Haketia


Haketia is an endangered Jewish Romance language also known as Djudeo Spañol, Ladino Occidental, or Western Judaeo-Spanish. It was historically spoken by the North African Sephardim in the Moroccan cities of Tétouan, Tangier, Asilah, Larache, Chefchaouen, Ksar el-Kebir, and the Spanish towns of Ceuta and Melilla. Tetuani Ladino was also spoken in Oran, Algeria. One of the distinctions between Ladino and Haketia is that the latter incorporates Moroccan Arabic.

Etymology

The name "Haketia" derived from the Arabic حَكَى ḥakā, "tell", and is therefore pronounced with , reflecting the Arabic ح . In some places it is written "Jaquetía" with the same pronunciation.

Description

The well-known form of Judaeo-Spanish spoken by Jews living in the Balkans, Greece, Turkey and Jerusalem is Ladino Oriental. Haketia may be described by contrast as Ladino Occidental. The language is a variety of Spanish that borrows heavily from Judeo-Moroccan Arabic. It evidently also contains a number of words of Hebrew origin and was originally written using Hebrew letters. There is some cultural resemblance between the two Judaeo-Spanish dialect communities, including a rich shared stock of romanzas from medieval Spain, though both words and music often differ in detail.
The Haketia lexicon is made up mostly of Spanish words but 34.5% of words are from Arabic and 18.5% are from Hebrew. It contains many calques of Hebrew phrases, such as hiĵas de Israel, a literal translation of the Hebrew phrase בנות ישראל, meaning "daughters of Israel".
Other words have shifted in meaning. For example, שכן, "neighbor", became sajén, which has taken on the meaning "Christian/Spanish".
Spanish prefixes and suffixes are combined with Hebrew base words.

Phonology

Characteristics of Haketia's phonology include:
  • The pharyngeal fricatives ḥ /ħ/ and ˁ /ʕ/ in words with Arabic or Hebrew roots. For example: ya ḥasrá /ja ħasˈɾa/, yˁatik /jʕaˈtik/, ḥanukía /ħanuˈki.a/ ; Maˁarab /maʕaˈɾab/.
  • The glottal fricative /h/ in Hebrew words, like in kehiŀlá /kehilˈla/, or Arabic words, like in haraĵ /haˈɾaʒ/. An etymological written but no longer pronounced in modern Spanish may be retained in Haketia: hazer /haˈzeɾ/. Word-medial sequences of vowels in hiatus in words of Spanish origin are sometimes interrupted by the insertion of /h/: dihablo /diˈhablo/ or /ʔ/: ma'uyar /maʔuˈjaɾ/. The glottal stop is also sometimes added word-initially to reinforce exclamations or words of encouragement of Spanish origin: 'ay! /ʔaj/, 'anda! /ˈʔanda/, 'arsa /ˈʔaɾsa/. On the other hand /ʔ/ is lost in borrowings from Hebrew: gueuŀlá /ɡeulˈla/.
  • The profusion of gemination, especially in loanwords from Arabic or Hebrew, even when absent in the original form, as in berajjá /beɾaxˈxa/ and azzul /azˈzul/ ; also, by consonantal assimilation, at word boundaries, like in salimos de Pésaḥ /saˈlimos de ˈpesaħ/ → salímod-de Pésaḥ .
  • Words from Moroccan Arabic maintain their original form even when it contradicts the phonotactic rules of Spanish: ghzal /ɣzal/, kbir /kbiɾ/, ghrib /ɣɾib/, ḥram /ħɾam/.
  • The phonemes,, and are pronounced as voiced stops only after a pause, after a nasal consonant, when they are geminated or—in the case of —after a lateral consonant; in all other contexts, they are realized as fricatives or approximants. The velar fricative gh /ɣ/ also appears as a phoneme in words from Arabic: guer /geɾ/ vs. gher /ɣeɾ/.
  • The Pharyngealized consonants of Moroccan Arabic and Hebrew are borrowed as regular consonants : saddik /sadˈdik/, qaddear /qaddeˈaɾ/, terefá /teɾeˈfa/.
  • /q/ and /w/ are retained in borrowings from Arabic, but change to /k/ and /v/ in borrowings from Hebrew: qaddear /qaddeˈaɾ/ vs. kehiŀlá /kehilˈla/, waḥsh /waħʃ/ vs. vadday /vadˈdaj/.
  • Like other dialects of Judeo-Spanish, Haketia has Seseo and Yeísmo: corassón /koɾasˈson/, buya /ˈbuja/.
  • Texts written in Hebrew letters show occurrences of a trilled /r/, as in אוררורוסו /oroˈɾoso/. In this respect Spanish influence is widespread in Haketia speech, as evidenced in Marruecos /maˈrwekos/. Older texts show occurrences of a simple alveolar tap /ɾ/: טיירה /ˈtjeɾa/.
  • The voiced sibilant /z/, not only in Hebrew or Arabic words but also in the realization of an original /s/ as a result of assimilation between vowels: laz alegríaz /laz aleˈgɾi.az/ ; this /z/ can evolve in a second phase from sibilant to an interdental fricative : mozotros /moˈzotɾos/ → .
  • Under the influence of Moroccan Arabic phonology, the Old Spanish and allophones of the /dʒ/ phoneme merged in Haketia as /ʒ/: ĵudió /ʒuˈdjo/.
  • Like other dialects of Judeo-Spanish, Haketia has retained the postalveolar sibilants of Old Spanish, the voiced ĵ /ʒ/ as in hiĵas /ˈiʒas/ and muĵer /muˈʒeɾ/ and the unvoiced sh /ʃ/ as in shabón /ʃaˈbon/ and enshawar /enʃaˈwaɾ/ ; but in spoken Haketia, influenced by modern Spanish , most of these cases are sometimes pronounced as the voiceless velar fricative . /ʃ/ is also a phoneme in Haketia in words of Arabic or Hebrew origin; often it is pronounced , principally by women: shabbat shalom /ʃabˈbat ʃaˈlom/ → sabbat salom ; kiddush /kidˈduʃ/ → kiddús , etc.; next to a voiced consonant, this can become : ḥeshván /ħeʃˈvan/ → ḥezván . On the other hand can also be the realization of an /s/ before a /k/ as in moshca , and bushcar .
  • Bilabial consonants become velars before /w/: güeno /ˈgweno/ ~ ueno /ˈweno/, cuerta /ˈkweɾta/.
  • Labialization of velar consonants when after /u/ and before /a/: ḥanukká /ħanukˈka/ → ḥanukkwá , ukuán /uˈkwan/, nuncua /ˈnunkwa/, ĵuguada /ʒuˈɡwada/.
  • Coalescence of the cluster /nj/ into the palatal nasal /ɲ/: quiñentos /kiˈɲentos/.
  • Reduction of /j/ after a stressed /i/: maravía /maɾaˈbi.a/.
  • In some communities, particularly in Tétouan, consonant elision: poned /poˈned/ → poné , comites /koˈmites/ → comite .

    Consonant Phonemes

Vowel Phonemes

Morphology

  • Native words form the plural by suffixing the morpheme |-s|. Masculine nouns loaned from Hebrew typically form the plural by suffixing the morpheme |-ˈim|, though some use |-ˈot| instead. For instance, the plural of masculine sefer 'book' is safarim, whereas the plural of masculine mazón 'victual' is mezonot. Feminine nouns loaned from Hebrew usually form the plural with |-ˈot|, though some use |-ˈim| instead.
  • The dual number only appears in nouns loaned from Hebrew in certain verses, such as "Mosé subió a los shamaim". These nouns form the dual number by suffixing the morpheme |-ˈaim|.

    Verb Conjugation

Regular conjugations:
-ar verbs-er verbs-ir verbs
First Person-aremos-eremos-iremos
Second Person-arís-erís-irís
Third Person-arán-erán-irán

-ar verbs-er verbs-ir verbs
First Person-aríamos-eríamos-iríamos
Second Person-aríais-eríais-iríais
Third Person-arían-erían-irían

Modern use

Haketia, unlike other varieties of Judaeo-Spanish, did not develop a literary tradition, so the language remained as a colloquial form of communication and was not used as a vehicle for formal education since in Spanish Morocco, Spanish was used, along with French, at the Alliance Israélite Universelle schools. Due to the influence of the Spanish and French conquests and the large number of Jews from northern Morocco who emigrated to Venezuela, Spain and later Argentina, the language was levelled with modern Spanish, which has contributed greatly to its diminution. Nevertheless, there has been a slow renaissance of the language, helped by musicians such as Vanessa Paloma Elbaz with a variety of performances and the recordings of her sound archive KHOYA as well as others such as, Mor Karbasi and, among others. José Benoliel and Alegría Bendayán de Bendelac have both compiled Spanish-Haketía dictionaries, published in 1977 and 1995, respectively. The regularly publishes articles in Haketia in its magazine Maguen-Escudo. The language is also spoken in some communities in the Amazon areas of Brazil.

Scholarship

collected oral tradition, grammar, and a lexicon. Alegria Bendelac conducted fieldwork. Nina Pinto-Abecasis collected folklore. Vanessa Paloma Elbaz collected many songs from the oral tradition and published extensively on the community and its music in the early twenty first century.

Status

Decline began as early as 1860 during the Spanish occupation of Tetuan and accelerated as an increasing share of Haketia speakers adopted Modern Spanish. Today Haketia is a declining language with only 1,000 speakers remaining, down from 30,000 in 1900.