The subject of the article is the linguistic situation in Judea as regards the usage of colloquial varieties of Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. It discusses four particular issues: social and geographical range of Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek and the reciprocal influences of these languages; the usage of Qumran Hebrew as a non-literary language; dialectal and stylistic classification of the Hebrew in the Bar Kokhba texts and the Copper Scroll; the status of Greek in the period before the Bar Kokhba Revolt. The research is based on the linguistic material of Qumran literary works as well as first and second century documents with an emphasis on the collection of Yadin.
