Judeo-Latin, or La‘az is the presumed Jewish language of the many scattered Jewish communities of the former Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

, but especially by the Jewish communities of the Italian Peninsula

Italian Peninsula

The Italian Peninsula or Apennine Peninsula is one of the three large peninsulas of Southern Europe , spanning from the Po Valley in the north to the central Mediterranean Sea in the south. The peninsula's shape gives it the nickname Lo Stivale...

 and Transalpine Gaul

Gallia Narbonensis

Gallia Narbonensis was a Roman province located in what is now Languedoc and Provence, in southern France. It was also known as Gallia Transalpina , which was originally a designation for that part of Gaul lying across the Alps from Italia and it contained a western region known as Septimania...

. "La`az" (לעז) is Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

 for "foreign language" (i.e., specifically, "non-Hebrew language").

It has been posited that Judeo-Latin is the predecessor of all the Judeo-Romance languages

Judeo-Romance languages

Judaeo-Romance languages are Jewish languages derived from Romance languages, spoken by various Jewish communities originating in regions where Romance languages predominate, and altered to such an extent to gain recognition as languages in their own right.-Judaeo-Catalan or Catalanic:Catalanic,...

, although strong phonological

Phonology

Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...

 evidence for this link is found primarily in Shuadit (Judeo-Provençal). This theory holds that Shuadit and Zarphatic grew out of two variants of La‘az ha-Ma‘rav (western Judeo-Latin) and that Judeo-Italian grew out of La‘az ha-Darom (southern Judeo-Latin). The relationship to Catalanic

Catalanic

Judaeo-Catalan , also called Catalanic or Qatalanit , was a Jewish language spoken by the Jewish communities in the northeastern Iberian Peninsula, especially in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands...

, Ladino and Judæo-Portuguese is much more tenuous.

Judeo-Latin likely influenced not only the Judeo-Romance languages, but also the Yiddish language

Yiddish language

Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...

 and Rotwelsch

Rotwelsch

Rotwelsch or Gaunersprache is a secret language, a cant or thieves' argot, spoken by covert groups primarily in southern Germany and Switzerland.-Origin and development:...

, through its posited daughter languages, Judeo-Italian, Shuadit and Zarphatic.

Related languages

The historical relationships between the various Judeo-Romance languages is subject to debate, and are only tenuously demonstrable at best. These languages include:

• Catalanic
  Catalanic
  Judaeo-Catalan , also called Catalanic or Qatalanit , was a Jewish language spoken by the Jewish communities in the northeastern Iberian Peninsula, especially in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands...
  
   (Judeo-Catalan)
• Judeo-Italian
• Judeo-Aragonese
  Judeo-Aragonese
  Judaeo-Aragonese was a Judaeo-Romance language , spoken in north central Iberia from the around the mid-700s until about the time of the expulsion from Spain, when it either merged with the various Judeo-Spanish dialects, or fell out of use in favor of the far more influential Judaeo-Spanish...
  
  
• Judeo-Portuguese
  Judeo-Portuguese
  Judaeo-Portuguese, Lusitanic, or "Lusitanico" in Judaeo-Portuguese is the generally extinct Jewish language of the Jews of Portugal.-Description:...
  
  
• Ladino (Judeo-Spanish)
• Shuadit (Judeo-Provençal)
• Zarphatic (Judeo-French)