Influence of Turkish and Romance Languages on Late-Nineteenth-Century and Early-Twentieth-Century Judeo-Spanish in Istanbul

The main goal of this lecture is to outline the most important features of the Judeo-Spanish language of the Sephardic community in Istanbul in the late 19^th century and early 20^th century. It will attempt to classify its most significant morphological, lexical, syntactical and semantical features in order to determine the level of influence from Turkish or Romance Languages. The data for the analysis will be taken from Yıldız i sus sekretos: el reyno de Abdül Hamid (Yıldız [referring to Yıldız Palace] and its secrets: The Kingdom of Abdülhamit), written and published by Izak Gabay in Istanbul (1909). This book was written in Judeo-Spanish using the raši script, before the switch to Roman script that followed Atatürk’s alphabet reform in 1928. It constitutes a good example not only of the inference of Turkish, but also of the Western cultural and linguistic influence on Judeo-Spanish speakers. This was especially observable in the case of French, which was taught at the schools of the Alliance Israélite Universelle. Furthermore, it provides evidence of the situation of Judeo-Spanish in the last years of the Ottoman Empire and before the 20^th century. It was at the turn of the century when the number of Judeo-Spanish speakers started to decrease due to the pro-Turkish language policies implemented in the 1920s along with the emigration from within the community. After considering all these factors, we will be in a position to compare the Judeo-Spanish used by Gabay with that employed in Istanbul in previous and later periods.