 In Judah's house, only the Hebrew language was spoken, and the maids of the house became known for their use of obscure Hebrew terminology.Judah devoted himself chiefly to the study of the traditional and of the written law.In his youth he had close relations with most of the great students of Akiba; and as their student and in converse with other prominent men who gathered about his father at Usha and later at Shefar'am, he laid the foundations of that wide scholarship which enabled him to undertake his life-work, the redaction of the Mishnah.