QARAIM LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES ONLY
The Qaraim (Karaites) are a religious and cultural group made up of individuals who adhere to the tenets of the Old Testament of the Hebrew Scriptures alone. Their ethnic and religious roots have been a subject of ongoing discussions to the present day.
Over the centuries they have developed their own spiritual and secular literature, creating their own distinct dialects apart from the standard forms of the languages in the areas in which they've lived.
The question is still open as to whether these dialects can be considered independent languages, since they have their own written traditions. These dialects include: Qaraite Hebrew of Constantinople, Qaraite Turkic (several dialects of Crimea, Lithuania, Ukraine), Qaraite Arabic, Qaraite Aramaic, Qaraite Greek of Turkey and the Qaraite Persian dialects.
The number of literary works written in these dialects is enormous, and has hardly been explored. Due to the efforts of their religious opponents, such as the Pharisees, the Qaraim were labeled as an insignificant and unimportant sect.
Since the discovery of the Cairo Geniza, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Avraham Ben Shemuel Firkovich collections, anthropologists and lingusts no longer consider the Qaraim as such anymore. Qaraim studies have become a hot topic in academic circles, but despite this recent revival of interest in the Qaraim, the linguistic and literary aspect of Qaraim culture remains largely unexamined. This blog is focused SOLELY upon research involving the examination and restoration of the LANGUAGES and LITERATURES of Qaraim.
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