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 what the sources agree on and how to prepare it. 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. The name you use depends on where you are. 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. If you meet a song in Hebrew letters, ask for a Latin-alphabet transliteration before you transcribe.

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

Singers who know Spanish start well ahead. 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. Front rounded vowels appear only in French loanwords, and they do not exist in every dialect¹. Five vowels is the starting point.

Where Ladino differs

These are the points the sources name. Treat each as a dialect-dependent tendency, not a law.

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. If a coach or score marks a rolled r, follow it.

Spelling and sound

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

Keep dj and j apart: the first is the affricate and the second the fricative, and Spanish has neither¹. 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. Mark any word that breaks the pattern in your score before you rehearse it.

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.

The practical lesson: pick one community or recording tradition for each song, apply its pronunciation consistently, and write the choice in your score.

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 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 reflect features such as the Turkish makam modal system and heterophonic textures⁴.

Preparing a Ladino song

• Identify the community behind the text, since pronunciation differs from community to community².
• Start from the Spanish vowels and check each rule above against your score¹.
• Check s before k sounds and at word end, nue- words and final o, since these shift by dialect¹.
• Transcribe the text in IPA once you have chosen a dialect; the steps are in 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. A coach who knows the repertoire fills that gap; see what a diction coach does.