Judeo-Arabic

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (January 2024) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Judéo-arabe]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|fr|Judéo-arabe}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Judeo-Arabic
ערבית יהודית‎
A page from the Cairo Geniza, part of which is written in the Judeo-Arabic language
Ethnicity	Jews from North Africa and the Fertile Crescent
Native speakers	240,000 (2022)[1]
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Semitic West Semitic Central Semitic Arabic Judeo-Arabic
Early forms	Old Arabic Classical Arabic
Writing system	Hebrew alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-2	jrb
ISO 639-3	jrb – inclusive code Individual codes: yhd – Judeo-Egyptian Arabic aju – Judeo-Moroccan Arabic yud – Judeo-Tripolitanian Arabic jye – Judeo-Yemeni Arabic
Glottolog	None

This article contains Hebrew text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Hebrew letters.

Judeo-Arabic (Judeo-Arabic: ערביה יהודיה, romanized: 'Arabiya Yahūdiya; Arabic: عربية يهودية, romanized: ʿArabiya Yahūdiya (listen)^ⓘ; Hebrew: ערבית יהודית, romanized: 'Aravít Yehudít (listen)^ⓘ) is Arabic, in its formal and vernacular varieties, as it has been used by Jews, and refers to both written forms and spoken dialects.^[2][3][4] Although Jewish use of Arabic, which predates Islam, has been in some ways distinct from its use by other religious communities, it is not a uniform linguistic entity.^[2]

Varieties of Arabic formerly spoken by Jews throughout the Arab world have been, in modern times, classified as distinct ethnolects.^[4] 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).^[5][4]

Judeo-Arabic, particularly in its later forms, contains distinctive features and elements of Hebrew and Aramaic.^{[6]: 125 [7]: 35}

Many significant Jewish works, including a number of religious writings by Saadia Gaon, Maimonides and Judah Halevi, were originally written in Judeo-Arabic, as this was the primary vernacular language of their authors.