Who spoke Jewish and Aramaic when Jesus was alive?

Answer 1

"Jewish" is not a language. If you mean Yiddish, then nobody on the face of the Earth spoke it at the time of Jesus, because it didn't exist yet.

If you mean Hebrew, most educated Jews of Israel spoke Hebrew, though it was no longer used as a day to day language. The Jews of Israel spoke Aramaic as their native language, which is closely related to Hebrew.

Answer 2

A:Aramaic was originally the language of Aram, modern Damascus. Because the Aramaeans were great traders, the language became widespread as a second language throughout the ancient Near East, including Babylon. After the Persians conquered Babylon, they adopted Aramaic and made it the official language of the Persian Empire, stretching from Egypt to Central Asia.

The conquests of Alexandria brought Greek to the Near East, largely supplanting Aramaic. Even Damascus adopted Greek as its lingua franca. Soon, only the Jews and some areas of Syria continued to use Aramaic. This was the situation at the time of Jesus.

Aramaic, as spoken in these areas of Syria, evolved and in later centuries became known as Syriac.