Judæo-Latin

Judæo-Latin, or La‘az is the Jewish language of the many scattered Jewish communities of the former Roman Empire, but especially by the Jewish communities of the Italian Peninsula and Transalpine Gaul.

It has been posited that Judæo-Latin is the predecessor of all the Judæo-Romance languages, although the strongest phonological evidence for this link is found in Shuadit (Judæo-Provençal). This theory holds that Shuadit and Zarphatic grew out of two variants of La‘az haMa‘rav (western Judæo-Latin) and that Italkian grew out of La‘az haDarom (southern Judæo-Latin). The relationship to Catalanic, Ladino and Judæo-Portuguese is much more tenuous.

Judæo-Latin likely influenced not only the Judæo-Romance languages, but also the Yiddish language and Rotwelsch, through its posited daughter languages, Italkian, Shuadit and Zarphatic.

Related languages

The historical relationships between the various Judæo-Romance languages is the subject of much debate, and are only tenuously demonstrable at best. These languages include:

• Catalanic (Judæo-Catalan)
• Italkian (Judæo-Italian)
• Judæo-Portuguese
• Ladino (Judæo-Spanish)
• Shuadit (Judæo-Provençal)
• Zarphatic (Judæo-French)