Thanks for the many responses. It has been a learning experience for me.<snip>
In general, the picture I get is that Aramaic was the main language spoken in
the market, on the street, in the homes. Because it uses the same alphabet as
does Hebrew, those who knew the phonetic value of Hebrew writing could also
write in Aramaic. However, because Aramaic was considered a lowly language
not fit for official documents (which included religious documents) people
would try to use Hebrew whenever possible for these uses and when trying to
show how erudite they were.
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