Judeo-Yemeni Arabic

Judeo-Yemeni Arabic
Yemenite Judeo-Arabic
Native to	Israel, Yemen
Ethnicity	Yemenite Jews
Native speakers	38,000 (2010–2018)[1]
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Semitic Central Semitic Arabic languages Peninsular Yemeni Arabic Judeo-Yemeni Arabic
Writing system	Hebrew alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	jye
Glottolog	jude1267
ELP	Judeo-Yemeni Arabic

Judeo-Yemeni Arabic (also known as Judeo-Yemeni and Yemenite Judeo-Arabic) is a variety of Arabic spoken by Jews living or formerly living in Yemen. The language is quite different from mainstream Yemeni Arabic,^{[citation needed]} and is written in the Hebrew alphabet. The cities of Sana'a, Aden, al-Bayda, and Habban District and the villages in their districts each have (or had) their own dialect.^[2]

The vast majority of Yemenite Jews have relocated to Israel and have shifted to Modern Hebrew as their first language. In 1995, Israel was home to 50,000 speakers of Judeo-Yemeni in 1995, while 1,000 remained in Yemen.^[2] According to Yemeni rabbi al-Marhabi, most of these have since left for the United States. In 2010, fewer than 300 Jews were believed to remain in Yemen.^[3] As of 2022^[update], only one Jew is believed to remain in Yemen.^[4]

See also

• Judeo-Arabic languages

References

Further reading

• Khan, G. (Ed.). (2013, January 1). Hebrew as a secret Language in Yemenite Judeo-Arabic (EHLL). Retrieved February 13, 2015, from https://www.academia.edu/6421917/Hebrew_as_a_secret_Language_in_Yemenite_Judeo-Arabic_EHLL_
• Wexler, P. (n.d.). Jewish Interlinguistics: Facts and Conceptual Framework. Retrieved February 13, 2015, from https://www.jstor.org/stable/414288
• Piamenta, Moshe. 1990–1991. A dictionary of post-classical Yemeni Arabic. Leiden: Brill. (Includes bibliographical references (v. 1, p. xv-xxiv)).
• Goitein, Shelomo D. 1960. The language of al-gades: The main characteristics of an Arabic dialect spoken in Lower Yemen. Le Muséon 73. 351–394.

External links

• YouTube Video of Judeo-Yemeni

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