Around the globe and throughout history, Jewish communities have counted each day of the Omer, the 49 days between Passover and Shavuot. Usually these recitations have been in the sacred liturgical language, Hebrew:
הַיּוֹם שְׁנֵים עָשָׂר יוֹם שֶׁהֵם שָׁבֽוּעַ אֶחָד וַחֲמִשָּׁה יָמִים לָעֹֽמֶר
Today is the 12th day, which is one week and five days of the Omer
But when Jews have talked informally about their daily counts, they have generally done so in their vernacular. In most places, this has been a Judaized version of the local language, such as Judeo-Italian or Judeo-Persian. In some cases, like Ladino and Yiddish, they have spoken a completely different language from their non-Jewish neighbors. Diversity can also be found within languages, as each has had multiple geographically based dialects. Our multilingual Omer counter highlights this linguistic diversity by presenting each of the 49 days in a different language or dialect, indicating one city or town where Jews have spoken that way. Here's an example:

Does this exhibit represent the entirety of Jewish linguistic diversity? Definitely not. Some languages, such as Juhuri, spoken in Azerbaijan and Dagestan, have multiple dialects but only one number in our counter. For other languages, such as Judeo-Amazigh, spoken in North Africa, we could not find speakers to translate the short sentence.
We found historical documentation of Omer counts in some languages, such as Ladino and Jewish Babylonian Aramaic:
Ladino Omer Counter
Click the image above to view a PDF of the Kontadura de el Omer

Bryan Kirschen's transliteration of Ladino Omer counter
Saadia Gaon's Hebrew-Aramaic-Judeo-Arabic Omer Counter

Saadia Gaon's Omer translations, with instructions in Judeo-Arabic, the blessing in Hebrew, and the counting in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic (סדור רב סעדיה גאון, ע"י רב סעדיה גאון, דוידסון Jerusalem, 1963).
However, most communities have done the official Omer counts only in Hebrew and have not documented how they spoke about it informally. In these cases, the scholars and native speakers we reached out to have translated the count.
The process of translation from Hebrew came naturally for contemporary languages, such as Jewish French and Jewish Latin American Spanish. For extinct languages, such as Judeo-Provençal and Judeo-Catalan, scholars felt the translation process was more artificial - an act of reconstruction by piecing words together from various written sources.
When chronicling the diversity of Jewish languages, it is important to include signed languages, used by Deaf Jews around the world. Our counter includes three of those: Israeli Sign Language, Jewish American Sign Language, and the endangered Algerian Jewish Sign Language, originally from Ghardaia, Algeria, but now used almost exclusively in Israel.
Because of migration, nationalist language policies, and genocide, a large percentage of the languages in our Omer counter are currently endangered. For example, Judeo-Esfahani, Judeo-Kermani, and Lishan Didan are spoken primarily by elderly Jews who moved from Iran to Israel and the United States and have not passed their languages on to their children. Including these languages here helps to raise awareness about them while there’s still time to learn from native speakers.
We hope you find the multilingual Omer counter as enriching as we do, and we encourage you to share it with others. Counts were posted daily on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and archived on our website. We also posted daily short videos on YouTube and TikTok. Check out the full poster of all 49 days of the Omer below and at our RedBubble shop too, and check out the article about our work at the JTA. Happy counting!

Day 1, April 25 / 16 Nisan

Day 4, April 28 / 19 Nisan

Day 7, May 1 / 22 Nisan

Day 10, May 4 / 25 Nisan

Day 13, May 7 / 28 Nisan

Day 16, May 10 / 1 Iyar

Day 19, May 13 / 4 Iyar

Day 22, May 16 / 7 Iyar

Day 25, May 19 / 10 Iyar

Day 28, May 22 / 13 Iyar

Day 31, May 25 / 16 Iyar

Day 34, May 28 / 19 Iyar

Day 37, May 31 / 22 Iyar

Day 40, June 3 / 25 Iyar

Day 43, June 6 / 28 Iyar

Day 46, June 9 / 2 Sivan
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Day 2, April 26 / 17 Nisan

Day 5, April 29 / 20 Nisan
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Day 8, May 2 / 23 Nisan

Day 11, May 5 / 26 Nisan

Day 14, May 8 / 29 Nisan

Day 17, May 11 / 2 Iyar

Day 20, May 14 / 5 Iyar

Day 23, May 17 / 8 Iyar

Day 26, May 20 / 11 Iyar

Day 29, May 23 / 14 Iyar
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Day 32, May 26 / 17 Iyar

Day 35, May 29 / 20 Iyar

Day 38, June 1 / 23 Iyar

Day 41, June 4 / 26 Iyar

Day 44, June 7 / 29 Iyar

Day 47, June 10 / 3 Sivan

Day 3, April 27 / 18 Nisan

Day 6, April 30 / 21 Nisan

Day 9, May 3 / 24 Nisan

Day 12, May 6 / 27 Nisan

Day 15, May 9 / 30 Nisan
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Day 18, May 12 / 3 Iyar

Day 21, May 15 / 6 Iyar

Day 24, May 18 / 9 Iyar

Day 27, May 21 / 12 Iyar

Day 30, May 24 / 15 Iyar
Day 33, May 27 / 18 Iyar

Day 36, May 30 / 21 Iyar

Day 39, June 2 / 24 Iyar

Day 42, June 5 / 27 Iyar

Day 45, June 8 / 1 Sivan

Day 48, June 11 / 4 Sivan

Day 49, June 12 / 5 Sivan
Exhibit credits
Conception:
This idea arose at a meeting of the Jewish Language Project TikTok team: Sarah Bunin Benor, KD Dretler, Auden Finch, Miriam Greenwood, Julia Hananel, and Eden Moyal
Production and editing:
Eden Moyal, Sarah Bunin Benor, Jake Levy, and Alan Niku
Design:
Gittel Marcus
Scholars and speakers who translated the counts:
Isaac Bleaman, Miriam Dekel, Ofra Tirosh-Becker, Vitaly Shalem, Tamari Lomtadze, Alan Niku, Laurent Mignon, Bryan Kirschen, Sara Lanesman, Elie Alyeshmerni, Jonas Sibony, Sarah Bunin Benor, Cyril Aslanov, Lea Schaeffer, Marion Aptroot, Robert Nudel / Iskhakov, Isaac Mayer, Chaya Nove, Ilil Baum, Michael Zargari, Doron Yaakov, KD Dretler, Jewish Deaf Resource Center, Ariel Nosrat, Georgios Vardakis, Elitzur Bar-Asher Siegal, Samuel Miller, Anbessa Teferra, Assaf Bar-Moshe, Tamas Biro, Dan Shapira, Haideh Sahim, Evelyn Dean-Olmsted, Dora Koranyi, Yaakov Bentolila, Alicia Sisso Raz, Abraham Bengio, Rachel Kann
Fundraising:
Lael Sacho-Tanzer
Donors whose generous contributions made this exhibit possible:
טייבל בת רחל לאה ושלמה יהושוע, אברהם דוד בן פעסיע יהודת וישראל משה, ירד בן טייבל ואברהם דוד
Anonymous, Haim and Lynn Beliak, Mark H. David, Tali and Benny Zelkowicz, Jill Kushner Bishop / Multilingual Connections, Sarah Aroeste, Michael and Laura Steuer, Rachel Mann and Joshua Rosenblatt, Jessica Kirzane and Rabbi Daniel Kirzane, Saeed and Shohreh Niku, Rachel Kann, Brian Berman, Kathy Kobayashi and Hal Barron, Rabbi Ruth Adar, Rabbi Rebecca Einstein Schorr, Lisa Lainer-Fagan, Jacqui Jacobs, Sarah Jane Nelson