The project targets grammar (morphosyntax), specifically, because grammar provides a language’s structural ‘DNA’: the linguistic code acquired in infancy that differentiates that language from others and enables its speakers to produce that language. Because most Judeo-Spanish research focuses on other aspects of the linguistic system we simply do not know what the overall grammatical landscape of Judeo-Spanish looks like. Without a detailed or accurate knowledge of what Judeo-Spanish's sentence-level grammar is, the language cannot be taught or passed on to new learners or future generations.
Identifying the Judeo-Spanish varieties’ ‘DNA’ through their documentation and subsequent systematisation is required to understand and measure the grammatical variation in this language branch; specifically, differences between Judeo-Spanish’s constituent dialects, and the linguistic distance between Judeo-Spanish and its closest living relation, modern Spanish. To close this knowledge gap, the project will undertake detailed, sustained work in order to establish a comprehensive characterisation of the Judeo-Spanish grammatical landscape.
With this information, we can examine the internal and external factors determining how Judeo-Spanish linguistic systems vary, and to what extent there is any linguistic substance to existing/proposed divisions between Spanish and Judeo-Spanish, and the dialects which constitute them.
‘Grammars under threat’ will respond to the precarious situation of Judeo-Spanish by pursuing a programme of activities centred around three strands—linguistic theory, language documentation and language policy—in order to document and identify the ‘hidden grammars’ of Judeo-Spanish as it is spoken and written today.
To participate or otherwise contribute to this project, you can sign up and get involved here.