Jewish Languages Today
Endangered, Surviving, and Thriving
February 21, 2025, 12:30 PM PST | 3:30 PM EST
Over the past two centuries, migrations, the Holocaust, and other historical events have led to major changes in the linguistic profile of Jewish communities around the world. Yiddish is thriving in Hasidic communities, even as its use is diminishing elsewhere. Several longstanding Jewish language varieties have become endangered, as they are spoken primarily by older people, including Ladino, Judeo-Arabic, Jewish Neo-Aramaic (Iraq-Iran), and Jewish Malayalam (Southern India). At the same time, Jews are engaging with these languages in post-vernacular ways, such as through song and food, and new Jewish language varieties are developing, including Jewish English, Jewish Latin American Spanish, and Jewish Russian. This talk explains these developments and makes the case for the urgent need for documentation and reclamation.
Sarah Bunin Benor is Professor of Contemporary Jewish Studies at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion (Los Angeles campus) and Adjunct Professor in the University of Southern California Linguistics Department. She received her Ph.D. from Stanford University in Linguistics in 2004. She has published and lectured widely about Jewish languages and names, sociolinguistics, Yiddish, and American Jews. Her award-winning books include Becoming Frum: How Newcomers Learn the Language and Culture of Orthodox Judaism (Rutgers, 2012) and Hebrew Infusion: Language and Community at American Jewish Summer Camps (Rutgers, 2020). Dr. Benor co-edits the Journal of Jewish Languages (Brill) and directs the HUC-JIR Jewish Language Project, which features the Jewish Language Website and the Jewish English Lexicon.
