Judeo-Arabic and Judeo-Arabic literatures

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

Sources & resources

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