venetian dialect of the jews of Corfu

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DaveAgain
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venetian dialect of the jews of Corfu

Postby DaveAgain » Sun Sep 12, 2021 8:42 am

I'm reading Le livre de ma mère by Albert Cohen at the moment, I was a litte surprised to read:
... avec ma chatte à qui, en secret, je parle dans le dialecte vénitien des Juifs de Corfou, que je parlais parfois avec ma mère.

I had thought that Greek was the language spoken on Corfu, but wikipedia tells me:
The Ionian Islands were an overseas possession of the Republic of Venice from the mid-14th century until the late 18th century. The conquest of the islands took place gradually. The first to be acquired was Cythera and the neighboring islet of Anticythera, indirectly in 1238 and directly after 1363. In 1386, Corfu voluntarily became part of Venice's colonies. A century later, Venice captured Zante in 1485, Cephalonia in 1500 and Ithaca in 1503. The conquest was completed in 1718 with the capture of Lefkada. Each of the islands remained part of the Venetian Stato da Màr until Napoleon Bonaparte dissolved the Republic of Venice in 1797, annexing Corfu.
During the Venetian period all public acts were drawn up in the Venetian language, the official language of the Government. Greek remained spoken by the peasantry whereas Venetian was adopted by the upper class and it was generally preferred within the towns (like in Corfu city, where nearly all the population spoke the Veneto de Mar). Thus, the Venetian language became, if not the common language of the Ionians, at least the prestigious language.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venetian_ ... an_Islands
... many Italian Jews took refuge in Corfu during the Venetian centuries and spoke their own language (Italkian), a mixture of Hebrew-Italian in a Venetian or Apulian dialect with some Greek words.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corfu
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