Judeo-Arabic and Judeo-Arabic Literatures

Judeo-Arabic designates the ensemble of varieties of Arabic spoken and written by Jews of Islamic countries, generally transcribed in Hebrew characters and enriched with a vocabulary of Hebrew and Aramaic particular to religious life. Emerging after the Arab conquests of the seventh century, it became, for more than a millennium, the daily language of millions of Jews, from the Maghreb to Iraq by way of Egypt and Yemen. In the classical period (tenth to twelfth centuries), Judeo-Arabic was also a great language of learned culture: Saadia Gaon translated the Bible and composed theological works in it, and Maimonides wrote in Judeo-Arabic his Guide for the Perplexed as well as his commentary on the Mishna. The corpus of the Cairo Geniza revealed the extent of this production, from commercial letters to literary texts. In the modern era, popular Judeo-Arabic literatures developed, before the massive emigration of the twentieth century and the adoption of Hebrew, French, or standard Arabic led to the decline of this language.

Quellen & Ressourcen

• Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World — Brill
• Encyclopaedia Judaica — 2e éd., Keter/Macmillan