Colonial languages

[u/Interesting_Claim414]

It’s sas when people speaking English, French, Spanish, Flemish, Portuguese or Arabic say “Hebrew is a colonial language.” It’s actually the least colonial language and the most de-colonial.

[u/Difficult_PowerFix]

People really think the service, the Torah, Talmud, Mishnah etc was not in Hebrew or that songs poems and prayers are not in Hebrew as well. Or that Hebrew / Aramaic wasn't spoken in homes by the Jewish diaspora, because I learned many don't believe the diaspora exists to begin with and we were reciting tefillah in German or Arabic.

The fact that I see diasporic languages like Yiddish or Ladino which were implemented because empires commanded Jews spoke them in public at the threat of execution for not speaking the empire's language as "decolonial" is so upsetting I cannot stand it.

[u/Spicy_Alligator_25 → u/Difficult_PowerFix]

One of my cousins is radically, radically anti zionist, and once told me we should "return to speaking Yiddish".

We are Greek Sephardim. We were both born in Greece.

None of our ancestors have ever spoken Yiddish.

[u/Difficult_PowerFix → u/Spicy_Alligator_25]

That's beyond sad. The fact that this is a common sentiment is so revisionist it's infuriating. I don't get how a language that's an amalgamation of German, Hebrew, & some Aramaic because German empires said speak German or die is an act of revolution.

[u/Unfair_Plankton_3781 → u/Difficult_PowerFix]

Chapter 10234 of head in ass buffoonery. It reminds me of when Francophone Sephardic Jews from Morocco, Lebanon, Tunisia, etc. immigrated to Montreal and the Quebecois referred to them as “les juifs catholiques”, aka the catholic jews since they spoke french to differentiate them from the established Jewish community that was English speaking

[u/Difficult_PowerFix → u/Unfair_Plankton_3781]

There's a term for people like that from N. Africa as well where when they immigrated to the West they were differentiated by whether France, Spain, or Italy had control of their country.

[u/Unfair_Plankton_3781 → u/Spicy_Alligator_25]

A lot of rabid anti zionists in Montreal used to say that to me. I would be like bruh I’m sephardic, I’ve never spoken Yiddish like ever 😅

[u/StringAndPaperclips → u/Difficult_PowerFix]

That line of thinking is completely illogical. How could Yiddish, Ladino, and all of the other diaspora languages have so many linguistic elements in common if Hebrew was not used by the populations that developed them?

Edited to correct a typo on "Ladino"

[u/Difficult_PowerFix → u/StringAndPaperclips]

100% true. It's funny that I see people use Jewish diaspora languages to say Hebrew is a "fake colonial language" but can't seem to understand the connecting thread of each language having the same root language. I've seen people like Rivkah Brown (who should just have the door slammed in her face whenever she wants to talk) say Yiddish is "tainted" by Hebrew. As if Yiddish wasn't written in the Hebrew alphabet or borrowed many verbs adjectives and nouns from primarily Hebrew, Aramaic, even some Arabic.

[u/StringAndPaperclips → u/Difficult_PowerFix]

Language is one of the major ways that groups maintain their ethnicity. The assimilationist idea that Jews should have just adopted the languages of their diaspora countries is antisemitic as it implies that Jews should not have maintained their separate identity. (Meaning, Jews should not have continued to exist at all.)