Historical Occurrence
Mishnaic Hebrew is found primarily from the 1st to the 4th centuries of the Christian Era, corresponding to the Roman period after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Also called Tannaitic Hebrew or Early Rabbinic Hebrew, the dialect is represented by the bulk of the Mishnah (משנה, published around 200) and the Tosefta within the Talmud, and by the Dead Sea Scrolls, notably the Bar Kokhba Letters and the Copper Scroll.
About a century after the publication of the Mishnah, Mishnaic Hebrew began to fall into disuse as a spoken language. The later section of the Talmud, the Babylonian Gemara (גמרא, circa 500), generally comments on the Mishnah and Baraitot in Aramaic. (An earlier version of the Gemara was published between 350 and 400.) Nevertheless, Hebrew survived as a liturgical and literary language in the form of later Amoraic Hebrew, which sometimes occurs in the text of the Gemara.
Mishnaic Hebrew developed under the profound influence of spoken Aramaic in all spheres of language, including phonology, morphology, syntax and vocabulary.
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