I was born in Manhattan in NYC, but am a dual Israeli/American and have spent much more time in Israel. However, my first language is Arabic, with Ladino as a close 2nd (Ladino is also known as
"Judeo-Spanish").
I did not even beging learning English until about age 6, and at 11 I was done with the US. I ended up getting my advanced secular education in English though, and so am fluent, though I do not think in it.
How do I speak? I speak very good English but have a very noticeable British inflection on my short "A." For example, the word "can't" comes out like "KAH-nt."
Try as I might, I cannot shake it. Israel was ruled by the British for nearly 50 years and my father was born under the British so like some Israelis it effects my English..but I do not have a noticeable Arabic or Hebrew accent, or so I am told.
I am very multi lingual, having roughly 20 languages that I speak very well and so I am great at mastering inflection and dialect, though even when I try I cannot change my "a." Go figure.
In NYC most Jews speak "Yinglish." A form of English based on Yiddish. Even non-Ashkenazi Jews speak it because of the proximity amongst Jews.
Yiddish is "Judeo- German" but unlike Ladino, it uses mostly Hebrew grammatical rules. So, Yinglish is like this...In asking your girlfriend if she would like to eat in an Italian cafe, you will say: "Nu? You want we should go eat by that T'lanuh place, yeah?"
Yinglish is only considered a dialect of English at this point, but most Linguists agree that within 2 generations it will officialy constitute a new language altogether.
Yinglish is also known as "Yeshivish." A "Yeshiva" is a school for adolescent and young adult males.
We Jews have 3 main day to day languages: Hebrew, Yiddish and Ladino but the last is dying. I am one of the very last people younger than 60 who can speak it as a 1st (or very close to 1st) language. The Holocaust made several Jewish Languages absolutely extinct, which to me is right on par with the lives taken.
In NYC, amongst non-Jews English has taekn amazing turns. Italians are close to us in so many ways, we share neighbourhods, we taught them about Organised Crime (hahaha but actually a fact), and so we share habits in English. The word for "All of you" is "Use," as in a plural (incorrect) rendering of the word "You."
We have absorbed a bunch of little habits from one another linguistically. With the next generation though that linguistic cross-nybridisation will be ending because Italians, unlike us, no longer immigrate to America in any real numbers, and when they do they do not cluster themselves in low income neighbourhoods the way we Jews continue to.
Puerto Ricans have a dialect called "Spanglish." True Spanish speakers hate listening to it but what I have found very interesting is that in my country of residence for the last couple of years, the Philippines, every non-Islamic and non-Animist ethnicity have formed English hybrids as well. Even the President, Gloria Arroyo speaks in this manner in official speeches!
Traditional languages are really creole langiages there. Estimating, on my own, the make up of Bisayan Languages and Tagalog, perhaps 60% Spanish (though meanings are skewed on words), 15% English and 25% indigenous languages based on Malay.
*Oh! Forgit another English word that gives me ALOT of prblems: "monster." I can only say it 1 of 2 ways: I) Munstuh, or, II) Munstur. Just another thing I will never understand.
(Edited for spelling)
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
