Ladino (Also Called Spanyol or Judezmo)

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LADINO (also called Spanyol or Judezmo)

Judeo-Spanish dialect, used by the Sephardim—Jews who settled in the Ottoman Empire and the Maghrib (North Africa) after their 1492 expulsion from Spain. The language makes use of significant Hebrew and Aramaic vocabulary, while its written form uses Hebrew characters. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Ladino was the primary language of learning among Jews in the Ottoman Empire. In modern times, Ladino has largely been forgotten due to language policies of the post–World War I Republic of Turkey, the significant destruction of Balkan Jewry during World War II, and the migration of most of North African and Levantine Jews to Israel, Spain, South America, and France.

SEE ALSO Ottomans.