Do Arab Jews still speak Arabic as their principal language?
Arab Jews who move to Israel learn to speak Hebrew like everyone else here, and while they do not have a separate dialect, their pronunciation of Hebrew words is distinctive. This is because Hebrew and Arabic are sister languages (Hebrew influenced Yiddish, not the other way round), many words are very similar, and so it is natural for former Arabic speakers to retain some elements of Arabic pronunciation. For example, the letters ‘Tet’ and ‘Taf’ in the Hebrew alphabet are both pronounced simply as ‘t’ by most Hebrew speakers, but former Arabic speakers know to pronounce them slightly differently because the corresponding letters in the Arabic alphabet are not pronounced exactly the same as each other. Note: the fact that they learn to speak Hebrew does not mean that they necessarily stop speaking Arabic among themselves. All immigrants tend to retain their original languages too – I for one have no intention of forgetting my English…!
