What is the difference between Spanish and Ladino?

Question

What are the main differences between Spanish and Ladino?

I thought I would be able to hear the difference in Ladino podcasts, but I don't. Both languages sound the same.

I am always questioning linguistic patterns and choices.I live in Eilat Israel where I am called upon constantly to use and enjoy my linguistic skills! Today---at a small local bus stop, a man about 60 asked me in Hebrew if I was from Argentina.He heard me speaking Spanish to a friend,I replied "yes".He offered that being from Turkey he spoke Spanish. I said,"No,you spoke Ladino.I was there in Turkey in a big synagogue,I heard Ladino.He smiled. Ladino sounds a bit choppy to me---but fun to decipher! — , Aug 01 '16 at 11:14

score 9 · Answer 1 · edited Aug 23 '15 at 22:43

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Spanish is the old Castilian language, a Romance one, related to Portuguese, Galician and Catalan, with influences from Arabic and French, and which has evolved naturally since, spoken nowadays in Spain, Hispanic America (including South of USA), Equatorial Guinea and Philippines.

Ladino is the same old Castilian language, also romance, also related to Portuguese, Galician and Catalan, with the same influences from Arabic but less influence from French, which has not evolved since Ferdinand and Isabella expelled jews from Spain in 1492, spoken nowadays by sephardi jews (they called Spain as Sefarad, hence the name they give to theirselves).

So yes, the answer from Jaime Cruz Triana is correct in that Ladino is ancient Spanish, and the historic reason is that Jews expelled in 1492 retained their language.

edited Aug 23 '15 at 22:43

JMVanPelt

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answered Jul 03 '14 at 07:15

Envite

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It has evolved somehow, Ladino spoken in Turkey/Middle East has adopted many words from Turkish. – JoulSauron Jul 03 '14 at 08:44
@JoulSauron True. I referred to the same evolution as Spanish – Envite Jul 03 '14 at 08:46
I think you mixed the year's digits. It's 1492, not 1942 ;) – itziki Jul 03 '14 at 12:59
@itziki true. Corrected. – Envite Jul 03 '14 at 14:11
I keep hearing about Ladino and that it's a language spoken in Israel and the middle east, but I haven't found a modern sample of nowadays written Ladino/Sephardic Spanish, like a newspaper or a wikipedia article (like, for instance, those available in Chabacano). Furthermore I hear that Ladino is being displaced by Argentinean Spanish in Israel and that there are virtually no Ladino speakers any longer. Can anyone confirm or deny? – deStrangis Jul 08 '14 at 15:04
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@deStrangis There are printed and online newspapers, such as Aki Yerushalayim. There is Wikipedia in Ladino. Radio Exterior de España has a weekly show in Ladino, you can listen to past shows. – JoulSauron Jul 09 '14 at 08:44
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deStrangis: As a resident of Israel I can tell you that some people in Israel do speak Ladino (my uneducated guess is an order of magnitude of 50,000 speakers, almost all of them also speak Hebrew), yet - and like other jewish dialects such as Yiddish - one can not compare its contemporary status to the situation before the Holocaust, when it was spoken by a large fraction of the non-ashkenazi jews and was used in everyday-life. Most of the current speakers are elderly people who were born in Ladino-speaking communities such as the Balcan or Turkey and later immigrated to Israel, and it is ver – user1767774 Jul 08 '14 at 16:01
You said: "-and like other jewish dialects such as Yiddish-" but that is plain wrong. Ladino is not a 'jewish dialect'. It is an independent language, related to spanish, and happens to be speaked by a certain branch of jews. And you seem to forget the special status given to Ladino by Spanish Government: http://politica.elpais.com/politica/2014/06/06/actualidad/1402043523_305436.html . About your numbers, Refael Shmuel counts 350000-500000 in Israel plus 200000-30000 in Europa nad America. And please, do not moan about rockets. This is not Politics.stackexchange.com – Envite Jul 09 '14 at 05:10
Envite: Ignorance is not a crime: The knowledge of each one of us is necessarily limited. Being proud of your ingorance, on the other hand, is less acceptable. I afraid not a single sentence in your comment is correct. 1. Ladino is a jewish dialect/language ("A language is a dialect with an army and navy" - Max Weinreich) - for this very reaosn its other name, which is preferred by most the speakers, is Judeo-Espanyol (Judeoespañol). Indeed, it was derived originally from old spanish, and it is reasonable to assume that in the past it was more similar to the Spanish dialects spoken by the gene – user1767774 Jul 09 '14 at 11:37
@user1767774 Language and dialect are very well established concepts, and only if you are trying to do demagogy you mix them. Check e.g. Ethnologue (the main internet source on languages) http://www.ethnologue.com/language/lad to see that Ladino is a language with several dialects itself. And it is classified as coming from Castilian and as a language mainly spoken (but not only) on Israel. – Envite Jul 09 '14 at 22:10
Very interesting. Can you provide sources (even if just wikipedia)? – Flimzy Jul 10 '14 at 15:08
@Flimzy sources for which part? – Envite Jul 10 '14 at 23:56
@Envite: The whole thing. – Flimzy Jul 11 '14 at 15:55
@Flimzy you can check wikipedia yourself https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idioma_judeoespa%C3%B1ol – Envite Jul 14 '14 at 05:31
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@Envite: On the SE network, we encourage answers to be well-referenced. If you feel Wikipedia provides sufficient reference material for your answer, I encourage you to add that to your answer, not simply as a comment. – Flimzy Jul 14 '14 at 16:27
Ladino has evolved - no language remains static over centuries - it's just evolved in different ways from Spanish. – jacobo May 18 '20 at 23:31

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 15 '20 at 17:14

I am a Spanish speaker and I understand 100% of spoken Ladino. Written Ladino takes a little thought, but I can also understand it 100%.

I am Colombian and quite frankly I have a harder time understanding Caribbean dialects than I have understanding Ladino podcasts. My impression is that the division as two languages is mostly political... I think you can understand why.

But if I had to look at the two languages purely from a linguistic perspective, I'd classify them as dialects of the same language. (disclaimer: I'm not a professional linguist, just interested in the subject)

jacobo · Answer 3 · 2021-02-14T11:58:49.887

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Spanish and Ladino are indeed very closely related languages. However, there are some prominent phonetic and grammatical differences:

Feature	Ladino	Old Spanish	Andalusian / American Spanish	Portuguese
retention of the sibilants /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ (e.g. baxo /ʃ/, mujer /ʒ/)	✅	✅		✅
voicing distinction between "s/ç" and "z" (e.g. korasón /s/, dezir /z/)	✅	✅		✅
distinction between /b/ and /v/	✅	✅		✅
word initial latinate /f/ (e.g. fija, favla)	✅	✅		✅
distinction in conjugation of 1st person plural present and preterite -ar verbs	✅	✅
yeísmo	✅		✅
elision of word terminal /s/	✅		✅
word-terminal and /-k/ preceding /s/ often pronounced [ʃ]	✅			✅
word initial /nwe-/ often pronounced /mwe-/ (e.g. muestro, muevo)	✅
lack of usted	✅
variation of hebrew plural suffixes /-im/, /-ot/ (e.g. ladrones, ladronim)	✅
gender-marking of morphologically neutral words (e.g. grande/granda, voz -> vozas)	✅

^{Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaeo-Spanish}

^{Some examples of Ladino speech:}
^{- WikiTongues: Jack Speaking Ladino}
^{- Esther Levi}

edited Feb 14 '21 at 11:58

answered Jun 15 '20 at 12:45

jacobo

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This chart is missing several things: Old Spanish, Castilian Spanish and (EUropean) Portuguese all conjugate 2nd person plural verbs distinctly. Similarly, (European) Portuguese distinguishes present preterite -ar verbs: hoje nós nadamos, ontem nós nadámos (cf Asturian/MIrandese nadamos / nademos) – user0721090601 Feb 14 '21 at 00:26
European Portuguese in the north (and Mirandese) also distinguish the full complement of sibilants, and all Portuguese except for the extreme north/ northeast distinguish b/v – user0721090601 Feb 14 '21 at 00:28
@user0721090601 thanks - I quickly changed this from a pairwise comparison without checking it was exhaustive. Can't remember what I intended by the last one (wasn't clearly phrased), so I removed it. Hope it's more accurate now! – jacobo Feb 14 '21 at 12:00

What is the difference between Spanish and Ladino?

3 Answers3