Judeo-Arabic and Hebrew as Competing Languages in the Mamluk Period

This article examines the linguistic choices of Jewish communities in Egypt, Palestine, and Syria during the Mamluk period, focusing on two types of texts: letters and legal documents. Jewish writers navigated a tension between their fluency in Arabic and their obligation to preserve Hebrew as the language representing their distinct religion and culture. The article analyzes the various ways Jewish writers grappled with this tension.