Every working language borrows from its neighbours, and the workplace is one of the hungriest domains for new vocabulary. The walls of an office, the desk…
In Ladino, the idea of home reaches beyond walls, furniture and family property. A kaza can mean a place of safety, a household with its own rules, or a door…
The word "kahve" travelled north from the Arabian Peninsula into Ottoman Turkish, where it referred first to the dark brew and then, by extension, to the…
The Hebrew word Pesaḥ—פסח, commonly written Pesach in English—has travelled through centuries of Sephardic Jewish life and into Judeo-Spanish, or Ladino. As…
In most languages that border the Mediterranean, the same word for a person's mouth also describes the point where a river empties into the sea. Spanish…
Ladino, the Judeo-Spanish tongue carried across the Mediterranean by Sephardic Jews after their expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula in 1492, remains a living…
Ladino, or Judeo-Spanish, preserves many features of the Spanish spoken by Sephardic Jews before and after their expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula. One of…
In Turkish, mandal is an everyday household word with two closely related uses. It can mean a clothespin or clothes peg, the small tool that grips washing on a…
Traditional Sephardic weddings bring together family, music, blessings, food and language. Judeo-Spanish, or Ladino, preserves this ceremonial world in words…
Ladino, the Judeo-Spanish tongue carried across the Mediterranean by Sephardic Jews after 1492, has always been a bridge between worlds. Its vocabulary gathers…