The digital revitalization of Ladino

Ladino is a severely endangered language spoken by the Sephardim, i.e. Jews who were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula (Sepharad I) in 1492, and settled in the Mediterranean basin (Sepharad 2), and then in the Americas and beyond, where forced migration in the 20th century led to the global dispersal (Sepharad III), and subsequent dissolution, of physical Ladino-speaking communities. In the twenty-first century, the proliferation of Sephardi online communities (Sepharad IV) and particularly, that of Sephardi Digital Home-Lands (which, unlike mere online communities, include a process of linguistic ethnicization -Linke 2004; Eisenlohr 2006- and a sense of home- Wise 2000) (Held 2010; Yebra López, 2020) has granted the global community of Ladino-speakers a unique opportunity to strengthen the Sephardic nation while preserving its extraterritoriality and lack of State ascription. Chaired by Lily Kahn, Head of the Hebrew and Jewish Studies Department, UCL. 

This presentation will outline and critically discuss the response to Ladino’s endangerment through a variety of digital initiatives.