Judeo-Tat

Judeo-Tat or Juhuri (, , ) is a Judeo-Persian dialect and the traditional language spoken by the Mountain Jews in the eastern Caucasus Mountains, especially Azerbaijan, parts of Russia and today in Israel. It belongs to the southwestern group of the Iranian division of the Indo-European languages, albeit with heavy influence from Hebrew. The words Juhuri and Juhuro translate as "Jewish" and "Jews".

The Iranic Tat language is spoken by the Muslim Tats of Azerbaijan, a group to which the Mountain Jews were mistakenly considered to belong during the era of Soviet historiography though the languages probably originated in the same region of the Persian Empire.

Judeo-Tat features Semitic elements in all linguistic levels of the language. Uniquely, Judeo-Tat retains the voiced pharyngeal approximant, also known as ayin (ع/ע), a phoneme whose presence is considered to be a hallmark of Semitic languages such as Arabic and no longer found in Modern Hebrew; no neighbouring languages feature it. Habib Borjian, “Judeo-Iranian Languages,” in Lily Kahn and Aaron D. Rubin, eds., A Handbook of Jewish Languages, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2015, pp. 234-295. .

Judeo-Tat is an endangered languagePublished in: Encyclopedia of the world’s endangered languages. Edited by Christopher Moseley. London & New York: Routledge, 2007. 211–280. classified as "definitely endangered" by UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.UNESCO Interactive Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Distribution The language is spoken by an estimated 101,000 people: Israel: 70,000 in 1998 Azerbaijan: 24,000 in 1989 Russia: 2,000 in 2010 United States: 5,000 Habib Borjian and Daniel Kaufman, “Juhuri: from the Caucasus to New York City”, Special Issue: Middle Eastern Languages in Diasporic USA communities, in International Journal of Sociology of Language, ed. Maryam Borjian and Charles Häberl, issue 237, 2016, pp. 51-74. . Canada 2,500James B. Minahan, ed. Ethnic Groups of North, East, and Central Asia: An Encyclopedia: Juhuro.

Dialects Being a variety of the Tat language, Judeo-Tat itself can be divided into several dialects: Quba dialect (traditionally spoken in Quba and Qırmızı Qəsəbə as well as other towns and villages in the region.). Derbent dialect (traditionally spoken in the town of Derbent and the surrounding villages). Kaitag dialect (spoken in the North Caucasus). The dialects of Oğuz (formerly Vartashen) and the now extinct Jewish community of Mücü have not been studied well and thus cannot be classified. Language of the Mountain Jews of Dagestan by E.Nazarova

Phonology + Vowel phonemes of Judeo-Tat Phonetics of the Mountain Jewish language Front Central Back Unrounded Rounded Close Near-close Mid Open

+Consonant phonemes of Judeo-Tat Labial Dental/Alveolar Post-alv./Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyn-geal Glottal Nasal Stop/Affricate voiceless voiced Fricative voiceless voiced Approximant Flap

Alphabet

In the early 20th century, Judeo-Tat used the Hebrew script. In the 1920s, the Latin script was adapted for it; later it was written in Cyrillic. The use of the Hebrew alphabet has enjoyed renewed popularity.

+Script and phonemes of Judeo-TatLatinAaBbCcÇçDdEeƏəFfGgHhḨḩĦћIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsŞşTtUuVvXxYyZzCyrillicАаБбЧчЖжДдЕеЭэ, ЕеФфГгГьгьГӀгӀХьхьИиЙйКкЛлМмНнОоПпГъгъРрСсШшТтУуВвХхУьуьЗзHebrewאַבּג׳/צז׳דאיאפגהעחאִיכּלמנאָפּקרסשתאוּבכאוזIPAabtʃ/tsdʒdɛæfghʕħijklmnopɢɾsʃtuvχyz

Influences and etymology Judeo-Tat is a Southwest Iranian language (as is modern Persian) and is much more closely related to (but not fully mutually intelligible with)Authier, Gilles (2012). Grammaire juhuri, ou judéo-tat, langue iranienne des Juifs du Caucase de l'est. Wiesbaden: Reichert modern Persian than most other Iranian languages of the Caucasus (for example: Talysh, Ossetian, and Kurdish). However, it also bears strong influence from other sources:

Medieval Persian: Postpositions are used predominantly in lieu of prepositions, for example in modern Persian: > Judeo-Tat æ uræ-voz "with him/her".

Arabic: like in modern Persian, a significant portion of the vocabulary is Arabic in origin. Unlike modern Persian, Judeo-Tat has almost universally retained the original pharyngeal/uvular phonemes of Arabic, for example "honey" (Arab. ), "morning" (Arab. ).

Hebrew: As in other Jewish dialects, the language also has many Hebrew loanwords, for example "table" (Heb. ), "luck" (Heb. ), "rich" (Heb. ). Hebrew words are typically pronounced in the tradition of other Mizrahi Jews. Examples: and are pronounced pharyngeally (like Arabic ‎, respectively); is pronounced as a voiced uvular plosive (like Persian ). Classical Hebrew () and (kamatz), however, are typically pronounced as /v/ and /o/ respectively (similar to the Persian/Ashkenazi traditions, but unlike the Iraqi tradition, which retains and )

Azerbaijani: Vowel harmony and many loan words

Russian: Loanwords adopted after the Russian Empire's annexation of Daghestan and Azerbaijan

Northeast Caucasian languages: "small" (probably the same origin as the medieval Caucasian city name "Sera-chuk" mentioned by Ibn Battuta, meaning "little Sera")

Other common phonology/morphology changes from classical Persian/Arabic/Hebrew: > /o/, /æ/, or /u/ as in "book" (Arab. ), "road/path" (Pers. ), "sacrifice" (Arab., Aramaic or Heb. ) /o/ > /u/ as in "Absalom" (Heb. ) /u/ > /y/, especially under the influence of vowel harmony Stress on the final syllable of words Dropping of the final /n/ as in /soχtæ/ "to make" (Pers. )

Judeo-Tat

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