Bukharian Jews and the Bukhori language

Bukhori, or Judeo-Tajik, belongs to the Persian language group. Between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, Bukharian Jews in Central Asia spoke and wrote it, including in Bukhara, Samarkand, Tashkent and Dushanbe. The Jewish Language Project places its historical area of use in present-day Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. 1

Family, community and books

In the second half of the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth, the Judeo-Persian tradition gradually developed into Judeo-Tajik. At first, Bukhori was primarily a language of family and community. In the late nineteenth century, Rabbi Shimon Hakham (1843–1910) founded a literary school in Jerusalem. Its members translated the Bible and other religious and secular texts into Bukhori. In the early twentieth century, the school published books and dictionaries in Jerusalem and sent them to Central Asia. 1

Schools and publishing

During the Soviet period, hundreds of Judeo-Tajik textbooks were printed for the network of Jewish schools in Central Asia. Poetry, prose and newspapers appeared in the 1920s–1930s. In 1940, publishing in the language was banned, and Jewish schools switched to Tajik, Uzbek and Russian. For the next fifty years, Bukhori remained a language of family and community. 1

Until 1928, publications used Hebrew script; part of the community also used Arabic script. Latin script was later adopted briefly, and in 1938 the Central Asian republics began switching to Cyrillic. Judeo-Tajik retained words of Hebrew and Aramaic origin associated with religion and everyday life. 1

Bukhori today

The Jewish Language Project classifies Bukhori as an endangered language. It reports small communities of speakers in Central Asia, Israel and the United States. 1