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
Hebrew language (often technical) from European languages and adopted terms (often colloquial) from Arabic. The literary and narrative use of Hebrew was revived beginning with the Haskalah movement. The first secular periodical in Hebrew, "HaMe'assef" (The Gatherer), was published by maskilim in Königsberg (today's Kaliningrad) from 1783 onwards. In the mid-19th century, publications of several Eastern European Hebrew-language newspapers (e.g. "Hamagid", founded in Ełk in 1856) multiplied. Prominent poets were Hayim Nahman Bialik and Shaul Tchernichovsky; there were also novels written in the language. The revival of the Hebrew language as a mother tongue was initiated in the late 19th century by