Hebrew language debate the degree to which Hebrew was a spoken vernacular in ancient times following the Babylonian exile, when the predominant international language in the region was Old Aramaic. Hebrew was extinct as a colloquial language by Late Antiquity, but it continued to be used as a literary language and as the liturgical language of Judaism, evolving various dialects of literary Medieval Hebrew, until its revival as a spoken language in the late 19th century. In July 2008 Israeli archaeologist Yossi Garfinkel discovered a ceramic shard at Khirbet Qeiyafa which he claimed may be the earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, dating
Revival of the Hebrew language of the First Aliyah and the Second Aliyah. The first Hebrew schools were established in these settlements, Hebrew increasingly became a spoken language of daily affairs, and finally became a systematic and national language. Yet Ben-Yehuda's fame and notoriety stems from his initiation and symbolic leadership of the Hebrew revival. Ben-Yehuda's main innovation in the revival of the Hebrew language lies in his having "invented" many new words to denote objects unknown in Jewish antiquity, or which had long been forgotten in their original Hebrew usage and context. He invented words such as "ḥatzil" (חציל) for an eggplant (aubergine) and