Juhuri language

Judæo-Tat
çuhuri / жугьури / ז'אוּהאוּראִ
Spoken in	Azerbaijan (Baku, Quba, Krasnaya Sloboda, Oğuz); Russia (Derbent, Makhachkala, Nalchik); Israel; United States (New York)
Region	Caucasus
Total speakers	101,000 (est.)
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Iranian Western Iranian Southwestern Iranian Judæo-Tat; ; ; ; ;
Writing system	Roman, Cyrillic, Hebrew
Official status
Official language in	no official status
Regulated by	No official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1	–
ISO 639-2	ira
ISO 639-3	jdt
	Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

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Juhuri, Juwuri or Judæo-Tat (çuhuri / жугьури / ז'אוּהאוּראִ) is a form of the Tat language and is the traditional language of the Mountain Jews of the eastern Caucasus Mountains, especially Azerbaijan and Dagestan.

The language is related to Persian; it belongs to the southwestern group of the Iranian division of the Indo-European languages. A similar, but still different language is spoken by the Muslim Tats of Azerbaijan, a group to which the Mountain Jews were mistakenly considered to belong during the era of Soviet historiography. The words Juhuri and Juhuro literally translate as "Jewish" and "Jews."

Juhuri has Semitic (Hebrew/Aramaic/Arabic) elements on all linguistic levels. Juhuri has the Hebrew sound "ayin" (ע) while no neighboгring languages have it.

[edit] Distribution

The language is presently spoken by an estimated 101,000 people:

Israel: 70,000
Azerbaijan: 24,000
Russia: 7,000

[edit] Phonology

Vowel phonemes of Judæo-Tat
	Front		Near-front	Central	Back
	Unrounded	Rounded	Near-front	Central	Back
Close and Near-close	i	y	ɪ		u
Mid	ɛ				o
Open	æ			a

Consonant phonemes of Judæo-Tat
	Bilabial		Labio- dental		Dental		Alveolar	Post- alveolar		Palatal	Velar		Uvular	Pharyngeal	Glottal
Plosives and affricates	p	b			t	d		t͡ʃ	d͡ʒ		k	ɡ	ɢ
Nasals	m				n
Fricatives			f	v	s	z		ʃ					χ	ħ	h
Approximants							l			j				ʕ
Taps							ɾ

^[1]

[edit] Alphabet

In the early 20th century Juhuri used the Hebrew script. In the 1920s Latin script was adapted for it; later it was written in Cyrillic characters. Recently, 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

Qq

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

ש

ת

אוּ

ב

כ

או

ז

[edit] Influences and etymology

Judæo-Tat/Juhuri is a Southwest Iranian language (as is modern Persian) and is much more closely related to modern Persian than most other Iranian languages of the Caucasus e.g. Talysh, Ossetian, and Kurdish.^{[citation needed]} However, it also bears strong influence from other sources:

Medieval Persian: Postpositions are used predominantly in lieu of prepositions e.g. modern Persian: باز او => Juhuri: æ uræ-voz "with him/her".

Arabic: like in modern Persian, a significant portion of the vocabulary is Arabic in origin. Unlike modern Persian, Juhuri has almost universally retained the original pharyngeal/uvular phonemes of Arabic e.g. /ʕæsæl/ "honey" (Arab. عسل), /sæbæħ/ "morning" (Arab. صباح).

Hebrew: As other Jewish dialects, the language also has many Hebrew loan words e.g. /ʃulħon/ "table" (Heb. שלחן), /mozol/ "luck" (Heb. מזל), /ʕoʃiɾ/ "rich" (Heb. עשיר). 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 affricate (like Persian ق/‎غ‎). Classical Hebrew /w/ (ו) and /aa/ (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 /aa/)

Azeri: Vowel harmony and many loan words

Russian: Loan words adopted after the Russian Empire's annexation of Daghestan and Azerbaijan

Northeast Caucasian languages: e.g. /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:

/aa/ => /o/, /æ/, or /u/ e.g. /kitob/ "book" (Arab. كتاب), /ɾæħ/ "road/path" (Pers. راه), /ɢurbu/ "sacrifice" (Arab. or Aramaic /qurbaan/)
/o/ => /u/ e.g. /ovʃolum/ "Absalom" (Heb. אבשלום)
/u/ => /ü/, especially under the influence of vowel harmony
Stress on final syllable words
Dropping of the final /n/, e.g. /soχtæ/ "to make" (Pers. ساختن)

[edit] Dialects

Being a variety of the Tat language, Judæo-Tat itself can be divided into several dialects:

Quba dialect (traditionally spoken in Quba and Krasnaya Sloboda)
Derbent dialect (traditionally spoken in the town of Derbent and the surrounding villages), has been used as a standard form of Judæo-Tat
Kaitag dialect (spoken in the North Caucasus)

The dialects of Oğuz (formerly Vartashen) and the now extinct Jewish community of Mücü have not been studied well and thus cannot be classified.^[2]

[edit] References

^ Phonetics of the Mountain Jewish language
^ (Russian) Language of the Mountain Jews of Dagestan by E.Nazarova

[edit] External links

Judeo-Tat page at Ethnologue.com
Горско-еврейский язык (словарь, грамматика, библиотека)
Juhuri dictionary
JUHURO.RU - Информационно развлекательный портал горских евреев Горские Евреи Израиля population ~70,000
Горские Евреи Нальчика Mountain Jews of Nalchik.
Горские Евреи Америки Mountain Jews of the US.

[0] Phonetics of the Mountain Jewish language

[1] (Russian) Language of the Mountain Jews of Dagestan by E.Nazarova

[1]

[2]

Juhuri language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

[edit] Distribution

[edit] Phonology

[edit] Alphabet

[edit] Influences and etymology

[edit] Dialects

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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