What Other Languages Were There?

[Furt]

Hi,

 

I've been trying to gather a list of possible languages available to people in the Roman world - other than Latin. This is the list so far: -

 

Aramaic, Celtic, Dacian, Egyptian, Gallic, Germanic, Greek, Hispano-Celtic, Sarmatian, Scythian, Thracian.

 

Are these correct? What others should be on the list?

 

Thanks

[Ludovicus]

What do you mean by "available"? Available in written form, spoken, or both? Perhaps you could add Illyrian to your list. Modern Albanian seems to be a modern descendant. What about Coptic? What were the Egyptians in the villages speaking under Roman rule? Basque never died out so you could add that one as well.

[Furt]

Sorry, I mean if I was a provincial or tribesman, and not Roman - what other languages could I have spoken (and written)? Could u please note where the language comes from as well? Coptic - is that Egyptian?

Edited March 31, 2006 by Furt

[Gaius Octavius]

Armenian, Hebrew, Syriac, Phonecian, Etruscan, Samnite, the Italic tongues, Hunnic, Parthian.

Later: Bulgarian, Italian, Georgian, whatever the Vikings spoke, Turkish(?), Arabic.

You will have to look at a language 'tree' to find out where these came from.

[Andrew Dalby]

Sorry, I mean if I was a provincial or tribesman, and not Roman - what other languages could I have spoken (and written)? Could u please note where the language comes from as well? Coptic - is that Egyptian?

 

This is a question I took on in chapter 2 my book Language In Danger (Columbia UP, 2003). My actual aim in that chapter was to see how many languages 'died' as a result of the spread of Latin and Greek at the time of the Hellenistic kingdoms and the Roman Empire. If you want the full details, and a map, and information about when each one is last heard of, look at the book! My conclusion was that over 60 local languages were spoken in the Empire, say in Claudius's time, and that fewer than 10 of these were still spoken when the Western Empire disappeared. Exact figures are difficult to give because some languages (e.g. Berber, Aramaic, Arabic, British Celtic) were spoken on both sides of the Imperial frontier. Also, the figure of 'over 60' is a minimum, because there will certainly have been some local languages of which nothing at all is now known.

 

A much smaller number of these languages were customarily written. They, and the ones spoken on both sides of the border, were (surprise, surprise!) the ones likely to survive longest. In fact, in the West, the only eventual survivors that don't fall into one of these two categories are Basque and Albanian, if I remember rightly.

 

To answer the question above: yes, Coptic is a straight descendant of ancient Egyptian, newly written in a Greek alphabet (with extra letters), and it was no doubt the majority language in Roman Egypt. Many people will have been bilingual in Coptic and Greek, some trilingual (with Latin or Aramaic or Nubian). In the first two centuries of the Empire there will have been a massive amount of bilingualism and multilingualism: J. D. Adams has recently written a splendid book on this.

Edited March 31, 2006 by Viggen

[Ludovicus]

In the first two centuries of the Empire there will have been a massive amount of bilingualism and multilingualism: J. D. Adams has recently written a splendid book on this.

 

 

 

Could you give us title and more about this book.

[Andrew Dalby]

In the first two centuries of the Empire there will have been a massive amount of bilingualism and multilingualism: J. D. Adams has recently written a splendid book on this.

Could you give us title and more about this book.

 

J. N. Adams, /Bilingualism and the Latin language/. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Very expensive ... (I don't remember the exact price, I got a review copy.)

 

There was a review by Mary Beard in the /TLS/ (Times Literary Supplement) 13 June 2003; and I wrote a review in /The Linguist/ vol. 43 no. 4 (2004). You would probably find reviews on the Web if you search for the title. Adams is a specialist in the language(s) of Roman inscriptions, and examines in great detail a large number of inscriptions that provide some evidence of bilingualism.

 

If the book has a fault, it is this: written for established classicists, some of whom have not the least familiarity with sociolinguistics or any sympathy with it (and that's not true of Adams himself), it starts from the assumption that the existence of bilingualism has to be proved. Of course, he does prove it; but in doing so very thoroughly from the documents, he hardly gets round to considering the likely extent of bilingualism in the Empire beyond the documents.

 

I am writing this from memory now -- it is two years since I reviewed the book. It is a very impressive piece of work, and some of the individual documents are fascinating.

[Ludovicus]

In the first two centuries of the Empire there will have been a massive amount of bilingualism and multilingualism: J. D. Adams has recently written a splendid book on this.

Could you give us title and more about this book.

 

J. N. Adams, /Bilingualism and the Latin language/. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Very expensive ... (I don't remember the exact price, I got a review copy.)

 

There was a review by Mary Beard in the /TLS/ (Times Literary Supplement) 13 June 2003; and I wrote a review in /The Linguist/ vol. 43 no. 4 (2004). You would probably find reviews on the Web if you search for the title. Adams is a specialist in the language(s) of Roman inscriptions, and examines in great detail a large number of inscriptions that provide some evidence of bilingualism.

 

If the book has a fault, it is this: written for established classicists, some of whom have not the least familiarity with sociolinguistics or any sympathy with it (and that's not true of Adams himself), it starts from the assumption that the existence of bilingualism has to be proved. Of course, he does prove it; but in doing so very thoroughly from the documents, he hardly gets round to considering the likely extent of bilingualism in the Empire beyond the documents.

 

I am writing this from memory now -- it is two years since I reviewed the book. It is a very impressive piece of work, and some of the individual documents are fascinating.

 

 

Thanks so much for the thumbnail sketch of this work. It sounds very interesting. I can probably get it thru interlibrary loan. I remember in Augustine's "Confessions" he mentions that Punic was still spoken in the hinterlands of North Africa.

[Q Valerius Scerio]

Aramaic, Celtic, Dacian, Egyptian, Gallic, Germanic, Greek, Hispano-Celtic, Sarmatian, Scythian, Thracian.

Written Languages existing under the Empire:

 

Hebrew, Aramaic/Syriac, Greek, Egyptian (Late Egyptian both Hieroglyphic and Demotic and later Coptic).

 

The other languages on your list weren't, as far as I know, written until after the Empire was decayed.

[Pantagathus]

Written Languages existing under the Empire:

Hebrew, Aramaic/Syriac, Greek, Egyptian (Late Egyptian both Hieroglyphic and Demotic and later Coptic).

The other languages on your list weren't, as far as I know, written until after the Empire was decayed.

 

Hispano-Celtic was written in a modified Greek/Phoenician alphabet from at least the 3rd Century BC as was Southern Iberian (which is attested earlier)

Edited April 10, 2006 by Pantagathus

[sullafelix]

I know you are talking about the empire here, but was Oscan still around at all by the time of Augustus?

[docoflove1974]

I know you are talking about the empire here, but was Oscan still around at all by the time of Augustus?

 

Check out: Buck, Carl Darling (1904). A Grammar of Oscan and Umbrian. Boston, Ginn & Company. I'm going off of memory, but I believe that both Oscan and Umbrian were still around, but dying out.

[Q Valerius Scerio]

Written Languages existing under the Empire:

Hebrew, Aramaic/Syriac, Greek, Egyptian (Late Egyptian both Hieroglyphic and Demotic and later Coptic).

The other languages on your list weren't, as far as I know, written until after the Empire was decayed.

 

Hispano-Celtic was written in a modified Greek/Phoenician alphabet from at least the 3rd Century BC as was Southern Iberian (which is attested earlier)

Interesting. Do you have a source for this I can read up on? And did they make it into the Empire? I wouldn't doubt it, but I've no idea.

 

As for Oscan and Umbrian, surely, like Etruscan, those died out before the dawning of the Empire? It's been too long since I looked at the materials, so I could be wrong.

[Pantagathus]

Interesting. Do you have a source for this I can read up on? And did they make it into the Empire? I wouldn't doubt it, but I've no idea.

 

Here is the best source online about it: Iberian Epigraphy Page

 

Though I think the languages remained to an extent, it may be safe to say that by the Imperial Age the Latin alphabet was adopted in favor of the Iberian scripts.

 

I also know that the Southern Iberians (at least the Turdetani) had completely adopted Latin language & writing and given up their own by the time of Tiberius because Strabo said as much.

[Q Valerius Scerio]

Very interesting. Thanks for the information!