Latin or Greek in Judea ca. 30 AD?

[journaldan]

Just as a point of observation:

Over the years, thousands of US soldiers have been assigned to and lived in Korea. I doubt many of them have picked up much more than the most basic of passages, if anything.

 

This would seem to support the notion that few Legion "grunts" would have picked up much Greek.

[Danno]

That may be true about Korea, but I'm not sure how well it parallels the Mediterranean world. I really should find some sources for this; I don't have any at the moment. Greek was the primary language across the entire eastern Mediterranean... and also very common among the educated everywhere else... don't forget that not all soldiers were recruited from Latin-speaking areas.

 

here we go, some brief examples:

 

Here is the tombstone of an archer from Crete with a Greek name.

http://www.romanarmy.com/Content/Imagebase...ow.asp?index=34

 

The following three military tombstones have their text in Greek...

http://www.romanarmy.com/Content/Imagebase...ow.asp?index=80

http://www.romanarmy.com/Content/Imagebase...w.asp?index=104

http://www.romanarmy.com/Content/Imagebase...w.asp?index=115

 

and remember that Americans are anecdotally notorious for not learning foreign languages when they go abroad.

[Primus Pilus]

Dates are important. The legionaries serving in Judaea in the early 1st century AD were mostly Italian and Gallic.

[Guest posy1812]

I'm a little late getting in this discussion about Latin and Greek ca 30 AD, but I feel the Romans

in Judea would have spoken Greek - - at least the governor and officers of the military would

have. Greek was the spoken language of the eastern Roman Empire.

 

Furthermore, why would the Book of Romans (to the church in Rome)have been written in Greek

instead of Latin (same with other NT books - why not in Latin)?

 

The people in what is now Israel would have spoken various languages such as Greek, Mishnaic

Hebrew, Aramaic (less educated), various early Arabic dialects. Latin was used on inscriptions

and in legal documents, but I believe the predominant languages spoken would have been

Mishnaic Hebrew and Greek. If not, how could Christianity have spread throughout the Graeco-

Roman world using GREEK texts?

 

I think Mel Gibson's movie should have had the actors (at least Pilate) speaking Greek and the

Judeans and Galileans speaking Mishnaic Hebrew.

[P.Clodius]

Legions were actually recruited outside of Italy as well as inside during this period (Caesar's Legio X was Spanish). Auxilary units were mostly recruited from outside of Italy. The one standard unifying factor was the compulsary learning of latin as all orders were given in that language and most of the senior officers would have been roman. The often brutal discipline of roman military service meant you either learned quickly or paid the consequences.

[Komet]

I'm a little late getting in this discussion about Latin and Greek ca 30 AD, but I feel the Romans

in Judea would have spoken Greek - - at least the governor and officers of the military would

have. Greek was the spoken language of the eastern Roman Empire.

 

Furthermore, why would the Book of Romans (to the church in Rome)have been written in Greek

instead of Latin (same with other NT books - why not in Latin)?

 

The people in what is now Israel would have spoken various languages such as Greek, Mishnaic

Hebrew, Aramaic (less educated), various early Arabic dialects. Latin was used on inscriptions

and in legal documents, but I believe the predominant languages spoken would have been

Mishnaic Hebrew and Greek. If not, how could Christianity have spread throughout the Graeco-

Roman world using GREEK texts?

 

I think Mel Gibson's movie should have had the actors (at least Pilate) speaking Greek and the

Judeans and Galileans speaking Mishnaic Hebrew.

This is completely true. Greek would have been the business language of the Jewish elite, particularly because the people of Judea had already been under control for about two centuries by either the Ptolemies of Alexandria or the Hellenistic Seleucids from the north. The Romans never expected the eastern provinces to speak Latin, and since the elite of the eastern provinces already spoke Greek when engaging in diplomacy or trade, the Romans would have also spoken in Greek. Jesus received some level of official education within the community and undoubtedly would also have learned Greek. Pilate, like all educated Romans, would also have known it. They would have spoken in Greek to eachother, if they spoke at all--not Latin.

[Primus Pilus]

Nobody questions that the Roman aristrocracy and higher level legionary officers would've been capable of the Greek language. The regular legionaries recruited from Italy would not likely have been exposed to a Greek education, however. I maintain that Legionaries and western auxilia recruited outside of eastern influence would have used Latin as the common tongue.

[longbow]

Can anyone explain why latin died out????? thx L

[P.Clodius]

It didn't, the language you're speaking right now has some very deep rooted latin roots.

[Primus Pilus]

Yup, it just evolved into Italian and to some extant Spanish (though it is more heavily influenced by other languages than Italian). The Romanian tongue has many similarities to Latin, and is often considered the closest modern language to Latin, but that wa,s at least in part, because of a concerted effort to reinsert the Latin alphabet and words during the 19th century. French is a hybrid of Germanic (Frank) and Latin as well as others. English is a mutt language that has been influenced by many European tongues, which includes a great deal of Latin.

[Ursus]

Can anyone explain why latin died out????? thx L

Languages tend to evolve over time. With the collapse of central power in the Western empire, the vulgar forms of Latin achieved regional dialects which then gradually evolved into the Romance languages. The verb endings in modern day Spanish are pretty similar to Latin. English, that supposedly Germanic language, has a great deal of Latin influence thanks to Norman French...

 

Classical Latin died out as a spoken language because it was always an artificial language used by the educated elites. Uneducated Romans didn't even fully understand it. The grammar is complex, to say the least.

[roman wargamer]

i was little bit confused...as my old reading in school says

that Latin is the language of the elite and upper class men

who are highly educated...so normally it is use in official document and inscription... and the Greek is the language

of the lower class men who have little education...so that it is

the common language spoken by the common people in the

day to day life, and the majority of the legioner are common

Roman citizen.

[Ursus]

Lower class Romans would have spoken vulgar Latin, from whence the Romance languages originated.

 

Upper class Romans would have spoken Classical Latin amongst themselves, such as in the halls of the Senate.

 

Political leaders, military officers, and merchants would have used Greek in dealing with the citizens of the East. However, lower class Romans could barely speak Classical (upper class) Latin, let alone Greek.

 

I'm sure, as someone said, soldiers stationed in a foreign country can pick up enough phrases to survive ("How do I get to the local brothel, and how much do they charge?"), but it's very doubtful they would have been fluent in it.

[Primus Pilus]

In the east that's definately true. Latin was a common language among the people of Italy and other western provinces. It was sort of the opposite in the west. Greek was only really available to the well educated. In the east Greek was common and Latin was only known by the elite.

 

Consider this... how would Latin have become so widely influential if only the elite used it? It wouldn't have, it only did so because it was a common tongue to the masses of western Europe.

 

Keep in mind, I am no linguistic scholar, this is just what I believe, based on the evidence of Latin as a huge influence on all of the western 'Romance' languages.

[Guest soundpainter]

After seeing The Passion of the Christ, me and some of my friends have been argueing whether

Pilate's Roman soldiers in Judea really spoke Latin (as they did in the film), or would the film have been more "historical" if the Romans had spoken Greek? Did Romans at that time levy legions outside Italy in the Greek-speaking parts of the Empire, or were all legionnaries Latin-speaking and brought from Italy? I'd be really grateful for an answer, especially if you can provide some reference so I can win the debate, and show my friends accurate sources so they believe me! (My "bet" is that they should have spoken Greek...)

 

By legionnaries, I mean milites and not auxialiries or such, who were of course recruited from "barbarian" tribes.

 

 

HI, I thought it was aramaic. I wonder if the milites were from Miletus??

 

Just found an interesting article. Look up Ala I Sebastenorum or Cohors I Sebastenorum). ... suggest Samaritans