Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Lewis Reich" <lewreich AT mail.javanet.com>]

May I offer something of my own experiences? After having becoming fluent in
biblical (and reasonably so in conversational) Hebrew ,  I found it quite
easy at the age of 12 (and in this I was no different from my classmates) to
pick up a rudimentary understanding of written Aramaic through study of the
Talmud.

The fact that the Mishnah was written in Hebrew, while the Babylonian Talmud
was composed in Aramaic, leads me in the direction of concluding that
Aramaic did not becomes the ligua franca of the Jewish people until after
the Second Revolt.