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 language to express psychological realism and interiority for the first time. As Hebrew poets and writers began arriving in Palestine armed with the new literary language, they exerted a certain amount of influence on the development of spoken Hebrew as well. Jewish communities with different colloquial languages had used Hebrew to communicate with each other across Europe and the Near East since the Middle Ages. As Jews in Palestine spoke a variety of languages such as Arabic, Ladino, Yiddish, and French, inter-communal affairs that required verbal communication were handled in a modified form of Medieval Hebrew. Hebrew was used by