Judeo-Arabic languages in the context of "Judeo-Egyptian Arabic"

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⭐ Core Definition: Judeo-Arabic languages

Judeo-Arabic (Judeo-Arabic: ערביה יהודיה, romanized: 'Arabiya Yahūdiya; Arabic: عربية يهودية, romanizedʿArabiya Yahūdiya (listen); Hebrew: ערבית יהודית, romanized'Aravít Yehudít (listen)), sometimes referred to as Sharh in its high-level translation calque, is a group of related ethnolects or religiolects within the branches of the Arabic language used by Jewish communities. Judeo-Arabic is a mixed form of Arabic, in its formal and vernacular varieties, as it has been used by Jews, and refers to both written forms and spoken dialects. Although Jewish dialectical forms of Arabic, which predate Islam, have been distinct from those of other religious communities, they are not a uniform linguistic entity.

Varieties of Arabic formerly spoken by Jews throughout the Arab world have been, in modern times, classified as distinct ethnolects. Under the ISO 639 international standard for language codes, Judeo-Arabic is classified as a macrolanguage under the code jrb, encompassing four languages: Judeo-Moroccan Arabic (aju), Judeo-Yemeni Arabic (jye), Judeo-Egyptian Arabic (yhd), and Judeo-Tripolitanian Arabic (yud).

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Judeo-Arabic languages in the context of Hebrew alphabet

The Hebrew alphabet (Hebrew: אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, Alefbet ivri), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is a unicameral abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language. Alphabets based on the Hebrew script are used to write other Jewish languages, most notably Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-Arabic, and Judeo-Persian. In modern Hebrew, vowels are increasingly introduced. Hebrew script is used informally in Israel to write Levantine Arabic, especially among Druze. The script is an offshoot of the Imperial Aramaic alphabet, which flourished during the Achaemenid Empire, and which itself derives from the Phoenician alphabet.

Historically, a different abjad script was used to write Hebrew: the original, old Hebrew script, now known as the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, has been largely preserved in a variant form as the Samaritan alphabet, and is still used by the Samaritans. The present Jewish script or square script, on the contrary, is a stylized form of the Aramaic alphabet and was technically known by Jewish sages as Ashurit (lit.'Assyrian script'), since its origins were known to be from Assyria (Mesopotamia).

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Judeo-Arabic languages in the context of Musta'arabi Jews

Musta'arabi Jews (Arabic: المستعربين al-Mustaʿribīn "Mozarabs"; Hebrew: מוּסְתערבים Mustaʿravim) were the Arabic-speaking Jews, largely Mizrahi Jews and Maghrebi Jews, who lived in the Middle East and North Africa prior to the arrival and integration of Ladino-speaking Sephardic Jews of the Iberian Peninsula, following their expulsion from Spain in 1492. Following their expulsion, Sephardi Jewish exiles moved into the Middle East and North Africa (among other countries around the Mediterranean Basin), and settled among the Musta'arabim.

In many Arab countries, Sephardi immigrants and the established Musta'arabi communities maintained separate synagogues and separate religious rituals, but often had a common Chief Rabbinate. The general tendency, however, was for both the communities and their customs to amalgamate, adopting a mostly Sephardic liturgy. This pattern was found in most Musta'arabi communities in Arab countries. A typical example is in the history of the Jews in Syria.

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