Mishnaic Hebrew century after the publication of the Mishnah, Mishnaic Hebrew began to fall into disuse as a spoken language. The Babylonian Gemara (, circa 500), as well as the earlier Jerusalem Talmud published between 350 and 400, generally comment on the Mishnah and Baraitot in Aramaic. Nevertheless, Hebrew survived as a liturgical and literary language in the form of later Amoraic Hebrew, which sometimes occurs in the Gemara text. Many of the characteristic features of Mishnaic Hebrew pronunciation may well have been found already in the period of Late Biblical Hebrew. A notable characteristic distinguishing it from Biblical Hebrew of the
Revival of the Hebrew language Hebrew as their only language in daily life, and another 14.2% of Palestine-born Jews used it as a first among two or more languages. The small minority Jews who had been born in Palestine but did not use Hebrew as their first language had mainly grown up before the development of the Hebrew school system. Following Israeli independence, large waves of Jewish refugees came from Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and other parts of the world. The Israeli population increased significantly, doubling within a short period of time. These immigrants spoke a variety of languages, and had to be