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Judeo-Malayalam 1

Judeo-Malayalam

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Judeo-Malayalam is the traditional language of the Cochin Jews (also called Malabar Jews), from Kerala, insouthern India, spoken today by a few dozens of people in Israel and by probably fewer than 25 in India.

Judeo-Malayalam is the only known Dravidian Jewish language. (The only other Dravidian language spoken

regularly by a Jewish community is Telugu, spoken by the small, and only very newly observant Jewish community

of east-central Andhra Pradesh. See related article: Telugu Jews.)

Since it does not differ substantially in grammar or syntax from other colloquial Ma layalam dialects, it is not

considered by many linguists to be a language in its own right, but a dialect, or simply a language variation.

Judeo-Malayalam shares with other Jewish languages like Ladino, Judeo-Arabic and Yiddish, common traits and

features. For example, verbatim translations from Hebrew to Malayalam, archaic features of Old Malayalam,

Hebrew components agglutinated to Dravidian verb and noun formations and special idiomatic usages based on its

Hebrew loanwords. Due to the lack of long-term scholarship on this language variation, there is no separate

designation for the language (if it can be so considered), for it to have its own language code ( see also SIL and ISO

639).

Unlike many Jewish languages, Judeo-Malayalam is not written using the Hebrew alphabet. It does, however, like

most Jewish languages, contain a large number of Hebrew loanwords, which are regularly transliterated, as much as

possible, using the Malayalam script. Like many other Jewish languages, Judeo-Malayalam also contains a number

of lexical, phonological and syntactic archaisms, in this case, from the days before Malayalam became fully

distinguished from Tamil.

In spite of claims by some Paradesi Jews that their ancestors' Ladino influenced the development of

Judeo-Malayalam, so far no such influence, not even on the superficial lexical level, is found. There is, however,affiliation with Mappila Malayalam, especially of North Malabar, in words such as khabar or khabura (grave), and

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Judaeo-Spanishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mappila_Malayalamhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mappila_Malayalamhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Judaeo-Spanishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tamil_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Syntaxhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Phonologyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vocabularyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Malayalam_scripthttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Loanwordhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hebrew_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hebrew_alphabethttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jewhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ISO_639https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ISO_639https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=SIL_Internationalhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dialecthttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Malayalam_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Syntaxhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Grammarhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Telugu_Jewshttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Andhra_Pradeshhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Telugu_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jewish_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dravidian_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Israelhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Indiahttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Keralahttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cochin_Jewshttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Jews_and_Judaism_sidebar&action=edithttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template_talk:Jews_and_Judaism_sidebarhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Jews_and_Judaism_sidebarhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiProject_Judaismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:People_icon.svghttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Judaismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Star_of_David.svghttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Jews_and_Judaismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Folder_Hexagonal_Icon.svghttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jewish_identityhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jewish_peoplehoodhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Who_is_a_Jew%3Fhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jew_%28word%29https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Star_of_David.svghttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Judaismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jewshttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Outline_of_Judaism

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Judeo-Malayalam 2

formations such as mayyatt yi () used by Muslims and al yi ( ) used by Jews

for died ( , mariccu pyi in standard Malayalam). As with the parent language, Judeo-Malayalam

also contains loanwords from Sanskrit, Ladino, and Pali, as a result of the long-term affiliation of Malayalam, like all

the other Dravidian languages, with Pali and Sanskrit through sacred and secular Buddhist and Hindu texts.

Because the vast majority of scholarship regarding the Cochin Jews has concentrated on the ethnographic accounts

in English provided by Paradesi Jews (sometimes also called White Jews), who immigrated to Kerala from Europe inthe sixteenth century and later, the study of the status and role of Judeo-Malayalam has suffered neglect. Since their

emigration to Israel, Cochin Jewish immigrants have participated in documenting and studying the last speakers of

Judeo-Malayalam, mostly in Israel. In 2009, a documentation project was launched under the auspices of the

Ben-Zvi Institute in Jerusalem. Digital copies can be obtained for any scholar who wishes to study

Judeo-Malayalam.

References

"Judeo-Malayalam page"[2]

, Jewish Language Research

"Malayalam" page[3]

, Ethnologue

Hebrew (omniglot.com) [4]

"Jews of India"[5]

, The South Asian

References

[1] http:/ /en. wikipedia. org/w/index.php?title=Template:Jews_and_Judaism_sidebar& action=edit

[2] http:/ /www.jewish-languages.org/jewish-malayalam.html

[3] http:/ /www.ethnologue. com/show_language. asp?code=mal

[4] http:/ /www.omniglot. com/writing/languages. htm#hebrew

[5] http:/ /www.the-south-asian. com/March2001/Jews_of_India-Intro. htm

http://www.the-south-asian.com/March2001/Jews_of_India-Intro.htmhttp://www.omniglot.com/writing/languages.htm#hebrewhttp://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=malhttp://www.jewish-languages.org/jewish-malayalam.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Jews_and_Judaism_sidebar&action=edithttp://www.the-south-asian.com/March2001/Jews_of_India-Intro.htmhttp://www.omniglot.com/writing/languages.htm#hebrewhttp://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=malhttp://www.jewish-languages.org/jewish-malayalam.htmlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ben-Zvi_Institutehttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Paradesi_Jewshttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Judaeo-Spanishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sanskrit_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shalomhttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mayat

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Article Sources and Contributors 3

Article Sources and ContributorsJudeo-Malayalam Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=584663400 Contributors: 1523, ARUNKUMAR P.R, CALR, Cate, Ceol3531, David Kernow, Dbachmann, Dewil, Dont

belittle245, Hkelkar, IZAK, Jayjg, Jesse V., Joshua Issac, Kanatonian, Linguistm, Madhava 1947, Martin.Budden, Neutrality, Parkwells, Quuxplusone, Sardanaphalus, Solar-Wind, TShilo12,

Themfromspace, Utcursch, Vanished user qwqwijr8hwrkjdnvkanfoh4, Varlaam, William Avery, Wonder al, 5 anonymous edits

Image Sources, Licenses and ContributorsFile:Star of David.svg Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Star_of_David.svg License: Public Domain Contributors: Zscout370

File:Folder Hexagonal Icon.svg Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Folder_Hexagonal_Icon.svgLicense: GNU Free Documentation License Contributors: Anomie, Mifter

File:People icon.svg Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:People_icon.svg License: Public Domain Contributors: OpenClipart

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