Culture-specific heritage language vocabulary and collective identity among three generations of Mountain Jews

Culture-specific vocabulary denotes objects that bear cultural weight and are not readily translatable or understood in other languages. The present study explores cultural items in an endangered language, Juhuri (Judeo-Tat), the traditional language of Mountain Jews (MJ) who immigrated to Israel and the United States. A set of ten items, five cultural and five neutral, served as stimuli for a picture recognition task inserted in a questionnaire distributed to MJs from three generations (G1, G1.5, and G2). In addition, participants rated their ethnocultural and national identities and their level of Juhuri proficiency. Results yielded significantly better recognition of culture-specific over neutral items by G1.5 and G2 participants, but no difference among more proficient G1 participants. Regression analyses revealed a significant effect of MJ identity on the recognition of cultural items. Neither Israeli nor American national background had an effect on the recognition of either cultural or neutral items. The findings shed light on the role of ethnocultural identity in the recognition of culture-specific vocabulary. Results are discussed in terms of research on heritage language maintenance and shift, identity, and the status of the MJ community in both countries.