Translingualism in Medieval Jewish Culture

Abstract

In this chapter I consider the indications and significance of translingualism in medieval Jewish culture under the orbit of Islam by drawing attention to the dialectical relationship between Arabic and Hebrew language and learning. Examining “Arabized Hebrew” as one of the Jews’ literary languages is to acknowledge that speaking and writing Middle Arabic (Judeo-Arabic) as their first language, employing it in an elevated register for scholarship, and reading extensively in literary Arabic, had profound consequences for highly educated Jews’ “second, acquired” language, Hebrew, and the cultural products created in it. Yet Hebrew was neither a second nor an acquired language in the conventional sense of these terms but a “necessary language” for Jewish continuity. Accordingly, the translingualism in medieval Jewish culture under Islam is without many comparanda.