Intra- and Intercommunal Appellations in Judeo-Yemeni

In Judeo-Yemeni, or the Arabic dialect of the Jews of the Yemen, both urban and rural, a specific lexicon developed over the ages including epithets, additional, or synonymous popular names – word coinages not current with the Muslim majority. Intracommunal Jewish appellations in the Yemen are of religious and secular types coined by eloquent poets. Religious appellations refer to Holy Scriptures and places, to the Sabbath and holidays, while secular appellations become established in daily usage. Tendentious intercommunal appellations include reciprocal disgraceful ones aiming at defiling believers in the other creed. Furthermore, there are objective intercommunal appellations and an objective range of cants. The usage of tendentious cants is implicit. Yemeni Jews resort to literal manoeuvres in cants to hide their intentions. They abide by metaphor, by insertion of Hebrew words in an Arabic context, by transposition of sounds and letters, or partial transposition by change of word structure or sporadic consonants, or by usage of euphemism.