Zarphatic Language

Zarphatic, also known as Judeo-French, is a Jewish language spoken by the French Jews of northern France and in parts of west-central Germany, as well as in French colonies in North America and Asia, particularly in Quebec, Southern Louisiana (especially New Orleans), India, and Australia. There is also a sizable Zarphatic speaking community in West Africa in former French colonial areas.

Zarphatic comes from the Hebrew name for France, Tzarfat (צרפת), which had been used in the Hebrew Bible name for the city of Sarepta, in Phoenicia. Some have conjectured that the language was the original language of the Jews who eventually adopted Old High German, which led to the development of Yiddish.

It is written by a modified Hebrew script and first appeared in the 11th century, in glosses to texts of the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud.

Due to persecution, the Zarphatic Jews had spread out across Europe, with many migrating north to Germany, as well as many making voyages to North America when the travel ban on non-Catholics was lifted in 1787. With French colonialism reaching its height in the mid-19th century, many Zarphatis sought out opportunities in France's Asian and African colonies, leading the language to become spread far beyond its original homeland.

Nouns
Zarphatic retains the simple case system of Old French, retaining the terminal -s for the nominative case of masculine nouns and adjectives.