Ladino diction for singers: Judaeo-Spanish pronunciation and Sephardic song

Ladino has no single standard pronunciation, so a singer has to choose one. This page sets out the vowels, consonants and spellings by dialect, then the songs and texts of the repertoire. The other languages are in the diction section.

What Ladino is

Judaeo-Spanish is also known as Ladino, Judezmo or Spaniolit, and is a Romance language derived from Castilian Old Spanish¹. Most speakers from westernized Turkish or Israeli society prefer the name Ladino, and in Israel Hebrew speakers usually call the language Ladino¹.

Historically the Rashi script and its cursive form Solitreo were the main orthographies; today the language is mainly written with the Latin alphabet¹. In the Hebrew script a silent aleph must precede word-initial vowels¹.

Where the language comes from

Sephardic Jews have spoken Ladino since they were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula¹. Most Iberian Jews resettled in the Ottoman Empire after the 1490s expulsion from Spain and Portugal¹. Judaeo-Spanish was the common language of Salonica during the Ottoman period¹. The famous Ladino translation of the Bible, the Biblia de Ferrara, dates from 1553¹.

The language today is under serious threat of extinction¹. In 2017 the Royal Spanish Academy announced plans to boost its conservation¹.

How close it is to Spanish

The grammar, the phonology and about 60% of the vocabulary of Judaeo-Spanish are essentially Spanish¹. For the base rules, read Spanish diction for singers first.

The phoneme count varies by dialect: 24-26 consonants and 5 vowels¹. The five vowels are close i and u, mid e and o, and open a¹. Front rounded vowels appear only in French loanwords, and they do not exist in every dialect¹.

Where Ladino differs

The trill and the tap are also a question. It is claimed that Judaeo-Spanish does not contrast the trill and the tap, a claim that is not universally accepted¹. Some dialects merge the two rhotic phonemes, and speakers typically pronounce the merged sound as a tap¹. Most dialects merge /ð~ð̞/ with /d/ and /ħ/ with /x/¹.

Spelling and sound

The table lists three spellings from the Latin-script orthography.

The first is the affricate and the second the fricative, and the phoneme inventory includes both as separate sounds¹. Modern Spanish j, pronounced [x], corresponds to two different phonemes in Old Spanish¹; in Judaeo-Spanish, g before e or i remains [d͡ʒ] or [ʒ] rather than [x]¹. In basho, “low” or “down,” the sh is [ʃ]¹.

Stress follows a simple default. Words that end in a vowel, n, s or sh are paroxytones, meaning the stress falls on the next-to-last syllable¹.

There is no single standard

Ladino consonants, vowels and IPA values are by no means a standardized spelling or pronunciation system². There are exceptions to the rules, and pronunciation differs from community to community². The tables in Lori Şen’s singers’ guide are a fusion of several sources and her experience in the Turkish Sephardic community². One of those sources is Joan Wall and others’ Diction for Singers².

A repertoire built on borrowed melodies

Ladino songs often carry tunes that came from elsewhere. Melodies were often borrowed from surrounding cultures and Ladino lyrics were added to them³. American Sephardic immigrants created new Ladino lyrics for melodies from sources in Turkish, Yiddish, Hebrew, Greek and Arabic³. Contrafact, the process of imposing something new over something extant, was heavily used in the making of Ladino music³.

Songs have long served as a bridge between diverse communities within the geographically dispersed Sephardi diaspora³. Isaac Sene wrote Ladino lyrics for a song and performed it in both Hebrew and Ladino at Sephardic gatherings in the United States³. Jack Mayesh, a popular Greek-Sephardic singer and cantor, owned the Mayesh Phonograph Record Company, the only Sephardic record label in Los Angeles³. “Fel Shara” (1958) is a Sephardic version of an existing melody with exceptionally mixed lyrics, an amalgamation of Arabic, Ladino, Judeo-Italian, Judeo-French, Berber and English³.

Published choral arrangements of Ladino music, the subject of a 2018 University of Washington D.M.A. thesis, reflect features such as the Turkish makam modal system and heterophonic textures⁴. The UCLA conversation on borrowed melodies is the source for the tradition of added lyrics³.

Lyrics

Ladino song texts range from ancient poems to mixed-language lyrics. In Bruce Adolphe’s Ladino Songs of Love and Suffering, the texts are derived from well-known Ladino folk poetry⁵. Adolphe retained only the words and discarded the traditional melodies attached to these poems⁵. In his own note on the piece, he chose the guitar as the perfect instrument for Judeo-Spanish timbres and rhythms, and selected verses from ancient poems that could have been written yesterday⁵. The work was premiered on November 28, 1984, at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center⁵.

Mixed-language texts exist: the lyrics of “Fel Shara” are an amalgamation of Arabic, Ladino, Judeo-Italian, Judeo-French, Berber and English³.

Sung versus spoken

The Ladino diction guide for singers was written to help singers who would like to perform this repertoire². Its consonants, vowels and IPA transcriptions are by no means an attempt to achieve a standardized spelling or pronunciation system². Voiceless plosives in initial position have aspiration¹, and some varieties show little or no diphthongization of tonic vowels¹.

Common mistakes for English and Spanish speakers

• Assuming one standard. Pronunciation differs from community to community, with exceptions to the rules².
• Pronouncing v as a bilabial. It is a labiodental v, as in English¹.
• Pronouncing every s as [s]. In some dialects it is [ʃ] before a k sound or at word end, as in seis [seʃ]¹.
• Merging dj and j. The inventory includes separate [d͡ʒ] and [ʒ]¹.
• Reading final o as o everywhere. On Rhodes, a word-final o is pronounced as u¹.
• Expecting a trill and tap contrast. It is claimed that Judaeo-Spanish does not contrast them, though the claim is not universally accepted¹.

Preparing a Ladino song

• Identify the community behind the text, since pronunciation differs from community to community².
• Check s before k sounds and at word end, nue- words and final o, since these shift by dialect¹.
• For IPA transcription, see how to transcribe an aria into IPA.

It is difficult for conductors to acquire the knowledge necessary to inform their singers and audiences about Ladino music⁴. See what a diction coach does.