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The documents sent by the communities of the Ottoman Empire are either in "ancient Hebrew" (pre-modern Hebrew) or "Ladino". There are sometimes letters in French. Only between 10% and 20% of the archives would be written in "Ladino".

The oldest documents are pinkasim from 1750 and 1759, difficult to understand, very damaged in 1948. Many are uncommunicable (circa 1850). There is a gap between 1820 and 1830. There are gaps, the community almost disappeared. After that, for the period 1890-1920 which represents many documents of which a part is a little damaged.

The writings represented are mainly the "half-calamus" or handwritten Sephardic rabbinic script (documents in "ancient" Hebrew = rabbinic and/or in "ladino" = Judeo-Spanish) and the writing called "letras de karta" or "solitreo" in the correspondence in Judeo-Spanish. Much of these documents have been transcribed according to the modern Hebrew ms alphabet.