Gifts of Language

"This book describes the historical currents that made Istanbul a uniquely multicultural city, evident in its diversity of languages and the vibrancy of its cultural and linguistic exchanges. It paints a vivid picture of the sensibility, mores, and culture of Turkey's Sephardic community, grounded in the Judeo-Spanish language. It discusses the importance of language acquisition and use to both the author's own immigrant experience and to immigrant experiences more generally. Multilingualism - knowledge of three or more languages - is not rare in much of the world. Varon's case is special partly because of the mixture of his languages, which combines the Eastern (Turkish, Hebrew and Greek) and the Western (Spanish, French and English). One of his languages, Judeo-Spanish, is considered 'severely endangered' by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and is, therefore, given special attention by Varon, who retains a rare knowledge of it"--