It would not really count as native speakers, because Talmud scholars didn't learn the language from birth, and would only use it for certain purposes rather th

It would not really count as native speakers, because Talmud scholars didn't learn the language from birth, and would only use it for certain purposes rather than general communication. It's similar to Latin in the Middle Ages: Every European scholar could speak Latin, and in a medieval university you might be speaking Latin constantly, but the language was dead as no-one used it from birth or spoke to their families in Latin. Similarly, Hebrew was considered dead until it was revived and spoken by babies as their first language - even though people had a working knowledge of Hebrew for the entire period it was no longer spoken.