For Turkey's youngest Jews, ancestral tongue fading away
Turkey’s Sephardic Jewish community has mobilized efforts to save the Ladino language from extinction, but after decades of repression, the swell of interest in their heritage language sounds more like a swan song.
For the young generation of Sephardic Jews in Turkey, their ancestral tongue, Ladino, is just a few words for Grandma's cuisine, a line or two from old songs and some snappy insults.
UNESCO considers Ladino, also known as Judeo-Spanish or Judezmo, a severely endangered language. In Turkey, it is spoken by only about 10,000 people, mostly around Istanbul and Izmir. Other Ladino-speaking communities in Greece and North Africa have also diminished, according to the Unesco Atlas. Israel has declared Ladino endangered as well, and has established a National Authority for the Ladino language and culture.
