Jewish English Lexicon (JEL) is an online dictionary of the language spoken by Jewish English speakers, encompassesing a varied assortment of terms that originate from ancient and modern Hebrew, Aramaic, Yiddish, Ladino, Arabic, among other languages. [1] [2] The lexicon treats "Jewish English" as a Jewish dialect of English as the overall structure of English remains intact despite the numerous distinctive additions from other languages. [3]
The Jewish English Lexicon was created by Sarah Bunin Benor, an associate professor of Jewish studies at the Los Angeles division of Hebrew Union College. Benor, a scholar of the varieties of Jewish English spoken in the United States, created the lexicon in 2012 with the support of volunteers who contribute to the growth of the lexicon's database. Benor originally formed the lexicon as a class project several years prior to its publication on the internet. [1] The lexicon offers a variety of search tools and filters including language of origin, regions where the word is commonly used, the groups of people who tend to speak the word, and dictionaries in which the term appears. [4]
Arabic is a Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The ISO assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic, including its standard form of Literary Arabic, known as Modern Standard Arabic, which is derived from Classical Arabic. This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as al-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā or simply al-fuṣḥā (اَلْفُصْحَىٰ).
British English is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadly, to the collective dialects of English throughout the British Isles taken as a single umbrella variety, for instance additionally incorporating Scottish English, Welsh English, and Northern Irish English. Tom McArthur in the Oxford Guide to World English acknowledges that British English shares "all the ambiguities and tensions [with] the word 'British' and as a result can be used and interpreted in two ways, more broadly or more narrowly, within a range of blurring and ambiguity".
Maltese is a Semitic language derived from late medieval Sicilian Arabic with Romance superstrata. It is spoken by the Maltese people and is the national language of Malta, and the only official Semitic and Afroasiatic language of the European Union. Maltese is a Latinised variety of spoken historical Arabic through its descent from Siculo-Arabic, which developed as a Maghrebi Arabic dialect in the Emirate of Sicily between 831 and 1091. As a result of the Norman invasion of Malta and the subsequent re-Christianization of the islands, Maltese evolved independently of Classical Arabic in a gradual process of latinisation. It is therefore exceptional as a variety of historical Arabic that has no diglossic relationship with Classical or Modern Standard Arabic. Maltese is thus classified separately from the 30 varieties constituting the modern Arabic macrolanguage. Maltese is also distinguished from Arabic and other Semitic languages since its morphology has been deeply influenced by Romance languages, namely Italian and Sicilian.
Judaism has different names given to God, which are considered sacred: יהוה, אֲדֹנָי, אֵל, אֱלֹהִים, שַׁדַּי, and צְבָאוֹת ; some also include I Am that I Am. Early authorities considered other Hebrew names mere epithets or descriptions of God, and wrote that they and names in other languages may be written and erased freely. Some moderns advise special care even in these cases, and many Orthodox Jews have adopted the chumras of writing "G-d" instead of "God" in English or saying Ṭēt-Vav instead of Yōd-Hē for the number fifteen or Ṭēt-Zayin instead of Yōd-Vav for the Hebrew number sixteen.
Yiddish is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with many elements taken from Hebrew and to some extent Aramaic. Most varieties of Yiddish include elements of Slavic languages and the vocabulary contains traces of Romance languages. Yiddish has traditionally been written using the Hebrew alphabet; however, there are variations, including the standardized YIVO orthography that employs the Latin alphabet.
Amen is an Abrahamic declaration of affirmation which is first found in the Hebrew Bible, and subsequently found in the New Testament. It is used in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic practices as a concluding word, or as a response to a prayer. Common English translations of the word amen include "verily", "truly", "it is true", and "let it be so". It is also used colloquially, to express strong agreement.
The United States does not have an official language at the federal level, but the most commonly used language is English, which is the de facto national language. In addition, 32 U.S. states out of 50 and all five U.S. territories have declared English as an official language. The majority of the U.S. population (77.5%) speaks only English at home as of 2023. The remainder of the population speaks many other languages at home, most notably Spanish, according to the American Community Survey (ACS) of the U.S. Census Bureau; others include indigenous languages originally spoken by Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and native populations in the U.S. unincorporated territories. Other languages were brought in by people from Europe, Africa, Asia, other parts of the Americas, and Oceania, including multiple dialects, creole languages, pidgin languages, and sign languages originating in what is now the United States. Interlingua, an international auxiliary language, was also created in the U.S.
Yeshivish, also known as Yeshiva English, Yeshivisheh Shprach, or Yeshivisheh Reid, is a sociolect of English spoken by Yeshiva students and other Jews with a strong connection to the Orthodox Yeshiva world.
In modern Hebrew and Yiddish, goy is a term for a gentile, a non-Jew. Through Yiddish, the word has been adopted into English also to mean "gentile", sometimes in a pejorative sense. As a word principally used by Jews to describe non-Jews, it is a term for the ethnic out-group.
Yeshua was a common alternative form of the name Yehoshua in later books of the Hebrew Bible and among Jews of the Second Temple period. The name corresponds to the Greek spelling Iesous (Ἰησοῦς), from which, through the Latin IESVS/Iesus, comes the English spelling Jesus.
Modern Hebrew, also called Israeli Hebrew or simply Hebrew, is the standard form of the Hebrew language spoken today. Developed as part of the revival of Hebrew in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it is the official language of the State of Israel and the only Canaanite language still spoken as a native language. The revival of Hebrew predates the creation of the state of Israel, where it is now the national language. Modern Hebrew is often regarded as one of the most successful instances of language revitalization.
The Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion is a Jewish seminary with three locations in the United States and one location in Jerusalem. It is the oldest extant Jewish seminary in the Americas and the main seminary for training rabbis, cantors, educators and communal workers in Reform Judaism. HUC-JIR has campuses in Cincinnati, Ohio, New York City, Los Angeles, and Jerusalem. The Jerusalem campus is the only seminary in Israel for training Reform Jewish clergy.
Medieval Hebrew was a literary and liturgical language that existed between the 4th and 19th century. It was not commonly used as a spoken language, but mainly in written form by rabbis, scholars and poets. Medieval Hebrew had many features distinguishing it from older forms of Hebrew. These affected grammar, syntax, sentence structure, and also included a wide variety of new lexical items, which were either based on older forms or borrowed from other languages, especially Aramaic, Koine Greek and Latin.
Kapingamarangi is a Polynesian language spoken in the Federated States of Micronesia. It had 3,000 native speakers in 1995. The language is closely related to the Nukuoro language.
The Israeli population is linguistically and culturally diverse. Hebrew is the country's official language, and almost the entire population speaks it either as a first language or proficiently as a second language. Its standard form, known as Modern Hebrew, is the main medium of life in Israel. Arabic is used mainly by Israel's Arab minority which comprises about one-fifth of the population. Arabic has a special status under Israeli law.
The revival of the Hebrew language took place in Europe and the Palestine region toward the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century, through which the language's usage changed from purely the sacred language of Judaism to a spoken and written language used for daily life among the Jews in Palestine, and later Israel. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda is often regarded as the "reviver of the Hebrew language" having been the first to raise the concept of reviving Hebrew and initiating a project known as the Ben-Yehuda Dictionary. The revitalization of Hebrew was then ultimately brought about by its usage in Jewish settlement in Ottoman Palestine that arrived in the waves of migration known as the First Aliyah and the Second Aliyah. In Mandatory Palestine, Modern Hebrew became one of three official languages and after the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948, one of two official languages of Israel, along with Modern Arabic. In July 2018, a new law made Hebrew the sole official language of the State of Israel, while giving Arabic a "special status".
Yiddish words used in the English language include both words that have been assimilated into English – used by both Yiddish and English speakers – and many that have not. An English sentence that uses either may be described by some as Yinglish, though a secondary sense of the term describes the distinctive way certain Jews in English-speaking countries add many Yiddish words into their conversation, beyond general Yiddish words and phrases used by English speakers.
Ghil'ad Zuckermann is an Israeli-born language revivalist and linguist who works in contact linguistics, lexicology and the study of language, culture and identity.
In Israel, Arabic is spoken natively by over 20 percent of the Israeli population, predominantly by Arab citizens of Israel, but also by Jews who arrived in Israel from Arab countries. Some refer to the modern Hebrew-influenced Levantine Arabic vernacular as the "Israeli Arabic dialect" or colloquially as Aravrit, a portmanteau of the Hebrew words Ivrit and Aravit.
The Ben-Yehuda Dictionary is a historical Hebrew dictionary. The first volume was published in 1908 by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, while the last was published long after his death, in 1958 by his wife and his son. An important feature of the dictionary was its inclusion of various new words invented by Ben-Yehuda to describe modern objects which did not yet have words for them.