Mishnaic Hebrew

• Biblical Hebrew
• Mishnaic Hebrew
• Medieval Hebrew
• Ashkenazi Hebrew
• Sephardi Hebrew
• Yemenite Hebrew
• Hebrew Language Revival
• Modern Hebrew

The term Mishnaic Hebrew refers to the Hebrew dialects found in the Talmud, excepting quotations from the Hebrew Bible. The dialects can be further sub-divided into Mishnaic Hebrew (also called Tannaitic Hebrew, Early Rabbinic Hebrew, or Mishnaic Hebrew I), which was a spoken language, and Amoraic Hebrew (also called Late Rabbinic Hebrew or Mishnaic Hebrew II), which was a literary language only.

The Mishnaic Hebrew language or Early Rabbinic Hebrew language is one direct ancient descendant of Biblical Hebrew as preserved by the Jews after the Babylonian captivity, and definitively recorded by Jewish sages in writing the Mishnah and other contemporary documents. It was not used by the Samaritans, who preserved their own dialect, Samaritan Hebrew.

A transitional form of the language occurs in the other works of Tannaitic literature dating from the century beginning with the completion of the Mishnah. These include the halachic Midrashim (Sifra, Sifre, Mechilta etc.) and the expanded collection of Mishnah-related material known as the Tosefta (תוספתא). The Talmud contains excerpts from these works, as well as further Tannaitic material not attested elsewhere; the generic term for these passages is Baraitot. The dialect of all these works is very similar to Mishnaic Hebrew.