World Language Map

Where is Ladino spoken?

Ladino (גﬞודיאו־איספאנייול) is an Indo-European language, spoken in Israel, Albania, Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina and 10 more. It is marked on the map by a ringed point.

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Key

Language families (largest ten)

  • Atlantic-Congo
  • Austronesian
  • Sino-Tibetan
  • Indo-European
  • Afro-Asiatic
  • Nuclear Trans New Guinea
  • Otomanguean
  • Austroasiatic
  • Tai-Kadai
  • Pama-Nyungan

Everything else

  • All other families Smaller families, isolates and unclassified languages.
  • Point A language with no area map. The dot sits at its Glottolog position, in its family colour.

How to read the map. Each colour is a language family: a group of languages that share a common ancestor. The ten largest families have their own colour and every other family is grey. Areas are see-through, so where two languages share a place the colours mix. Tap anywhere to list every language whose area covers that spot. Areas are generalisations drawn from published atlases, many of them decades old, and cities are multilingual, so an area never says that everyone there speaks the language. A dot marks a language that has no area map. The family name is always given in words, because colour alone is hard to tell apart for some people.

Where Ladino is spoken

Ladino is spoken in 14 countries: Israel, Albania, Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina and 10 more. The table gives the share of each country’s people who speak it, from Unicode CLDR, where CLDR has a figure.

CountryShare of populationEstimated speakers
Israel1.3%122,234
AlbaniaNot givenNot given
AlgeriaNot givenNot given
Bosnia and HerzegovinaNot givenNot given
BulgariaNot givenNot given
CroatiaNot givenNot given
GreeceNot givenNot given
MoroccoNot givenNot given
North MacedoniaNot givenNot given
Puerto RicoNot givenNot given
RomaniaNot givenNot given
SerbiaNot givenNot given
TurkeyNot givenNot given
United StatesNot givenNot given

Estimated speakers are the CLDR percentage applied to CLDR’s own population figure for the country, so they are rough. A country without a figure may still have speakers: it is listed because the language area, or Glottolog’s record, reaches it.

Ladino has no area on the map because no open area map covers it. The ringed point is the position Glottolog gives for the language.

How many people speak Ladino?

Wikidata gives about 137,000 speakers (Ethnologue, 2016). These figures are approximate: they come from different sources, years and definitions of a speaker.

Status: Not endangered. Glottolog lists it as not endangered: it is still being passed on to children.

Where Ladino sits in the language family tree

Glottolog classifies Ladino as follows, from the largest family down to the language itself.

  1. Indo-European
  2. Classical Indo-European
  3. Italic
  4. Latino-Faliscan
  5. Latinic
  6. Imperial Latin
  7. Romance
  8. Italo-Western Romance
  9. Western Romance
  10. Shifted Western Romance
  11. Southwestern Shifted Romance
  12. West Ibero-Romance
  13. Castilic
  14. South Castilic
  15. Ladino

Related languages

Other languages in the South Castilic group:

More about Ladino

Codes: ISO 639-3 lad, Glottolog ladi1251. Glottolog macroarea: Eurasia.

Ladino is a Romance language, descended from Latin. Latin’s footprint: the Roman Empire at its height → Latin spread along Roman roads →

Questions about Ladino

Where is Ladino spoken?

Ladino is spoken in Israel, Albania, Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina and 10 more. Unicode CLDR puts it at 1.3% of the population of Israel, which is about 122,234 people. On the map it is shown as a single point, because no open area map covers it.

How many people speak Ladino?

Wikidata gives about 137,000 speakers (Ethnologue, 2016). Speaker numbers are approximate and differ between sources: counting who is a speaker, and whether to include second-language speakers, is not settled.

Which language family is Ladino in?

Glottolog places Ladino in the Indo-European family, in the branch Classical Indo-European, Italic, Latino-Faliscan, Latinic, Imperial Latin, Romance, Italo-Western Romance, Western Romance, Shifted Western Romance, Southwestern Shifted Romance, West Ibero-Romance, Castilic and South Castilic.

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