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Persian-derived Jewish language of the eastern Caucasus From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Judeo-Tat or Juhuri (Cuhuri, Жугьури, ז׳אוּהאוּראִ) is a Judeo-Persian dialect of the Tat language historically spoken by the Mountain Jews, primarily in Azerbaijan, Dagestan, and today in Israel.[1] It belongs to the southwestern group of the Iranian division of the Indo-European languages with some influence from the Hebrew language. In the era of Soviet historiography, the Mountain Jews were mistakenly considered to be related to the Muslim Tats of Azerbaijan. However, they do not share a common linguistic heritage, as the Mountain Jews speak a dialect of Persian with some linguistic features derived from Hebrew, while the Muslim Tats are an Iranian ethnic group native to the Caucasus and Persian speakers. The words Juvuri and Juvuro translate as "Jewish" and "Jews".
| Judeo-Tat | |
|---|---|
| Cuhuri, Жугьури, ז׳אוּהאוּראִ | |
| Native to | Azerbaijan, Russia – North Caucasian Federal District, spoken by immigrant communities in Israel, United States (New York City) |
| Ethnicity | Mountain Jews |
Native speakers | 80,000 (2010–2018)[1] |
| Latin, Cyrillic, Hebrew | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | jdt |
| Glottolog | jude1256 |
| ELP | Judeo-Tat |
 Judeo-Tat is classified as Definitely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (2010) | |
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 in Azerbaijan or Dagestan feature it. [3]
Judeo-Tat is an endangered language[4][5] classified as "definitely endangered" by UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.[6]
The language is spoken by an estimated 101,000 people:
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.
| Latin | Aa | Bb | Cc | Çç | Dd | Ee | Əə | Ff | Gg | Hh | Ḩḩ | Ħћ | Ii | Jj | Kk | Ll | Mm | Nn | Oo | Pp | Rr | Ss | Şş | Tt | Uu | Vv | Xx | Yy | Zz | |
| Cyrillic | Аа | Бб | Чч | Жж | Дд | Ее | Ээ | Фф | Гг | Гьгь | ГӀгӀ | Хьхь | Ии | Йй | Кк | Лл | Мм | Нн | Оо | Пп | Гъгъ | Рр | Сс | Шш | Тт | Уу | Вв | Хх | Уьуь | Зз |
| Hebrew | אַ | בּ | ג׳/צ | ז׳ | ד | אי | א | פ | ג | ה | ע | ח | אִ | י | כּ | ל | מ | נ | אָ | פּ | ק | ר | ס | ש | ת | אוּ | ב | כ | או | ז |
| IPA | a | b | tʃ/ts | dʒ | d | ɛ | æ | f | g | h | ʕ | ħ | i | j | k | l | m | n | o | p | ɢ | ɾ | s | ʃ | t | u | v | χ | y | z |
Judeo-Tat is a dialect of the Southwest Iranian language family, which includes Persian. Compared to other Iranian languages spoken in the Caucasus [for example, Talysh, Ossetian, and Kurdish], Judeo-Tat has more similarities to modern Persian. Howeverer, it also bears strong influence from other sources:
Medieval Persian: Postpositions are used predominantly in lieu of prepositions, for example in modern Persian: باز او > 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 /ʕæsæl/ "honey" (Arab. عسل), /sæbæħ/ "morning" (Arab. صباح).
Hebrew: As in other Jewish dialects, the language also has many Hebrew loanwords, for example /ʃulħon/ "table" (Heb. שלחן shulḥan), /mozol/ "luck" (Heb. מזל mazal), /ʕoʃiɾ/ "rich" (Heb. עשיר ʻashir). Hebrew words are typically pronounced in the tradition of other Mizrahi Jews. Examples: ח and ע are pronounced pharyngeally (like Arabic ح, ع respectively); ק is pronounced as a voiced uvular plosive (like Persian ق/غ). Classical Hebrew /w/ (ו) and /aː/ (kamatz), however, are typically pronounced as /v/ and /o/ respectively (similar to the Persian/Ashkenazi traditions, but unlike the Iraqi tradition, which retains /w/ and /aː/)
Azerbaijani: Vowel harmony and many loan words
Russian: Loanwords adopted after the Russian Empire's annexation of Daghestan and Azerbaijan
Northeast Caucasian languages: /tʃuklæ/ "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:
Being a variety of the Tat language, Judeo-Tat itself can be divided into several dialects:
The dialects of Oğuz (formerly Vartashen) and the now extinct Jewish community of Mücü have not been studied well and thus cannot be classified.[10]
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