Judeo-Latin


Judeo-Latin , La‘az, or Ebraico-Latino is a presumed Jewish language used by Roman Jews, scattered across the Roman Empire, especially those on the Italian Peninsula and in Transalpine Gaul.
"Lo`ez" is Hebrew for "foreign language", and in the Middle Ages, it started to refer to Latin or Romance languages.
It is believed that Judeo-Latin is the predecessor of all the Judeo-Romance languages.

Corpus

Few records exist of Judeo-Latin. Leo Levi found some Hebraisms in a few epigraphs in Italy.
Other possible sources are loanwords in other languages, like in Sardinian cenabura 'Friday' and caputanni, 'September', a literal translation of Rosh Hashanah.
Judeo-Latin likely influenced not only the Judeo-Romance languages, but also the Yiddish and Rotwelsch languages through its posited daughter languages, Judeo-Italian, Shuadit and Zarphatic.

Related languages

The historical relationships of the various Judeo-Romance languages are subject to debate and are only tenuously demonstrable at best: