Talmud the Gemara are in either Mishnaic or Biblical Hebrew. The rest of the Gemara, including the discussions of the Amoraim and the overall framework, is in a characteristic dialect of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. There are occasional quotations from older works in other dialects of Aramaic, such as Megillat Taanit. Overall, Hebrew constitutes somewhat less than half of the text of the Talmud. This difference in language is due to the long time period elapsing between the two compilations. During the period of the Tannaim (rabbis cited in the Mishnah), a late form of Hebrew known as Rabbinic or Mishnaic Hebrew
Sefer (Hebrew) Sefer (Hebrew) Sefer in biblical Hebrew means any kind of "book" or written document (plural s'farim). It is derived from the same Hebrew root as "sofer" ("scribe"), "sifriyah" ("library") and "safrut" ("literature"). Among Orthodox Jews the word is used for books both of the Tanakh, the oral law (Mishnah and Talmud) or any work of Rabbinic literature. Works unrelated to Torah study are rarely called "sefer" by English-speaking Orthodox Jews. Among Hebrew-speaking Ashkenazi Jews, the differentiation between books related to Torah study and other books is made by referring to the former with traditional Ashkenazi pronunciation (SEY-fur) and to the