Judeo-Malay

Judeo-Malay
Yahudi-Melayu, יאהודי-מֱלאיו
A Judeo-Malay word list from circa 1900 from a notepad belonging to Rahamim Jacob Cohen.
Native toMalaysia
RegionPenang
EthnicityMalaysian Jews
Extinct(date missing)
Hebrew
Language codes
ISO 639-3
GlottologNone

Judeo-Malay (Malay: Bahasa Yahudi-Melayu, Jawi: بهاس يهودي-ملايو, Hebrew: מלאית-יהודית) is a variant of the Malay language once spoken or written by the Jews of Penang, a state located in northern Peninsular Malaysia.[1][2] Judeo-Malay is the only known recorded Jewish language of the Austronesian family. The surviving manuscripts of Judeo-Malay are recorded on a notepad of an Iranian Jew by the name of Rahamim Jacob Cohen, which is currently kept in the Microfilms of Alalay Manuscripts from the British Library's Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections.[3]

Examples

A sample sentence in Judeo-Malay and Standard Malay for comparison:

  • Judeo-Malay: Saiyah tidah maho lo, hampah batina hidob sana!
  • Standard Malay: Saya tidak mahu kamu, empat perempuan/betina hidup disana!
(Translation: I don't want you, there are four women living there!)

Below are the numbers 1–6 in Judeo-Malay, transcribed from Cohen's notes, and in Standard Malay:

Numeral Judeo-Malay Standard Malay
1 satuh satu
2 du'ah dua
3 tigah tiga
4 hampah empat
5 nimah or limah lima
6 henam enam

See also

References

  1. ^ Rubin, Aaron D. (2017). "Other Jewish Languages, Past and Present". In Kahn, Lily; Rubin, Aaron D. (eds.). Handbook of Jewish Languages. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. pp. 749–752. doi:10.1163/9789004359543_026. ISBN 978-90-04-35954-3.
  2. ^ Rubin, Aaron D.; Kahn, Lily (2020). Jewish Languages from A to Z. Abingdon-on-Thames, England: Taylor & Francis. p. 140. ISBN 978-1-351-04342-7.
  3. ^ Moreen, Vera Basch (1995). "A Supplementary List of Judaeo-Persian Manuscripts". The British Library Journal. 21 (1): 71–80. ISSN 0305-5167. JSTOR 42554400.