Reply To: Talmud Yerushalmi

I heard that when Rabbi Yochanan redacted the Yerushalmi he deliberately used difficult language so that when the horaat shaah to write down Tora SheBall Peh was revoked (which he hoped would be soon) people would not use it as a crutch.As for the lingua franca, it was probably Greek as this was the common language of the eastern Roman Empire although different dialects of Aramaic were also spoken locally. Chachamim spoke Hebrew as we see in the Mishna. In fact, even Rebbe’s maid was an expert in it. The admixtures are mainly Greek and Latin and may have been used when speaking to baalei battim.