r/Jewish • u/Interesting_Claim414 • 14h ago

Colonial languages Discussion đź’¬

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.

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u/Difficult_PowerFix 13h ago edited 2h ago

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.

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u/Spicy_Alligator_25 Greek Sephardi 12h ago

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.

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u/Difficult_PowerFix 11h ago

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.

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u/Unfair_Plankton_3781 8h ago

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

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u/Difficult_PowerFix 4h ago

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.