spoken by people where I live until about like 50 years ago! I'm not exaggerating, really.


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## alexacohen

I have no trouble at all understanding it or translating it. I agree it's basically old Spanish, but there are words from many other languages, including Portuguese, Galician, Turkish, and of course Hebrew.

But it is not that easy to understand, unless you are a person fairly interested in languages.

And here, we all are.


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## Zona

Instead of "reading" the ladino texts; say them.  They are phonetic (with the Turkish variation of the Latin Alphabet).  Ladino is 16th century Spanish but was a spoken language not written.  When written, for years it was written with Hebrew letters or Arabic script.  After Turkey adopted the Latin alphabet, it has been written so.  Modern day Sephardi use the Latin alphabet with the characteristics of where they are from now. There is very little Hebrew in the language because most Sephardi did not speak it.  Turkish words do show up in Istanbul as do Arabic words in Israel.  It is being taught in Israel at the University and at Tufts University in the US.  A newpaper published in Istanbul (Shalom) has one of its 12 pages in djudeo-espanyol.  In Spanish speaking countries and the US Sephardi have added their own flavor to the language.
Enjoy!


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## avok

Hi again,

In Turkey, Ladinos have the newpaper "Şalom", if you want to see if you can understand the written language or just curious, Here is the link, for example: Una kestyon a la kuala es difisil de responder


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## Outsider

Thanks, Avok, that is interesting!


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## lostsoul31

BTCarroll said:


> I see this thread has been without action for a year, but I recently learned that _munchos_ for _muchos_ and _asina_ for _asi_ were characterists of Ladino, spoken by Conversos, or Crypto-Jews, families that converted from Judism to Catholicism to escape the Inquisition. Many of these families maintained secret communities to practice their traditions.
> 
> Many of my students in Central California (virtually all of them immigrants from Michoacan or Jalisco) use _munchos_ and _asina_ in their everyday Spanish.
> 
> So I'm curious:
> 
> 1) Are these simply part of the regional Spanish of Jalisco and Michoacan?
> 
> 2) Is the Spanish of Jalisco and Michoacan influenced by Ladino, or does this commonality demonstrate that it shares with Ladino a common background in Proto-Castillian? (i.e., Proto-Castillian had the 'n', but modern Spanish lost it.)
> 
> 3) What is the possibility that my students represent a community with roots in the 16th and 17th Century Sefardic Converso migration to Mexico?
> 
> Anybody have any answers?
> 
> --Brian


 
To tell you the truth I'm one of those people! My family is of direct descent from Sefardic Conversos who happened to have settled in Michoacan and Jalisco. I think also in northern Mexico some people still speak like this too, I live in a border to a Mexican state and a few people here also speak like this. Both sides of my family would always say Muncho instead of Mucho and my grandma's parents and relatives would often say Ansina however they came directly from Spain and never mixed with the local native population. With my grandma's family they never mixed dairy products with milk products and seperated the dishes to serve both foods. So yeah and there are lots of towns and villages in that area where they actually have proven that Sefardic converts settled and founded many of the towns from that region. So I think it's very possible that a remnant of Ladino speakers managed to survive in that region and is due to the concentration of Sefardic Anusim, after all im living proof of this lol. I do not speak like this form of Spanish because my family has assimilated completely into the rest of Mexican society and thus my parents generation and on forgot about this. Sorry for the long reply.


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## tokai

In Wikipedia it says "As a Jewish language, it is *influenced heavily*  by Hebrew and Aramaic, but also Arabic, Turkish and to a lesser extent  Greek and other languages where Sephardic exiles settled around the  world, primarily throughout the Ottoman Empire"... yet in the texts  mentioned in the previous posts, and also in the newspaper articles in  the link posted above, you can read *almost everything* as if it  were just modern Spanish written with a different spelling.



avok said:


> Hi again,
> In Turkey, Ladinos have the newpaper "Şalom", if you want to see if you  can understand the written language or just curious, Here is the link, for example: Una kestyon a la kuala es difisil de responder


The Judeo-Espanyol section of that newspaper (or at least the online version) only amounts to 3 current articles. The rest of it is written entirely in Turkish.


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## mediterraneo24

tokai said:


> In Wikipedia it says "As a Jewish language, it is influenced heavily  by Hebrew and Aramaic, but also Arabic, Turkish and to a lesser extent  Greek and other languages where Sephardic exiles settled around the  world, primarily throughout the Ottoman Empire"



Ladino is a jewish language only beacause it was spoken by the jews all  those years, but actually it's an actual phase of spanish from medieval  times. 
I consider it to be historic spanish rather than a different dialect.  And I also think that turkish/greek/arabic/etc influances are regional,  but hebrew influance definitely has a strong presence.


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## tokai

Hi mediterraneo,
I don't think I've read any medieval Spanish, but I have read a bit of Cervantes, and the language used in, say, the original version of Don Quijote is quite different from modern Spanish. As I mentioned, Ladino (based on what I've seen) seems to me just like modern day Spanish (from maybe Andalucia) spelt slightly differently and with the (very) occasional exotic-ish word thrown in... In the articles from the newspaper mentioned in a previous post, you could basically just change the spelling of the words and read them exactly the same as if they were written in modern standard Spanish.

If der was an Inglish vershon of Ladino, dis is ow it wud seem to mee. Mor o less juss modern Inglish wid a fonetic spellin baised on a sertan dialect.


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## mediterraneo24

You are right, That's because Don Quijote is written in a very poetic language, while Ladino is very colloquial.
I meant that phonetically ladino is very much like _old spanish rather_ then medieval spanish like I suggested. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Spanish


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## jdotjdot89

"Jewish languages" developed where a strong and insular Jewish community spoke the language of the country where they were living while implementing elements of Hebrew, Aramaic, and other surrounding languages from the community's history (or future if eventually displaced).  The degree to which these languages or dialects vary from the main language differs.  Yiddish is quite distinct from both German and Hebrew, though as said above, many German-speakers can understand plenty of Yiddish.  The same is true of Ladino for Spanish, though to a greater extent.  In fact, the same is taking place among Jews in the United States now, who speak a variant of English that frankly cannot be understood by the average American due to the enormous number of Hebrew, Yiddish, and Aramaic borrowings, though it is not well-documented.  I see here a large argument taking place whether Ladino is a "language" or not, though no such argument exists over the American version (where it is generally assumed just to be a community's internal slang).

I find it particularly dismissive to just wave it away as "poorly spelled Spanish"--that is a premature judgement completely dismissing Ladino's history and development.  Ladino developed along the same timeframe as Modern Spanish, just within a different community that never standardized it, but it developed from Old Spanish just like Modern Castilian Spanish did.  Whether the small grammatical differences and the vocabulary differences qualify it as a separate language or a dialect is an argument that linguists have been having for years over many different language/dialect distinctions.  However, to call it simply a "misspelling" is a grossly prejudiced misjudgment, as it boasts a history equally as old as Modern Spanish.  I think time would be better spent examining the differences between the two for academic and interest purposes.

I possess Ladino versions of the Jewish prayers "Adon Olam" (Ruler of the World) and "Ein K'eloheinu" (There Is No One Like Our God) that I can post if anyone is interested as more sample texts.


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## Outsider

jdotjdot89 said:


> I possess Ladino versions of the Jewish prayers "Adon Olam" (Ruler of the World) and "Ein K'eloheinu" (There Is No One Like Our God) that I can post if anyone is interested as more sample texts.


It would be nice if you could. I think they would be welcome additions to the thread.


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## willikvrvf

Hola!
It is very easy to read and understand, not more difficult that the creole languages papiamento (in the Netherlands Antilles) or chabacano (in the Philippines), that are very similar to Spanish but with different spelling.

Remember that "a language is a dialect with an army and navy" (Max Weinreich).

Saludos!


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## jdotjdot89

Even for the non-standardized spelling system that Ladino has, I'm under the impression that these spellings are pretty non-standard.  However, this is what I have.

"Ein K'Eloheinu"
No como muestro Dio, no como muestro señor
No como muestro rey, no como muestro salvador

Quen como muestro Dio, quen como muestro señor
Quen como muestro rey, quen como muestro salvador

Loaremos a muestro Dio, loaremos a muestro señor
Loaremos a muestro rey, loaremos a muestro salvador

Bendicho a muestro Dio, bendicho a muestro señor
Bendicho a muestro rey, bendicho a muestro salvador

Tu sos muestro Dio, tu sos muestro señor
Tu sos muestro rey, tu sos muestro salvador


No puc trobar l'altra cançó ara mateix, malhauradament.


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## La Taher

Of course coversos were allowed to travel to the Americas. Why do you think that the "Santa Inquisición was instituted in Mexico, Lima and other "virreinatos?" The narratives about - us - the descendants of marranos in Latin America has been extensively documented - both academically and via oral histories.


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## Dymn

My mother tongue is Catalan and I speak Spanish at almost a native level.

I understand it all. It seems like a kind of Spanish written in a more phonemic way:
* c before a, o, u and consonant and qu -> k
* h -> disappears
* ll -> y
* b -> v
* c before e, i -> s
* ñ -> ny
* g before e, i -> j

And there are some words which are different from Standard Spanish (munchos -> muchos; lavoro -> trabajo, etc.)

Another characteristic is the "m" that replaces "n" at the beginnig (mosotros -> nosotros; muestro -> nuestro, etc.)

I would call it a Spanish dialect.


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## El Yonko

According to your question, yes, I can understand the text completely.

Now, I really think calling that a "language" requires way too much faith. Seriously. It's just Spanish written phonetically and with lots of grammar mistakes. Is the only way I can describe that text.

It's like you were to read in English something like: Eye Am de Vig Man and Eye like 2 rite lika moron.

No offense but, I would NOT call that ladino thing a language. I've known native Spanish speakers with no education at all that would write exactly like that, and they are no "ladino" speakers, just people that doesn't know how to write properly.


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## berndf

El Yonko said:


> It's just Spanish written phonetically and with lots of grammar mistakes.


... Or Spanish is just Ladino written with lots of grammar mistakes. That depends on the way you look at it.


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## fdb

Nice answer.


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## merquiades

Ladino is more than just Spanish, it's a unique form of 15th century Spanish that has been preserved.  That's awesome.  It gives a good idea of how old Castilian was spoken, and also proves that this pronunciation was kept much later than was originally expected (at least by part of the population in Spain at that time). 

/s/ and /z/ have not merged into /s/
/ʃ/ and /ʒ/ have not merged and have not been retracted to /χ/
/dz/ and /ts/ have not merged and have not been simplified and forwarded to /θ/ 
/b/ and /v/ or /β/ have not merged either


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## XiaoRoel

Los hablantes letrados de español no tenemos dificultad para entender el (d)judeoespañol (ya nadie, en medios filólogicos al menos, lo llama ladino), más allá de pequeñas dificultades de vocabulario debidas a la integración de palabras hebreas, turcas, francesas, italianas, inglesas, etc. que el djudeoespañol integró en su diáspora tras la expulsión de Sefarad a finales del s. XV.
De todas maneras las palabras ajenas al español son pocas y no impiden la comprensión pues las más de las veces las aclara suficientemente el contexto.
El que esto escribe es un lector ávido de la literatura sefardí, la que llevaron al exilio, especialmente su romancero, y la que crearon en la diáspora.


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## Hulalessar

Everyone agrees that _reading _Ladino presents no great problem to those who know Spanish, but what about the _spoken_ language? I found some examples on YouTube and they were by no means easy to follow. Sometimes I could understand several words together, but other times I could barely understand anything. Over all I did not find it possible to follow the flow.


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## fdb

Normally, Ladino is not written in Latin script, nor in Hebrew square script, but in the so-called Rashi script. I would maintain that reading Ladino does present something of a problem, unless you are used to Rashi script.


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## Hulalessar

Rashi would make it a bit tricky for me certainly!

The way it is written in Latin script looks a bit like the way the young write in chatrooms.


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## bearded

In Northern Italy near the Austrian border (several alpine valleys) there is a minority Romance language which is also called ''Ladino''.  It is very similar (and possibly connected) to the Swiss Romantsch language (one of the Swiss official languages) as well as to Furlàn (also a minority speech in the Italian region of Friuli).
The reason for the name Ladino is that for centuries this language has been like a Latin ''island'' amidst German dialects of the Austrian/Bavarian type.
Mutual understanding is possible - to a certain extent - with speakers of Italian northern dialects - especially the Lombard dialect.
P.S.
This 'Ladino' has of course nothing to do with Ladino/Judeo-Espanol, except for the common Latin origin of all Romance languages.


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## gburtonio

^
This is generally called 'Ladin' in English.


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## Αγγελος

When Ladino actually was in daily use (e.g. in Salonica before the Holocaust), it was usually written with Hebrew letters. Those who pretend to write it today using the Latin alphabet (apparently, there is one high school in Istanbul where it is the primary medium of instruction) deliberately use a different spelling from that of Spanish, to emphasize that it is NOT just Spanish. 
Understandably, those who try to use Ladino in a formal setting are influenced by their knowledge of Castilian Spanish (and of French, which was the language of higher culture throughout the Eastern Mediterranean until recently.) Notice the use of "sieklo" for Spanish "siglo" (=century, Fr. siècle) in Selim Salti's speech, which apart from that and from one Turkish word that the editors deemed it necessary to explain in a footnote, is almost pure Spanish. That the Stanzas of Joseph the Wise are also almost pure Spanish is not surprising, if they were composed in the 15th century, when Sephardic Jews  still lived in Spain. This is in contrast to Yiddish, which is full of Hebrew words.


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## Raff75

JLanguage said:


> I invite all native speakers of Spanish and even those who aren't native to try reading this website:
> PORKE NO EL LADINO KOMO LINGUA DE KAZA?
> 
> Here are two more samples:
> Tower of Babel in Ladino
> Stanzas of Joseph the Wise


We, Spanish speakers, are able to understand it completely, and it´s beautiful. There are very few genuine speakers today because most of those who can talk Ladino are heavily influenced by another language or by modern Spanish.


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## WordToTheWise

I grew up speaking "Ladino." And I never had contact with "Spanish" or "Spanish" speakers till my mid twenties. First of all, I never heard the term Ladino till I did some googling on the history of Jewish communities in Turkey. My family always called our language "espaniol." I suspect the term Ladino is some academic invention. As for my later experience speaking to "Spanish" speakers. I understand 100% of Spanish and vice versa. No Spanish speaker ever questioned my "espaniol." The only correction to my Spanish was one time I used the phase "Con nombre del Dios" and I was told to say "Adios." I was also told by a native spanish speaker that I speak Spanish like a poor uneducated person, which is to some degree accurate, as I've never studied Spanish. The only other differences I've noticed is I pronounce the "J" sound like "sh" e.g Hijo - Ishyo. I would say Argentinian pronunciation is the closest. As for words like "Onde", I've only ever heard them pronounced like in spanish "donde." So I don't know the source of these "Ladino" words?


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## berndf

WordToTheWise said:


> I was also told by a native spanish speaker that I speak Spanish like a poor uneducated person,





WordToTheWise said:


> I would say Argentinian pronunciation is the closest.


Must be so. I once talked with a Ladino native speaker about his experience when he came to Argentina for the first time. He said upon his arrival he was interviewed and the journalists started to laugh when he started to talk. They said: "It is his first day in Argentina and he talks already like a gaucho".


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## heterônimo

From what I was able to listen online, as a Portuguese speaker I can understand it as well. I'll go even further by saying that a regular Portuguese speaker can probably understand better Ladino than any other variety of Spanish (which isn't necessarily a surprise since Ladino is derived from an older form of Spanish).


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## Olaszinhok

A mi me parece muy fácil de entender, lo entiendo todo.


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## Penyafort

Αγγελος said:


> Understandably, those who try to use Ladino in a formal setting are influenced by their knowledge of Castilian Spanish (and of French, which was the language of higher culture throughout the Eastern Mediterranean until recently.) Notice the use of "sieklo" for Spanish "siglo" (=century, Fr. siècle) in Selim Salti's speech, which apart from that and from one Turkish word that the editors deemed it necessary to explain in a footnote, is almost pure Spanish.



Some attributions are sometimes given because of poor knowledge of the other Romance languages of Spain. _Sieclo _doesn't necessarily have to come from French, as it is perfect Aragonese, which was spoken in all of the kingdom of Aragon back then.


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## Gorgiewave

I'm not a native Spanish speaker, but I am a fluent Spanish speaker. I found it easy to understand (in Latin script). It is like a phonetic rendering of Andalusian (or Latin American) pronunciation.


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## Drink

WordToTheWise said:


> First of all, I never heard the term Ladino till I did some googling on the history of Jewish communities in Turkey. My family always called our language "espaniol." I suspect the term Ladino is some academic invention.



Actually, academics prefer the term "Judeo-Spanish". The word "Ladino" was the name that Sephardi Jews gave to the archaic written language of the Bible translations (note also that in the past, Spanish was often referred to as "Latin" in many languages). The name "Ladino" as referring to the spoken language of the Sephardi Jews became common when many of these Jews immigrated to the Land of Israel in the 20th century and the other Jews there started calling their langauge "Ladino". Before that, the spoken language did not really have a name.


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## Tamazight_tayri

Just like Yiddish is a separate language from German so is Ladino. Mutual intelligibility is just one of the categories that could separate one language from another but it’s not by any means the only one. Belonging to a different ethnic group altogether or nation state can turn one language into a complete separate entity as it is with Turkic languages for example. 
Ladino is not another dialect of Spanish due to its highly mixed vocabulary from foreign languages such as primarily Hebrew , French , Turkish and Bosnian. And it’s definitely not a dialect of any of those aforementioned languages. The grammar is also not the same, and much less the phonology.


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## fdb

The question of what is a language, and what a dialect, is one that professional linguists shy clear of. On the whole, we like to speak of different languages if there are separate normalised written forms. So, for example, Maltese is a language but Tunisian Arabic is a dialect, although the two are very close in their spoken forms. Spanish and Ladino have separate written norms, respectively in Latin script and Hebrew (Sephardic) script. In their spoken form, Spanish and Ladino are very much mutually comprehensible, considerably more so than German and Yiddish. Recently, the Ladino speaking communities in Turkey have started to use Latin script and I have heard Spanish natives claiming that they understand written (Latin script) Ladino perfectly, it is just normal Spanish in a slightly strange spelling.


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## Tamazight_tayri

lostsoul31 said:


> To tell you the truth I'm one of those people! My family is of direct descent from Sefardic Conversos who happened to have settled in Michoacan and Jalisco. I think also in northern Mexico some people still speak like this too, I live in a border to a Mexican state and a few people here also speak like this. Both sides of my family would always say Muncho instead of Mucho and my grandma's parents and relatives would often say Ansina however they came directly from Spain and never mixed with the local native population. With my grandma's family they never mixed dairy products with milk products and seperated the dishes to serve both foods. So yeah and there are lots of towns and villages in that area where they actually have proven that Sefardic converts settled and founded many of the towns from that region. So I think it's very possible that a remnant of Ladino speakers managed to survive in that region and is due to the concentration of Sefardic Anusim, after all im living proof of this lol. I do not speak like this form of Spanish because my family has assimilated completely into the rest of Mexican society and thus my parents generation and on forgot about this. Sorry for the long reply.


 Of course this is a well documented reality all throughout Latin America. I don’t know what’s wrong with certain people. Not too long ago I stumbled upon a really bizarre article online by a white American author claiming the same as some Spaniards here that the whole  crypto Jewish “ladino thing” is a myth as a way for Latinos to feel whitewashed. I didn’t know whether to burst out laughing or crying out of rage or confusion or out of pity for people who think like that. First of all, after their mass expulsion to other places primarily at first other lands of the Middle East and Europe, Jews practiced   endogamy. (I mean first of all, they were unconsidered marranos / unclean for marriage eirhThis is especially true among conversos in Latin America and I can speak on behalf of Norteños / South Texans that endogamy is the primary reason why we have retained those MENA genes and subsequently retained remnants of the Ladino language and Sephardic culture. If you ever (or anyone else) care to learn more about crypto Jewish history I have an excellent PDF by an Israeli Jewish Anthropolgist who spent time in Monterrey Mexico and Nuevo León in general. She discovered some people still living in houses where the bathroom is kept separate, where they slaughter their livestock the Kosher way, people light candles on Friday night, they cover mirrors with a black blanket when someone dies, and they are extremely careful and superstitious over not leaving hair on the ground out of fear of a curse or witchcraft. Their beds would also face East and they would never sweep from inside of a room towards outside but rather they would  sweep everything towards the middle of the room and pick it up from the center. The most astonishing thing, where secret communities she discovered believing that Jesus was only a prophet while practicing Catholicism in the eyes of the society. Ritual cleaning and excessive hygiene habits too were recorded. And as you mentioned they would indeed not mix dairy with meet and they wouldn’t even eat dairy unless it was at the end of the day as a snack. Also, they would cover their dead loved ones with a white “mortaja”, a burial shroud just like Jews and Muslims use for burying their loved ones.  
All of this and a lot more intricate Judaic customs were observed. How can these things along with DNA have been brought by “pure” Catholic Spaniards/Iberians? 
Please always stand up for who you are and where you come from is sometimes worthy of pride and self-preservation!


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## Tamazight_tayri

fdb said:


> The question of what is a language, and what a dialect, is one that professional linguists shy clear of. On the whole, we like to speak of different languages if there are separate normalised written forms. So, for example, Maltese is a language but Tunisian Arabic is a dialect, although the two are very close in their spoken forms. Spanish and Ladino have separate written norms, respectively in Latin script and Hebrew (Sephardic) script. In their spoken form, Spanish and Ladino are very much mutually comprehensible, considerably more so than German and Yiddish. Recently, the Ladino speaking communities in Turkey have started to use Latin script and I have heard Spanish natives claiming that they understand written (Latin script) Ladino perfectly, it is just normal Spanish in a slightly strange spelling.


This same phenomenon happens with Darija (North African Arabic ) and with other “standard” dialects of Arabic such as Egyptian , Lebanese and Syrian. Most Arabs of the Middle East could claim they can comprehend about 70%-85% give or take of written Darija (like on social media for instance) but that reality is completely and utterly shattered when you take the oral form of Darija and compare that to other Arabic dialects. It is indeed a heated debate but most of the time you have adherents of a particular antagonistic ideology that insist on making that part, part of the whole rather making the (unique and autonomously linguistically stable and valid ) part separate from the whole (as in the perceived dominant entity). So it’s not just in this thread where you will see Europeans or I should say specifically I guess Iberians harbor such negative sentiments towards Ladino for no other reason other than defending their historical rhetoric / reputation. The same with the Arabized North Africans in power who insist on making Darija just another dialect of Arabic (as a way to undermine the “Amazigh” indigenous aspect of their every day language and culture) or better yet they insist that Tamazight is just another dialect of Arabic or an old Arabian Yemeni language (Yup, very absurd assertions!)
But that’s  honestly a much more complicated topic than Ladino v. Spanish. It should be fairly clear cut.


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## Dymn

Dymn said:


> I would call it a Spanish dialect.


Well I disagree with myself 7 years later, now I understand the huge role identity, history and written tradition have in "languagehood". Also having developed for the last five centuries in a totally autonomous way makes it considerably different from any variety of Modern Spanish.

For my defense those comments are mostly a product of ignorance rather than hatred. Most people don't even know Judeo-Spanish exists and they get stuck with the "funny spelling" to dismiss it altogether.


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## Penyafort

A dialect, as it is usually understood, is certainly a different thing. I'd rather call it a descendant of Middle Spanish.

Mutual intelligibility is always a tricky subjective issue. Those Spaniards who are more familiar with medieval Spanish, for instance, will clearly understand much more Judeo-Spanish than your average guy.


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## Rosa Carmon

Penyafort said:


> A dialect, as it is usually understood, is certainly a different thing. I'd rather call it a descendant of Middle Spanish.
> 
> Mutual intelligibility is always a tricky subjective issue. Those Spaniards who are more familiar with medieval Spanish, for instance, will clearly understand much more Judeo-Spanish than your average guy.



Absolutely agree with you.

To answer the question, as a Spanish speaker, not native, I perfectly understand Ladino, both written and spoken.


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