Interview with Stevan Milovanovic (Danijel Perahija): Judeo-Spanish from Salonika

An Interview with Stevan Milovanović (Danijel Perahija), a Sephardic Jew from Serbia whose family originally comes from Salonika, Greece. The interview was conducted in January 2023 and it comprises questions concerning Judeo-Spanish, the speaker's attitude toward the language, samples of free conversation and word elicitation. This recording is part of the “Atlas of the Balkan Linguistic Area” project supported by the French National Research Agency [CNRS] (ANR-21-CE27-0020-ABLA) and the Russian Science Foundation (22-48-09003) whose goal is to study the language contacts among spoken Balkan languages.

The interview was conducted in January 2023 in Belgrade, Serbia, although Stevan Milovanović lives and studies in a small city in Serbia called Kragujevac. Stevan's family came originally from Salonika, Greece, before settling in Serbia. Stevan is a "heritage speaker", i.e. he was exposed mildly to Judeo-Spanish as a child but never got to learn it well as it was never used as one of the languages of everyday communication at his home. He recalls words, expressions, proverbs that he heard from elderly members of his family, but really started to learn the language as a student of Hispanic studies at the University of Kragujevac. He also completed his studies of Medicine. He is now dedicated to researching the Judeo-Spanish language and literature.