Los desafíos en la lectura e interpretación de textos judeoespañoles
The Challenges in Reading and Interpreting of Judeo-Spanish Texts

Author(s): Marta Kacprzak
Subject(s): Language studies, Theoretical Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Philology
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Sephardi novel; Judeo-Spanish (Ladino); transcription; Gulliver; Robinson Crusoe
Summary/Abstract: Reading a text printed in aljamía, that means written in Hebrew alphabet, can be considered as a challenge. It is like putting together a puzzle because reading consists of deciphering the letters and anticipating the meanings and pronunciation of the words due to its grammatical structure and its context of use. The problems related to the decryption process of the words above all influence the pronunciation and transcription. The aim of this article is to present and comment on some problems and doubts that arise when reading and transcribing the Judeo-Spanish texts. To illustrate the issue, we have chosen fragments from two editions of The isolated on the island (El asolado en la izla) and Two travels of Gulliver: among Lilliputians and Giants (Los dos vyajes de Guliver: onde los lilipusyanos i onde los djigantes). The isolated on the island is one of the Sephardic adaptations of the history of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. The two versions we are going to comment on were published in hebrew aljamía in Beraha hameshuleshet o las tres luzes (hebr. The triple blessing or the three lights); the first version came to light in Thessaloniki in 1880 or 1881, while the second one was printed in Constantinople in 1899 or 1900. The other text is an adaptation of Gulliver’s Travels, one of the most celebrated novels by J. Swift. The Sephardic version elaborated by Ben Ghiat was published in Izmir in 1897 in the newspaper El Meseret in the original version in aljamía.

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