I’m a classicist by training, with about seven years of Latin behind me. Having studied Greek and Sanskrit as well, I’m familiar with the origin of European languages (see below).
This is not a sign of influence of Latin on Polish, but rather it shows that both Polish and Latin are both descendents of Proto-Indo-European. German “ist” and classical Greek “esti” are similar to Latin “est”, but that doesn’t mean Latin influenced the basic word stock of German or it’s “big brother” Greek.
As I said, the Romans never penetrated Slavonia to any major degree. And even if they had, it wouldn’t have been likely that Latin would have altered the basic way Polish works. It would have left some terminology behind, but it wouldn’t have changed the verb “to be”.
I’d very much recommend reading a book on the Indo-European language family. You’ll see how Hindi and Irish even share some traits, a sign not of any traffic between the two during the centuries, but an indication of a common origin.
(continuing a hijack because UnoMondo is right but I don’t want this to get ugly because Cal’s a friend, too)
But then we’d’ve had to let in Canada, New Zealand, and all sorts of other riff-raff. There’s a point where you just have to say “Everybody with an empire, you’re in. The rest of you will have to take turns.”
Actually, given the way France is right (and their Empire’s collapse post 1945, let alone before) now, admitting Australia woul dhave been a better idea. Chalk it up to a historical goof.
Despite Agback’s sense of what’s fair, though Australia had been very helpful in WWII it did not qualify as a permanent member of the UN Security Council because it wasn’t a large, populous country with an empire, Tasmania notwithstanding. Had we allowed this relaxation of the unofficial rules then any two-bit country would have precedent to point to when they complained about not being permanent members, too. Now the qualifier seems to be “enough firepower to wipe out humanity,” though that is subject to change when third-rate powers get their own stockpiles of WMDs–maintaining exclusivity of an organization requires constant monitoring and modification of the rules to keep the peasantry out. As I said, though, I was continuing his(?) hijack, but it has been hijacked enough, fercryinoutloud!
True, but, in the context of this discussion, Egypt never became Romanized enough to speak Latin, but the Greek speakers there maintained their Greek language. Although the north african areas did get romanized, and Carthage was heavily romanized (there were pockets of romance speakers in North Africa up until the 6th century only dying out as a result of the Arabs moving into the area). Even the emperor Severus was said to have spoken with an “African pronunciation”.
It gets worse, too, when you consider how some people wrote. If I may offer a quote from Aubrey de Selincourt’s Translator’s Introduction to Arrian’s The Campaigns of Alexander:
“After the end of the Alexandrian Age, from early in the second century before Christ, Greek literature rapidly declined, and during the hundred years–say from 50 B.C. to A.D. 50–when Latin literature was at its height, it had almost petered out… However, it was not yet finished, and the second century of our era had hardly begun when there was a renaissance of the Greek spirit, and Greek began once again to be used as a literary language–it had, of course, never ceased to be spoken over great tracts of the eastern Roman empire, and educated Romans were as familiar with it as educated Englishmen are with French today…”
The introduction goes on, with a hint of annoyance, to describe the growing trend in which authors–including Appian, Marcus Aurelius, Pausanias, Galen, and Lucian–to archaeize their writing in the style of the even-then-ancient Greeks, for the spoken Greek language had already evolved significantly by then.
Thus, I suppose it was possible that somewhere around 150 A.D. you might have a cultured Roman officer who spoke Latin to his peers, addressed orders to his troops in then-modern Greek, and wrote his memoirs in a bad imitation of ancient Greek.
There’s a Napoleon joke in there somewhere, but sadly it’s beyond me.
According to this site <http://www.usd.edu/erp/Palestine/administ.htm>, before the revolt in 67-70 AD there were no legion stationed in Palestine. “As equestrians the governors could not command legionary forces and in military situations they yielded to their superiors, the legates of Syria, who would descend into Palestine with their legions as necessary._ The governors of Judaea did have small auxiliary forces of locally recruited soldiers stationed regularly in Caesarea and Jerusalem and temporarily anywhere else that required a military presence._ The total number of soldiers at their disposal numbered in the range of 3000.”
According to <http://www.usd.edu/erp/Palestine/history.htm>,"As an annex of Syria Judaea had a governor of lesser rank than the senators who governed most provinces: an officer of the equestrian order titled prefect. The prefect usually resided in Caesarea, probably in Herod’s palace on a promontory in the southern part of the city (seen here extending into the sea west of the theater)._ The prefects fulfilled military, financial, and limited judicial functions: see the page on administration for more information._ An auxiliary force raised in Caesarea and Sebaste supported the governor in Caesarea and garrisoned Jerusalem. " And “Jews did not serve in the auxiliary forces normally recruited from among the native population of a province.”
So it looks as though the ‘Roman’ soldiers serving in Jerusalem at the time in question would have been neither Romans nor legionaries. They would have been Greek and Syrian auxiliaries, with Greek or Aramaic as their native language, and precious little exposure to Latin.
I hesitate to contribute to a zombie Roman Soldier thread – zombie roman soldiers are notoriously difficult to kill – but In Spartacus and the TV movie Masada and, I think, several others the Romans – at least the commanders – were British, and spoke with British accents. Americans played the roles of foreigners or footsoldiers, so there was a clear difference between the upper-class Romans and Everyone Else (It also fit in nicely with the parallels between the British and Roman empires)
So the Romans spoke English because they were English, in those cases.
A common misconception, due to selection effects. Roman soldier zombies showed the same variation in difficulty to kill as any other sort of zombie. It’s just that, thousands of years later, the only ones left are the really tough ones, all the rest having already been killed.
In the early republic, men who joined a legion had to outfit themselves, which was cheaper than either. It also meant that you had to be relatively well off to join up. I forget if it was Sulla or Marius who started outfitting the “head count”, Romans too poor to outfit themselves. That was a major shift and the beginning of armies being more loyal to their general than to the government of Rome.
It was Marius, and of course had enormous repercussions. But the problem in the first place was that the farmers who had previously made up the legions were all being squeezed out by the latifundia so it sort of had to happen if Rome was to continue having an army at all.
There’s a point where you just have to say “Everybody with an empire, you’re in. The rest of you will have to take turns.”
