LADINO STUDIES

The Center for the Study of Jewish Languages and Literatures

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Library Resources

The Ladino Language

Ladino is the name most commonly used today for the traditional “Judeo-Spanish” language of Sephardi or Spanish Jews. The language is also known as Judezmo, Judyó, Spanyol(it), Judeo-Spanish, and – in Morocco – Ḥaketia. Customarily written in the Hebrew alphabet, but today mostly in Romanization, the language is comprised of elements derived from Old Ibero-Romance, Hebrew and Aramaic, Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-Greek, local post-Expulsion contact languages such as Turkish in the former Ottoman regions and Arabic in Morocco, and European prestige languages such as French, Italian and Castilian.