Judeo-Spanish: A Vital and Living Language

Authors

  • Carlos Yebra Lopez New York University

Keywords:

Spanish, ladino, sephardic, Jewish, Iberian Peninsula

Abstract

This course finds its origin in my perceived need to highlight the relevance of Judeo­Spanish less as an exotic token of contemporary multiculturalism or trauma voyeurism than in terms of a representative sample of the polyphonic nature of both medieval and modern Iberia. 

Informed by the above­-described spirit, this course will address both faces of the Judeo-Spanish coin, i.e., the historical and linguistic origins of Judeo­Spanish in medieval Iberia on the one hand, and contemporary expressions of Judeo­Spanish, on the other (as well as the continuity between the medieval and the modern periods). Thus, as regards the first section, this course is concerned with the place that Judeo­Spanish occupies within the convivencia narrative, the terminological dispute between the notions of Ladino, Judeo­Spanish, proto­Spanish and Djudezmo (to name but a few), the brief characterization of the grammatical, lexical and alphabetical elements of Judeo­Spanish, and the nature of the Alhambra Decree of Expulsion. Concerning the presence and prospects of Judeo­Spanish in the contemporary world, this syllabus addresses the koinétic origins of Judeo­Spanish as an in­diaspora lingua franca, the evolution of music written in Judeo­Spanish, the development and emergence of (new) genres of Sephardic literature and poetry, the place of Judeo­Spanish in worldwide academia, its relevance for glotto­political purposes and ideological struggles, its role vis­à­vis the recently issued Right of Return and, of course, its relationship with the Holocaust, as well as its overall survival prospects.

Author Biography

Carlos Yebra Lopez, New York University

Spanish and Portuguese Department, Adjunct Instructor.

References

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Yebra López, Carlos (a). Sepharadscape: The Sonic Phenomenology of Contemporary Sephardic Cosmopolitanism . 2015. TS. New York University, New York.

--------------- (b). A Jewish Postcolonial Discursive Analysis on Ladinokomunita. 2015. TS. New York University, New York.

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Published

2017-06-28

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Section

Syllabi