Bosnians who speak medieval Spanish
This is <i>slightly</i> tagential, but bare with me...<p>Nationalism and nation states.  We live in a nationalist world. All places and all people are politically divided into nations. Nationalism is so dominant that we barely think of it as a thing.<p>Anyway.. ladino & it's speakers are descendants of refugees from the spanish reconquista and inquisition period. It's generally seen though a christian/muslim lens, but this isn't the only way of seeing it. It was also a rise of nationalism.<p>Muslim spain was part of a multi-ethnic empire. Post reconqista spain was an early form of nation state, with a national ideology. No room for minorities. Jews got the boot first, muslims followed. Refugees of an empire-to-nation-state transition.<p>In the Ottoman empire (where most refugees went) remained multi-ethnic. That's what empires are. This continued until the empire fell. From that point, the transition to nationalism is stark.<p>In what became turkey, there was no more room for Greeks or Armenians. Kurds were told to (melting pot) be Turkish. In the (many) other nation states that emerged from the ottoman empire (eg, iraq, syria), jews were effectively exiled in the mid-20th. Christians are now leaving. Cities & regions are dividing into homogenuous ethnic enclaves.<p>No room for minorities in an ethnic state.<p>Europe went through the same thing. The two wold wars moved europe from a collection of multiethnic empires to homogenuous national states.<p>History repeats over and over. When emperise gives way to nations, minorities suffer. Cultures die.<p>So, i'm suggesting, the reason that ladino (and 6,000 other minority languages) are dying is the absolute victory of nationalism in the 20th century. Nationalism has no room for minorities, their culture or their language. These things wither in nation states. Ladino, with its 600 years of history will die too.<p>It can't survive in the former ottoman empire because 90% of ladino speaking communities had to integrate or leave (just like the Spanish ultimatum that started it all). Most went to Israel, another national home, another place where ladino can't survive.