Languages

The language of the Romans was Latin, which Virgil emphasizes as a source of Roman unity
and tradition.[54][55][56] Until the time of Alexander Severus (reigned 222235), the birth certificates and
wills of Roman citizens had to be written in Latin.[57] Latin was the language of the law courts in the
West and of the military throughout the Empire,[58] but was not imposed officially on peoples brought
under Roman rule.[59][60] This policy contrasts with that of Alexander the Great, who aimed to
impose Greek throughout his empire as the official language.[61] As a consequence of Alexander's
conquests, koine Greek had become the shared language around the eastern Mediterranean and
into Asia Minor.[62][63] The "linguistic frontier" dividing the Latin West and the Greek East passed
through the Balkan peninsula.[64]

A 5th-century papyrus showing a parallel Latin-Greek text of a speech by Cicero[65]

Romans who received an elite education studied Greek as a literary language, and most men of the
governing classes could speak Greek.[66] The Julio-Claudian emperors encouraged high standards of
correct Latin (Latinitas), a linguistic movement identified in modern terms as Classical Latin, and
favoured Latin for conducting official business.[67] Claudius tried to limit the use of Greek, and on
occasion revoked the citizenship of those who lacked Latin, but even in the Senate he drew on his
own bilingualism in communicating with Greek-speaking ambassadors.[67] Suetonius quotes him as
referring to "our two languages".[68]

In the Eastern empire, laws and official documents were regularly translated into Greek from Latin.
[69]
The everyday interpenetration of the two languages is indicated by bilingual inscriptions, which
sometimes even switch back and forth between Greek and Latin. [70][71] After all freeborn inhabitants of
the empire were universally enfranchised in 212 AD, a great number of Roman citizens would have
lacked Latin, though they were expected to acquire at least a token knowledge, and Latin remained
a marker of "Romanness."[72]

Among other reforms, the emperor Diocletian (reigned 284305) sought to renew the authority of
Latin, and the Greek expression h kratousa dialektos attests to the continuing status of Latin as
"the language of power."[73] In the early 6th century, the emperor Justinian engaged in a quixotic effort
to reassert the status of Latin as the language of law, even though in his time Latin no longer held
any currency as a living language in the East.[74]

1
Local languages and linguistic legacy

Bilingual Latin-Punic inscription at the theatre in Leptis Magna, Roman Africa (present-day Libya)

References to interpreters indicate the continuing use of local languages other than Greek and Latin,
particularly in Egypt, where Coptic predominated, and in military settings along the Rhine and
Danube. Roman jurists also show a concern for local languages such as Punic, Gaulish,
and Aramaic in assuring the correct understanding and application of laws and oaths. [75] In
the province of Africa, Libyco-Berber and Punic were used in inscriptions and for legends on coins
during the time of Tiberius (1st century AD). Libyco-Berber and Punic inscriptions appear on public
buildings into the 2nd century, some bilingual with Latin. [76] In Syria, Palmyrene soldiers even used
their dialect of Aramaic for inscriptions, in a striking exception to the rule that Latin was the language
of the military.[77]

The Babatha Archive is a suggestive example of multilingualism in the Empire. These papyri, named
for a Jewish woman in the province of Arabia and dating from 93 to 132 AD, mostly employ Aramaic,
the local language, written in Greek characters with Semitic and Latin influences; a petition to
the Roman governor, however, was written in Greek.[78]

The dominance of Latin among the literate elite may obscure the continuity of spoken languages,
since all cultures within the Roman Empire were predominantly oral. [76] In the West, Latin, referred to
in its spoken form as Vulgar Latin, gradually replaced Celtic and Italic languages that were related to
it by a shared Indo-European origin. Commonalities in syntax and vocabulary facilitated the adoption
of Latin.[79][80][81]

2
Geographical distribution of the Latin inscriptions in Europe

After the decentralization of political power in late antiquity, Latin developed locally into branches
that became the Romance languages, such as Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and Romanian,
and a large number of minor languages and dialects. Today, more than 900 million people are native
speakers worldwide.

As an international language of learning and literature, Latin itself continued as an active medium of
expression for diplomacy and for intellectual developments identified with Renaissance
humanism up to the 17th century, and for law and the Roman Catholic Church to the present.[82][83]

Although Greek continued as the language of the Byzantine Empire, linguistic distribution in the East
was more complex. A Greek-speaking majority lived in the Greek peninsula and islands,
western Anatolia, major cities, and some coastal areas.[63] Like Greek and Latin, the Thracian
language was of Indo-European origin, as were several now-extinct languages in Anatolia attested
by Imperial-era inscriptions.[63][76] Albanian is often seen as the descendant of Illyrian, although this
hypothesis has been challenged by some linguists, who maintain that it derives from Dacian or
Thracian.[84] (Illyrian, Dacian, and Thracian, however, may have formed a subgroup or a Sprachbund;
see Thraco-Illyrian.) Various Afroasiatic languagesprimarily Coptic in Egypt, and Aramaic in Syria
and Mesopotamiawere never replaced by Greek. The international use of Greek, however, was
one factor enabling the spread of Christianity, as indicated for example by the use of Greek for
the Epistles of Paul.[63]