LADINO AGAIN?The question of what Jews called the language they spoke in the Balkans has been discussed often here, but really only in terms of academic disputes with anecdotal evidence. So I thought this empirical evidence from Tracy Harris's 'Death of a Language: The History of Judeo-Spanish' (1994) would be of interest:When 91 native speakers in New York, Israel and LA were asked (in 1978-85) what was the name of the language 62 said it was 'espanyol/spanyol/spanish', 22 'Ladino', 3 Judyo, and only 5 referred to it as 'Judesmo' and all 5 of those used the term with Ladino or Espanyol, none used 'Judezmo' by itselfHowever Harris notes that when further asked what term was specifically used when they themselves referred to their own language most gave another term than Ladino.Most respondents did not think there were different terms for the written and spoken languages, but "many ... were very well aware of the use of the term Ladino to designate the written language or language of the translations'One informant stated: "Ladino was used to designate the literal translation from Hebrew, i.e. they were literal translations of the sacred writings from Hebrew syntax into Spanish. The noun ladinador means 'translator' while the verb enladinar means 'to translate'"another: "Ladino was the word they used when they read the Hebrew. They used to say 'I am rading in Ladino' or 'I'm translating from Hebrew into Ladino"while another informant described Ladino as being "pure Spanish" with no foreign words.Interestingly these responses would have been contemporary with the commercial use of 'Ladino' in Sephardi music but would hardly be influenced by The arguments of Bunis (1978) and Sephiha (1986) that 'Ladino' should only be used for the calque language.