Revival of the Hebrew language many Jews spoke a related Semitic language, Aramaic.) From the 2nd century CE until the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language "circa" 1880, Hebrew served as a literary and official language and as the Judaic language of prayer. After the spoken usage of Mishnaic Hebrew ended in the 2nd century CE, Hebrew had not been spoken as a mother tongue. Even so, during the Middle Ages, Jews used the language in a wide variety of disciplines. This usage kept alive a substantial portion of the traits characteristic of Hebrew. First and foremost, Classical Hebrew was preserved in full through
Revival of the Hebrew language the Jewish settlement of Rishon LeZion, where a part of the classes were taught in Hebrew. From the 1880s onward, schools in the agricultural settlements gradually began teaching general subjects in Hebrew. In 1889, Israel Belkind opened a school in Jaffa which taught Hebrew and used it as the primary language of instruction. It survived for three years. The Literature Council, which was based on the Pure Language Society, in 1890, to experiment in the municipal and rural schools, showed the possibility to make Hebrew the only language in the settlement. At this point, progress was slow, and it encountered