Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Ladino Transformation

INTRO: In Bulgaria, efforts are under way to preserve a language steeped in Jewish history. Ladino evolved from Spanish, Hebrew, Turkish and other languages picked up by Jews who had been expelled from Spain in 1492. Now Ladino is evolving again---from a living tongue to a language of historians and librarians. Sandy Tolan visited Bulgaria and found Ladino speakers there aren?t quite willing to let go.

Old women talking in Ladino

FOUR OLD WOMEN, SIT AROUND TABLE AT SHALOM, A JEWISH GATHERING HOUSE IN SOFIA. IT?S THEIR WEEKLY MEETING OF THE CLUB LADINO ? A SOCIAL GROUP WHOSE MEMBERSHIP IS GETTING SMALLER AND SMALLER.

Sophie Danon begins to sing, then under:

WHEN SHE SINGS, SOPHIE DANON?S FACE LIGHTS UP LIKE A CHILD?S, ALERT AND ANIMATED. SHE AND HER FRIENDS ARE HERE TO TEACH ? TO TRANSFER WHAT THEY KNOW BEFORE IT?S TOO LATE. AND SO THEY TURN TO THE NEXT GENERATION? A BULGARIAN JEW NAMED LIKA. THEY WANT LIKA TO SING THE MEMORY, TO CREATE A RECORD FOR ALL TIME.

Old women st
Lika begins to sing:

SCRIPT: THEIR ANCESTORS LEFT SPAIN IN A HURRY, FIVE CENTURIES AGO, CARRYING LITTLE BUT THEIR TRADITIONS, THEIR STORIES, AND THEIR LANGUAGE.

Break for music

Lika ends

1210 magnifico!

LADINO LIVED FOR CENTURIES, ON THE TONGUES OF BALKAN JEWS ? IN SONG, IN CONVERSATION, IN STORIES, AND IN PROVERBS, CRAFTED AT THE HEARTH AND IN THE KITCHEN?

1. Come la fruta, no demandes de que arvole es.
Eat the fruit, don?t ask from which tree it came.

2. Cuando entras en un luar resuro, mete tu luz adelantre.
When you enter a dark place, put your light in front of you.

3. El que se echa con perros, con pulgas se alevanta.
He who sleeps with dogs gets up with fleas.

4. En boca cerrada no entra moxca.
Into a closed mouth, no fly will enter.

VOICE OF BEKA LAZAROVA: 109:30+ when I listen to the language, I go back to my childhood. I feel somehow more comfortable, more secure. sometimes some words,
some proverbs and I can feel even the smell of the house. It?s very strange.

DOWNSTAIRS, IN AN OFFICE, JUST BELOW THE CLUB LADINO LADIES, A YOUNGER WOMAN WHO?S ALSO REDISCOVERING HER LADINO BEKA LAZAROVA. SHE?S GAZING INTO THE MIDDLE DISTANCE ? AS IF AT A MEMORY

105:25 Beka: For my grandparents, for this generation, it was the home language. They really communicated at home only in Ladino.

54:32 I remember in the small part that was in the Jewish quarter, they used to go there every afternoon at about four o?clock talking in this peculiar language and there were children playing around them. And they absolutely understood each other, speaking
this mixture of Spanish, Hebrew Turkish and Bulgarian.

THIS HYBRID JUDEO SPANISH WAS THE MOTHER TONGUE FOR BULGARIAN JEWS WELL INTO THE 20TH CENTURY. AT THE SAME TIME NATIONALISM, AND ZIONISM, BOTH GREW STRONGER, AND JEWS HERE CAME UNDER PRESSURE TO SPEAK BULGARIAN AND HEBREW. LADINO WAS PUSHED INTO THE KITCHEN.

Because for instance, I remember the ????do you know what it is? This sis the prayer after the meal. Usually Jews say it in Hebrew. I remember it in Ladino from my grandfather. [tells prayer].

50:17 Beka: And if you want me to translate it, it means: We ate and drank and thank god for the food that we ate, for the water that we drink, for the clothes that we wear, the long years that we have to live.

EVEN THOUGH BULGARIA?S JEWISH POPULATION STAYED MOSTLY INTACT DURING THE HOLOCAUST, AFTER THE WAR, 90 PERCENT OF BULGARIA?S JEWS WENT TO THE NEW STATE OF ISRAEL, WHERE HEBREW WOULD TAKE HOLD. UNDER COMMUNISM IN BULGARIA, RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION WAS DISCOURAGED; MANY BULGARIAN JEWS WHO STAYED WERE COMMITTED COMMUNISTS ANYWAY. AND LADINO CURLED UP FURTHER, RECEDING FROM THE GREAT BALKAN EXPANSE IT ONCE COVERED.

BEKA: Then the generation of my parents?at home, they only spoke Ladino only when they had secrets from us?from me and my brother?and when they argued between
each other. My brother, who is just two years younger, he knows just several words. And my children don?t know anything. Definitely.

Beka: That?s it. This is my feeling that it will be something totally forgotten.

Voice of Vladimir Paounovsky: Yes, it?s something to?how to say?how should I put it in English?um?sacred. Sacred for me? Yes sacred, Close to heart.

VLADIMIR PAOUNOVSKY IS DIRECTOR OF THE JEWISH MUSEUM
OF HISTORY IN SOFIA.

35:24 It?s something very special because it concerns my roots, my origin, dark in the ages, far away through the ages. And of course I would like to make something about the preserve and the safety of this culture. This big culture, which is not only here in
Bulgaria, but also in Turkey, and Serbia, Greece, it existed.

40:57 But unfortunately, it?s very difficult to save things like a mother tongue. It?s impossible.

WHILE LADINO MAY NEVER AGAIN BE A MOTHER TONGUE, THAT DOESN?T MEAN IT WILL DIE.

Vanya
5930 small talk with keys
5945 keys opening

IN THE STATE ARCHIVES IN SOFIA, A SLIGHT, BRISK WOMAN OPENS A GLASS CASE AND REACHES FOR A TEXT.

in this shelf here we keep a rich collection of books in ladino the language that the Spanish jews speak. all these books in ladino here were published in Venice in 1713.

pages turn, going on until 1:00:45

VANYA GAZENKO IS THE CHIEF ARCHIVIST FOR THE LADINO TEXTS HERE.

10512 this is a book about the 9th Zionist congress which was printed in plovdiv in 1906 in a publishing house called worker.

WORKING WITH FUNDS FROM A JEWISH PATRON IN LONDON, SHE AND HER TEAM WENT THROUGH HUNDREDS OF BOXES IN THE BASEMENT OF THE ARCHIVES, MAKING DISCOVERY AFTER DISCOVERY.

12450 the feeling to take out a book which was in that box for years and years is extremely exciting. We opened each of the books with lots of feeling and we
went through it also with lots of feeling?.12608 the books you see in this room, each of them has passed through my hands. Every book in this room.

LADINO WILL LIVE ON IN THESE ARCHIVES, AND IN A NEW UNIVERSITY PROGRAM IN SOFIA TO STUDY LADINO, AND AT A RESEARCH CENTER IN JERUSALEM. BUT SOON IT WILL GO THE WAY OF LATIN: STILL ALIVE, BUT MOSTLY SILENT.

Sophie Danon?s voice, in Ladino: rosas coraladas creciendo in tiempo del amor. Corazon temblando.

AT THE CLUB LADINO, OLD WOMEN WITH WIDE EYES, WRINKLED FACES, AND OPEN MOUTHS, SING WHAT THEY KNOW TO THE NEXT GENERATION.

1950 now they all sing, Lika leading.

FOR NPR NEWS, THIS IS SANDY TOLAN.

2017 song ends. Sophie: con un final!

HOST OUTRO:

That story was produced by Sandy Tolan & Melissa Robbins with help from Polia [PO- LIA] Alexandrova. It is part of Worlds of Difference, a series on global cultural change from Homelands Productions.

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