La ienti de Sion: Linguistic and Cultural Legacy of an Early Thirteenth-Century Judeo-Italian Kinah

An analysis of the linguistic & literary components of the Italian Kinah, a medieval literary document composed by the Italian Jewry. The Jewish presence in medieval Italy is contextualized within a historical overview of significant political & social occurrences in medieval Europe; popular forms of post-Biblical literature in Hebrew, eg, the piyyut & Kinah, are examined. The structure of the Italian Kinah in three distinct parts & tha language used in the two extant manuscripts - identified as a regional Italian dialect in Hebrew characters - are discussed. The use of certain Hebrew words with religious meanings differentiates the Italian Kinah lexicon from other contemporary texts; phonologically, the Italian Kinah exhibits dialectical features prevalent throughout central & southern Italy, eg, the assimilation of nasal consonantal clusters. It is concluded that medieval Jewish culture & language played an important part in the formation & evolution of Italian culture & life. 96 References. J. W. Parker