ABSTRACT
Why is language so sacred? What is it that can send people onto the streets, or to war, to demand the protection or victory of their mother tongue? What is it about language that seems to go right to the core of our perception of ourselves, of our understanding of our identity? The lines above were written about the JudeoSpanish language spoken by Sephardic Jews when they were expelled from Spain in 1492 by Ferdinand and Isabella. Here was a people in exile, so of course one would expect the language to be sacred. But the language Sephiha is talking about, ‘Ladino’ – or ‘Judezmo’ in its spoken form – is simply Spanish with Hebrew syntax. It is utterly hybrid, yet it is as sacred as Sephardic identity itself. How did this strange mixture enter the essence of Sephardim?
