Judeo-Roman (Italian: Giudaico-Romanesco/ Giudaico Romanesca) or Italkit is the only still living dialect of the Judeo-Italian languages, historically used by the Jews living in Rome. It is spoken by 250 people, most of whom live in Italy. The language is on the decline and most of its remaining speakers are elderly. There are efforts to preserve the language and keep it from extinction.
Judeo-Roman, like other Jewish languages, emerged due to the Jews of Rome being isolated in the Rome Ghetto, on order of the Pope. The language declined as Jews were emancipated and Roman Jews switched to the Roman dialect of Italian.
Younger Italian Jews are attempting to preserve the language.
Judeo-Roman has at least 360 Hebrew words and phrases in it. Many of these were used to conceal what the users were saying from Christians. examples include:
Judeo-Italian has several phonetic shifts that differentiate it from standard Italian; these include:
/e/ becoming /i/ (e.g. detto to ditto)
/l/ becoming /r/ (e.g. qualcuno to quarcuno)
It also contains several vowel shifts and other changes:
Loss of initial vowels (e.g. oppure to pure)
Loss of final consonants (e.g. con to co)
Contractions (e.g. dirte to ditte)
Archaisms (e.g. de te to d'oo ti)
A theater group called Chaimme 'a sore 'o sediaro e 'a moje (Chaim, the sister, the chairmaker and the wife) makes plays in Judeo-Roman.
There is a collection of poems written by from 1908 and republished in 2007 in Judeo Roman. These works include The sonnets of Crescenzo del Monte.
Several YouTube videos have been posted in Judeo-Roman.