Yiddish, Ladino and Jewish English (subtitled), Sarah Benor, JDOV Talk

With the exceptions of Yiddish and Ladino, Jews have tended to pick up the local language after a migration and distinguished themselves through the use of Hebrew words and other unique features, yielding languages like Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-French, and Judeo-Malayalam. American Jews have continued this tradition, using hundreds of Hebrew and Yiddish words and other features that distinguish them from their non-Jewish neighbours and from other Jews. In contrast to some critics’ view of American Jews as the first Diaspora community without a Jewish language, this talk makes the case for “Jewish English,” one of several 21st-century Jewish languages.