The heroine of my Emberglow Saga series is a Spanish Jewess from Salonika, in what was then Ottoman Greece.  While my wife is a Spanish Jewess from Allepo Syria, her family spoke a jewish Arabic at home rather than Ladino.  Therefore, I'd like to consult with any members here who might be familiar with that dialect.

David P. Hoadley

According to wiki, there aren't a large number of speakers anymore.  Perhaps less than 150k worldwide.

But in 1838. when my story takes place, there were.

dph

Since you live in the present, David, you're sort-of stuck with that 150k speaker/user-base to try to connect to for reference purposes, aren't you? Good luck!

I assume you found this?

http://home.earthlink.net/~benven/ladino.html

I looked for the "Ladino Folk Dictonary" on Amazon and Abebooks. No luck.

Sorry I couldn't be more help.

@nobodyinparticular;

Thank you, I wasn't aware of that link.  I should prove useful!

dph

You are constrained further that certain idioms, phrases and words may not mean the same now then it did back in 1838.  Individuals miss that point when doing period pieces.

I may just go with Portuguese, since that language seems to be closer to 14 Century Castillian than modern day Spanish does.

With only 150,000 speakers world-wide, the chances of any of them coming to Renderosity and picking apart dialect is slim to none.

I understand the desire for accuracy, but for something as obscure as a nearly extinct language, I think there is room for forgiveness when it comes to grammar etc. :)

Quote - With only 150,000 speakers world-wide, the chances of any of them coming to Renderosity and picking apart dialect is slim to none. I understand the desire for accuracy, but for something as obscure as a nearly extinct language, I think there is room for forgiveness when it comes to grammar etc. :)

Exactly! As Acadia says, the chances of one of those 150 thousand reading your opus is about that of raising the Titanic with tweezers... (well, that last bit was mine) so I'd be pretty sure no one else is going to look at a phrase and go "Hang on... that's not how it goes! David obviously didn't do his homework!" :biggrin:

conversely, there's only 150k people that would fault any grammatical or spelling mistakes...;)

I'd figure there would be some online Ladino communities on the web somewhere...

There ya go!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ladino-language/103772002995062

Well Dave you're in luck :)  While I don't speak it, I do live in Thessaloniki (Salonica) so I could probably find you someone who does through the local Jewish community center.   PM me details of what you'd like exactly and I'll see what I can do :)

Here are a couple of links to sites that are also available in English.   I see that the museum includes a library where there are resources on language so that might also prove helpful. 

http://www.jct.gr/v2/

http://www.jmth.gr/index.html

And something you might also find interesting is Radio Sefarad. http://www.radiosefarad.com/joomla/    It's aimed mostly at Jewish populations in Spain and Latin America but also ladino-speaking people so you might be able to hear the dialect as well.  More on this station here:  http://www.jct.gr/v2/view.php?id=194