A descendant of medieval Spanish, the endangered language Ladino (lad) is once again of interest in Spain.
A language spoken by the Jews in the Iberian Peninsula (the Sephardic Jews), Ladino followed them when they were exiled in Spain by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1492 and in Portugal by King Manuel five years later. Although most speakers of Ladino are now in Israel, the Sephardic Diaspora spread in Europe, north Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas.
Today, the Cervantes Institute is set to open a Ladino Department including an archive of materials, as outlined in “Language institute helping Ladino revival“. Although a dictionary of Ladino and English is available, according to a review by Bortnick, spellings are not uniform, making it difficult to use.
Wikipedia has an interesting article on Separdic culture and on the Ladino language.
Filed under: Ladino (lad)
