Episode Details

It sounds like Greek, looks like Hebrew, and tells the story of a community most people have never encountered—today we're exploring Yevanic. On this episode of our daily Jewish podcast, we're diving into the Judeo-Greek language once spoken by Romaniote Jews, written in Hebrew characters and shaped by centuries of life in the Byzantine and Ottoman worlds. How did it develop? What did it sound like in prayer, in poetry, in everyday conversation? And why did it nearly disappear in the twentieth century? We'll trace its linguistic roots, its cultural role, and what its story reveals about the resilience—and fragility—of Jewish languages. This one is about words, memory, and the echoes of a nearly lost voice.