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Judeo-Shirazi
Description by Ashley Dukellis, Simran Goel, Elia Groode, Matt Scully, compiled for a class assignment

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Example of an Iranian language family tree.

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Map of Iran highlighting the city of Shiraz.

Quick Facts


Names of language:

Judeo-Shirazi is a Jewish language from Iran. This language can be formally called Judeo-Shirazi, which follows a language naming pattern of “Judeo-X” (X being the co-territorial non-Jewish base language). This language is also referred to as Jidi, which follows the naming category of the evolution of the Hebrew word “Yehuda” in its respective language. As a name, Judeo-Shirazi holds a more technical, academic, and formal connotative meaning. In comparison, Jidi has a more relaxed and informal connotation and is found to be the preferred name used by speakers of the language.

 

Territories where it was/is spoken:

Judeo-Shirazi originated in Shiraz, a city in south-central Iran. Here, this language is still spoken and has been for about 2500 years since the Assyrian exile of the Kingdom of Israel (interview, Alyeshmerni). In the last century, especially since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, most Judeo-Shirazi speakers have migrated from Shiraz to Israel, New York, and California.

 

Estimated # speakers:

Most Judeo-Shirazi speakers still reside in these regions, but speaker numbers are extremely limited across the globe. With limited information about an exact number of speakers, a very rough estimate of speakers in 1900 is about several thousand (personal communication with Dr. Sarah Bunin Benor). According to native speakers of Jidi, these numbers have greatly diminished to a rough estimate of under 100, as younger generations are not learning the language.

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Vitality:

In an interview with native Judeo-Shiraz speaker, Mansoor “Elie” Alyeshmerni, he described Judeo-Shirazi as “on its deathbed.” Additionally, in an interview with a descendant of a Jidi speaker, Sam Zarbakhsh revealed that the fluent Judeo-Shirazi speakers he knows are above 60 years of age. Most of the children and grandchildren of Judeo-Shirazi speakers are not learning the language - and if they’re learning any Jewish language, it’s most likely Hebrew. For example, Alyeshmerni chose to teach his children Hebrew instead of Judeo-Shirazi, as it was more applicable to the broader Jewish world. He explained that while he can understand Judeo-Shirazi well, he doesn’t speak it often, which has led him to become rusty in the language. This phenomenon is common among speakers of endangered languages.

 

Writing system:

The majority of Jidi speakers were illiterate, contributing to the lack of a writing system for Judeo-Shirazi (Rubin and Kahn 151). However, Alyeshmerni explained that some Jidi speakers would use Hebrew letters to transliterate what they wanted to say in Jidi; so, while there was no official writing system, Jidi speakers were able to find a creative way to communicate.

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Literature:

There is no literature in Judeo-Shirazi (Rubin and Kahn 151).

 

Language family/branch:

Judeo-Shirazi is a Judeo-Iranian language; more specifically, it is in the Southwest branch of the Iranian languages (Borjian 118). It is spoken by Jewish people in the city of Shiraz, Iran. The languages of the Southwest-Iranian branch are composed of Old, Middle, and New Persian along with several other languages in the southern region, such as in Fars and Kerman (Endangered Language Alliance 1). Judeo-Shirazi also takes influence from Medieval Shirazi (Endangered Language Alliance 1).

Map of Judeo-Shirazi

Brief Historical Overview

Once Jewish people settled in Shiraz and began integrating the co-territorial base language into their language repertoire, they spoke a Jewish version of the Shirazi language. In the past few decades, speakers of Jidi have migrated over the world and can sparsely be found in Israel and two states in America: New York and California. For example, our consultants Alyeshmerni and Zarbakhsh currently reside in California. 

 

Alyeshmerni is a linguist who was able to detail the history of Judeo-Shirazi. There are two old Persian languages - one from the Achaemenid dynasty and another, called Avestan. Judeo-Shirazi is derived from the Old Persian of the Achaemenid dynasty, while modern Persian is derived from Avestan. He explained that in modern Persian, the word for 'sun' is pessar” However, in Old Persian, which was spoken by the Achaemenid dynasty, the word for 'sun' was putha which did not have an /r/. In Judeo-Persian, the word for sun is puth - which also does not contain an /r/. This makes sense because the capital of the Achaemenid dynasty was situated in Persepolis, which is only 30 miles from Shiraz. This discovery led Alyeshmerni to realize that Jewish people have likely lived in Shiraz for at least 2500 years, as the Achaemenid dynasty was 500 years before the common era. While the local areas moved on from Old Persian and to Avestan, the Jewish people continued to take influence from Old Persian (Gindin 1). This is a theme common among Jewish languages in history: the surrounding non-Jewish communities will move on to newer versions of the language while the Jewish communities will continue to use the original language. 

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Unfortunately, there is no documentary evidence of Jidi as it has not been written. Scholarship on Judeo-Shirazi is limited - there are only a few articles (Borjian 133).

Surrounding Non-Jewish Language

Repertoire of Distinctive Jewish Linguistic Features

Words that refer to traditions and religious concepts are typically in Hebrew or Aramaic. For example, the Jidi phrase manzal tev, meaning 'good luck', comes from the Hebrew phrase Mazal Tov. The Jewish covenant of circumcision is referred to as Brit Milah in both Jidi and Hebrew. In addition, terms of phatic communication such as shabbat shalem 'peaceful Sabbath' were also derived from Hebrew. These are considered loanwords because although they have Hebrew origins, they are integrated morphologically and phonologically into Jidi, and Jidi speakers would consider them a part of their language. A Hebrew loanword is also used to refer to non-Jews, such as goyim meaning 'nations.' However, Hebrew and Aramaic words are rather sparse in Judeo-Shirazi in contrast to Yiddish and Ladino.

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According to Habib Borijan, “Judeo-Shirazi is [also] rooted in the old dialect of Shiraz and its environs'' (Borjian 134). From this, Judeo-Shirazi will see influences from the ancient languages of Persia. This is demonstrated by its archaic features. Habib Borjian highlights this idea that "Judeo-Shirazi morphosyntax employs a kind of split ergativity— which is lost in Persian—in the past tenses of transitive verbs” (132). Judeo-Shirazi is archaic, as non-Jews adjusted to a more standard Persian. At the same time, there are many influences from Persian, based on recent language contact.

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Sociolinguistic variation

With regards to sociolinguistic variation, there has not been enough research to determine what inter-speaker and intra-speaker variation exists in Judeo-Shirazi. However, based on patterns in other Jewish communities, we can assume that there were some differences in Hebrew loanword use, with men and more learned men using more than others. Judeo-Shirazi speakers did speak differently from Jews and non-Jews, sometimes using a secret language with many Hebrew and Aramaic words called Loterai (Endangered Language Alliance 1).

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Contemporary status

Judeo-Shirazi has been decreasing in vitality, as most of the speakers are elderly and did not pass it onto their children and grandchildren (Endangered Language Alliance 1). Judoe-Shirazi speakers live in Shiraz, Israel, New York, and California. In addition, “Language minorities in Iran are losing ground to dominant and more widely recognized Persian” (Gholami 1). As the majority language, Persian is integrated into every part of Iranian life, leaving very little space for minority languages like Judeo-Shirazi to thrive. Today, most speakers of Jidi rarely use it as a vernacular; instead, they use languages like English and Persian and incorporate Jidi loanwords.

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There is very little post-vernacular use of Judeo-Shirazi because most descendants of this language have not embraced it as part of their heritage. Like in other Iranian Jewish communities, they have embraced Persian as their community’s special language. There are a few songs and poems in Judeo-Shirazi, but they are hard to locate online. In comparison to other Jewish languages such as Yiddish and Ladino which have books, movies, songs, and board games, Judeo-Shirazi has not spread past its native speakers to non-native speakers.

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Introduction to Elie (our interviewer):

Elie Alyeshermi was born and raised in Shiraz, Iran. His original name was “Mansoor,” which is an Arabic-origin name meaning “he who is victorious.” His father named him “Mansoor,” a non-traditional Jewish name, in order to prevent Muslim kids from bullying him for being Jewish, but he was still bullied. Additionally, his last name, “Alyeshermi,” means “God will protect me” in Hebrew. In 2006, when the head of Al-Qaeda was called “Mansoor,” he decided to change his name to “Elie,” which contains the first three letters of his last name, because it is more ethnically appropriate. From ages 14 to 18, Elie moved to America and decided he would never live in Iran again, and he has not been back since 1961.

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Judeo-Shirazi/Jidi was his first language, and he learned Persian later on in life. He worked very hard to preserve Jidi even though people in his family thought it would be bad manners to speak it because it was not seen as a language in favor. However, Elie knew they were wrong and continued to speak it. When he returned from America at age 18, he went to his uncle's house and spoke Jidi to show them that there is nothing to be ashamed of. Elie is now fluent in Persian, Hebrew, and English, and knows Russian pretty well through his linguistic research. According to Elie, his Judeo-Shirazi is slightly rusty because he does not speak it frequently, but he can understand it. He also explained how it can be very easy to throw Persian into it, but tries to avoid doing that because he wants to keep Judeo-Shirazi as pure as possible. Finally, when asked if he passed the language onto his children, he explained that he chose to teach his children Hebrew instead because it would play a bigger role in their lives, and it has.

Discourse in Judeo-Shirazi

Listen to Elie tell the story of his journey to America from Shiraz, Iran.

Song in Judeo-Shirazi

Listen to singer, Abbas Montajam Shirazi, sing a Judeo-Shirazi song.

Explanation of Elicitation in Judeo-Shirazi

Elicitation Document

*underlined words are Hebrew loanwords

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Descendant Information:

We conducted an interview with Sam Zarbakhsh, a descendant of a Judeo-Shirazi speaker. Sam was born in Shiraz and lived there until he was 17, and now resides in California. He speaks both English and Farsi and has limited use of Judeo-Shirazi. 

 

Sam explained that Judeo-Shirazi is a dying language - the only people that he knows to speak it fluently are all above 60 years old. From his knowledge, it was viewed as a “backwards language” because Jews were segregated from the rest of society and thus this language was only used in the Jewish ghettos. He explained that the newer generations who don’t speak Judeo-Shirazi do not realize that they are losing a language with an incredible amount of history. However, since there are not many Jidi speakers left in Shiraz, and many who have moved to other countries have married outside the community, like himself, Sam does not believe Jidi can be revitalized.

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Sam said that he knows about 30% of the words from Elie's elicitation, including some Farsi and Hebrew words that his parents used. He explained that he uses the Hebrew versions of most of the words. He knew the Jidi translation for “he died,” which is olam shud, which directly translates to “he went to the other world.” Sam also recognized the Jidi word for non-Jews, gyim, because it is similar to the Hebrew word for non-Jews, goyim.

 

Sam explained that his mother prefers not to speak Judeo-Shirazi, while his father continues to use it with his siblings. He and his father use a lot of Judeo-Shirazi greetings. For example, when they greet people older than them, they say khebid , meaning “how are you” or “are you good?”

Selected Bibliography

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