HaKatan: During the Tannaitic period, Judea was quadrilingual. It is not true that Judeo-Aramaic (JA) was the only spoken language there at the time. The Mishnah and Tosefta reveal a living language (“Neo Hebrew” or “Rabbinic Hebrew,” i.e. RH) that was vibrant and adaptive to the experience of the people, which is why it contains Aramaisms as well as many Greek and even Latin loan words. The less educated among the Jews of Judea spoke JA, while the scholarly class communicated in RH. The Jews did not have a high opinion of Latin, which the Talmud Yerushalmi attests. So, the Roman officials communicated with the Jewish representatives in Greek, which the Jewish merchant class spoke as well. Latin was spoken among the Romans themselves and was the only language used by the Plebians and common soldiers.
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