Five centuries after expulsion, Sephardic Jews still carry medieval Spanish
When Spain expelled its Jews in 1492, many exiles carried their Castilian speech to Istanbul, Salonica and North Africa. Their descendants kept it alive as Ladino, a language rooted in Old Spanish and Old Portuguese. In 2015 Spain and Portugal finally offered those descendants citizenship as a gesture of historical repair.
The name comes from Sepharad, a biblical place name that Hebrew came to use for Iberia. Jews lived there from at least the first centuries CE under Roman rule. After persecution under the Visigoths, Jewish life thrived in Al-Andalus once the Umayyads had conquered it between 711 and the 720s, a stretch often called a golden age. Conditions worsened under later Muslim dynasties and during the Christian reconquest; riots in Castile and Aragon in 1391 forced mass conversions, the Alhambra Decree of 1492 expelled Jews from Spain, and Portugal followed in 1496.
The exiles scattered across the Mediterranean. Ottoman cities such as Istanbul, Salonica and Izmir took in many, and even more settled in North African towns like Fez, Tetouan and Tunis. Smaller groups reached Venice, Livorno, Amsterdam, Hamburg and eventually the Americas, where Sephardim often became prominent traders and diplomats. In Ottoman lands Ladino was also called djudezmo, while North African exiles developed Haketia, a Judaeo-Spanish variety shaped by Arabic.
The label has grown broader over time. Strictly, it means descendants of Iberian Jews living there just before the expulsions; in modern Israel it covers any Jew who follows Sephardic prayer customs, including most Mizrahi Jews of Middle Eastern and North African origin. Originally, Sefarad referred only to Al-Andalus, and historians distinguish Castilian-speaking Sephardim from Judeo-Catalan speakers of the Crown of Aragon.
The citizenship offers proved short-lived. Spain's law expired in 2019, with final applications completed by September 2021. Portugal tightened its rules in 2022 and 2024, and in May 2026 its parliament closed the distinct Sephardic route altogether.
Source: Sephardic Jews
