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Balearic Hebrew: Difference between revisions
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'''Balearic Hebrew''' (Natively: ''sufu balyarīt'') is a Canaanite Semitic language descended from a variety of Hebrew spoken in the northern kingdom of ancient Israel between the 10th century and the 8th century BCE. Formed from the speech of ancient Israelites to the Phoenician speaking Balearic islands, the language has a Canaanite core, evolving from ancient Hebrew between the 8th and 2nd centuries BCE. Roman occupation brought in considerable Latin influence, which would only strengthen as more settlers speaking Iberian Romance languages such as Old Spanish and Catalan came to the islands. | |||
The language emerged from contact between diverse peoples in Antiquity. Although its vocabulary largely derives from ancient Hebrew, words that deal with subjects such as law, war, and politics tend to be of Latin derivation. The grammar preserves to an extent ancient Semitic verb paradigms, and has changed alongside Classical Latin influence. | |||
== History == | |||
Phoenician colonists encouraged Hebrew migration to the islands, and many more emigrated around 720 BCE after the destruction of the Kingdom of Samaria. Eventually, Hebrew speakers outnumbered Phoenician speakers, though the two closely related languages facilitated communication. | |||
After the Second Punic War, the islands came under Roman control. Roman Latin speakers settled on the islands, considerably influencing the speech of the majority Jewish population. This period saw the reduction of many Biblical phonological and grammatical structures, as the language leaned toward the Latin spoken by the new settlers. Despite the Roman occupation, the islands enjoyed considerable autonomy and were a flourishing economic center of the Republic, exporting agricultural produce, cattle, rabbits, snails, and a red dye favored by Roman painters. The speakers of this dialect of Hebrew also clung to the alphabet of their Phoenician and Israelite ancestors, never switching to the Assyrian script used by their counterparts in the Levant. | |||
After the fall of the Roman Empire, the islands fell under the control of the Umayyad Dynasty, and subsequently lived under Islamic political control until the 13th century. The islands' population fell drastically as crusaders fought the less tolerant Almoravid dynasty, destroying harbors and reducing the islands as a regional sea power. After the Reconquista, the islands became a major center of economic and military power for the kingdom of Aragón, and Balearic Hebrew was the major language of the province, until the islands' conquest by the Ottomans. | |||
In 1492, the Edict of Expulsion caused many Spanish Jews to emigrate to the Ottoman-controlled islands. The Jewish population fluctuated, but still remained the major demographic force in the region up until the modern period. Now, there are over a million speakers of Balearic Hebrew, and a similar amount of Jews on the islands. | |||
== Writing System == | == Writing System == | ||
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