Site Details

Ladino

Judeo-Spanish
Concourse
Western AsiaTurkey flagTurkeyIsrael flagIsraelJewish
Judeo-Spanish (widely known as Ladino), based on Old Spanish but later accruing influences from Greek, Turkish, Arabic, French, and other languages, was the principal language of Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 who settled principally in the Ottoman Empire and part of northern Morocco and then spread around the globe. By the early 20th century, tens of thousands of speakers from Ottoman cities such as Salonica, Istanbul, and Izmir were arriving in New York City. Read more and see ELA's "Ladino New York" series here.
Read more
M

oving north with other Jews from the Lower East Side, Ladino speakers formed a distinct community in the Bronx beginning in the 1920s and 30s, with the greatest concentration around the Grand Concourse in the 160s. The Sephardic Jew­ish Cen­ter on 169th under the charismatic Rabbi Asher Murciano was a prominent anchor institution before it moved to Forest Hills, but there were also informal social clubs like El Filo, often geared towards people whose families were originally from Izmir or Salonika or other specific hometowns. Many in the community continued to speak not only Ladino but also Greek and Turkish, while interacting and finding common ground with the increasing number of Spanish speakers from the Caribbean who settled nearby in the Bronx.

Note that the language above may be used throughout the New York area — this is just one significant site.
SearchExploreDataCensusInfo

© Mapbox © OpenStreetMap Improve this map

Ladino

Judeo-Spanish

Data

Search
Local community data
View in map
County
Language
Endonym
World Region
Country
Global Speakers
Language Family
Video
Audio
Location
Size
Status
Filter
Filter
Filter
Filter
Filter
Filter
​
​
No communities found. Try fewer criteria or click the "Clear filters" button to reset the table.

Rows per page:

20 rows

0-0 of 0

0-0 of 0
Press space bar to start a drag. When dragging you can use the arrow keys to move the item around and escape to cancel. Some screen readers may require you to be in focus mode or to use your pass through key

An urban language map

Welcome to Languages of New York City, a free and interactive digital map of the world’s most linguistically diverse metropolitan area.

All data, unless otherwise specified, is from the Endangered Language Alliance (ELA), based on information from communities, speakers, and other sources.

The map is a work in progress and a partial snapshot, focused on significant sites for Indigenous, minority, and endangered languages. Larger languages are represented selectively. To protect the privacy of speakers, some locations are slightly altered. Social media users, note that LANGUAGEMAP.NYC works best in a separate browser. We apologize that the map may not be fully accessible to all users, including the visually impaired.

This map was created by the Mapping Linguistic Diversity team, with core support from the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies and the Endangered Language Alliance. Please send feedback!

By continuing I acknowledge that I have read and accept the above information.