Neha Patil (Editor)

Judaeo Portuguese

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Glottolog
  
None

Native to
  
Netherlands, Germany (Hamburg), England, North America, Brazil

Extinct
  
early 19th century fewer than 2,000 users in a limited liturgical context

Language family
  
Indo-European Italic Romance Western Gallo-Iberian Ibero-Romance West Iberian Portuguese-Galician Judaeo-Portuguese

Writing system
  
Latin (Portuguese alphabet), Hebrew alphabet

Judeo-Portuguese (or Lusitanic) is the extinct Jewish language that was used by the Portuguese Jews of Portugal.

Description

The Judeo-Portuguese language was the vernacular of Sephardi Jews in Portugal before the 16th century and also in many places of the Portuguese Jewish diaspora. Texts were written in Hebrew script (aljamiado português) or in Latin script.

As Portuguese Jews intermarried with other expelled Sephardim, it influenced the neighboring Judeo-Spanish language. Due to close similarity to standard Portuguese, Judeo-Portuguese became extinct in Portugal, surviving in the everyday usage in the diaspora until the early 19th century. Judeo-Portuguese influenced the Papiamento and Saramaccan languages.

References

Judaeo-Portuguese Wikipedia