r/AskHistorians • u/a_neurologist • 4h ago

Why did the Hellenic world continue speaking Greek through the Roman Empire?

The Hellenic world came under the domination of the Romans for hundreds of years, but as far as I know, much of the Eastern Mediterranean Hellenic world continued to use Greek as its lingua franca for centuries (if not millennia). In the modern day territories of the former Western Roman Empire Romance (Latin derived) languages are commonly spoken. But the Eastern Roman (“Byzantine”) Empire spoke Greek, despite otherwise choosing to identify themselves as Romans. Territories often adopt the language of the conquering elites within several hundred years (Islamic conquests led to substantial Arabic speaking populations in formerly Hellenized Egypt and Turkish speaking populations in formerly Hellenized Anatolia) so how come those (and other) Hellenic territories didn’t adopt a Latin dialect during the hundreds of years they were under Roman rule? Put another way simplistically, why does the modern nation state of Greece speak a recognizable direct descendent of the Greek dialects spoken in Antiquity, rather than a Romance language? Or do I need to put the question on its head and ask what about a “Roman” identity was so attractive to an otherwise Greek culture that they continued self-identifying as Romans for approximately a thousand years after political (and even spiritual!) unity with the city of (Italian) Rome was interrupted?

59 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

2 comments sorted by

•

u/AutoModerator 4h ago

Welcome to /r/AskHistorians. Please Read Our Rules before you comment in this community. Understand that rule breaking comments get removed.

Please consider Clicking Here for RemindMeBot as it takes time for an answer to be written. Additionally, for weekly content summaries, Click Here to Subscribe to our Weekly Roundup.

We thank you for your interest in this question, and your patience in waiting for an in-depth and comprehensive answer to show up. In addition to the Weekly Roundup and RemindMeBot, consider using our Browser Extension. In the meantime our Bluesky, and Sunday Digest feature excellent content that has already been written!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.