Sontinuity: Letters, Sounds and Judeo-Spanish Epistemologies of Being

The relationship that post-expulsion Sephardi Jews have had to the sounded and material expression of Judeo-Spanish has been through written, printed, and recorded expression. It was primarily mediated through perceptions and enactments of sounded language as an entity that would ensure continuity. The continuity of communal self through voiced sound, or “sontinuity,” (Elbaz, 2024), is particularly stark for Judeo-Spanish speaking Sephardim during the period between the early modern post-expulsion trauma and the fall of the Ottoman Empire because of the varying levels of mediatic interventions that can be traced through the centuries. Sephardi sontinuity is performed through speech, cantillation, liturgical song and vernacular repertoire often advocating for communal cohesion in overt or opaque manners.