Chanukah: The Sixth Night

Many of my friends know that my vocabulary is sprinkled with a little Yiddish--a language that's a sort of combination of German and Hebrew spoken by Eastern European Jews. That's my heritage, as my family came from Russia, Romania, and Austria-Hungary. What many folks don't know is that Jews from Western Europe--think Greece, Spain, especially--have a similar heritage language called Ladino, a kind of combination of Spanish and Hebrew.

Although I knew about Ladino for years, I never heard in until I moved to Seattle. For my very first Passover here, I attended a seder at the home of a coworker whose parents were Greek. They spoke Ladino. I was so excited to hear it. It was beautiful, musical in a way I couldn't have imagined, and I was delighted to listen to it spoken all night long. As it turned out, my coworker's parents had never had anyone in their home who could sing or pray in Hebrew, so I had the good fortune to be able to share my (modest) knowledge of the language enough to contribute substantially to the proceedings. Ultimately, our seder was in Greek, Ladino, Hebrew and English, and it is still one of my favorite experiences of living in Seattle.

Sadly, UNESCO has designated Ladino an endangered language (check out their map of endangered languages--fascinating), so any time I find a resource for the language I'm delighted. For those of you who can read the Hebrew alphabet, here's a link to the Four Questions in Ladino. Read it aloud and listen to the sounds; you'll definitely hear the language's pedigree.

Tonight's virtual Chanukah gift is a Chanukah song sung in Ladino with a swingy, Latin beat: Ocho Kandelikas (Eight Candles). Enjoy!