What if a strong Byzantine Empire survived to the 20th century?

[Flying Pig]

No, my statement about the end of the Republic was correct as were my other statements

Alright, source please.

Latin was the Roman Empire's military language in the east as elsewhere, even deep into 'Byzantine' times; .

Latin was phased out by Heraclius as a dead language in favour of Greek in the 7th century. Byzantium persisted for another 800 years, so there's as much Roman imperial history without Latin as there is with it.

Greek was the urban and bureaucratic language in the east

True.

The Byzantine Empire never 'shrunk to include only Greece

Before then, it only included Greece and the overwhelmingly Hellenised parts of Asia Minor. These are now filled with Turks, who were at that time a minor hill tribe in the east. The western seaboard of Anatolia remained culturally and linguistically Greek until the time of the Great War.

Latin was spoken throughout the Balkans, including in most of what is now Greece. It was almost certainly wide-spread in Syria too.

At the usual peril of citing Wiki...

Latin was a minority language in parts of the Balkans, but chiefly on the frontier regions such as Thrace and Dalmatia. It was a major language in parts of Western Europe, such as France, Spain and Italy, which were temporarily under Byzantine control, and those countries now speak Romance languages. A few people, particularly those with dealings with the government, probably spoke Latin across the empire, at least before it was phased out in the 7th century, when Heraclius decided that Greek would be used for all governing and administration - a sign that Latin had become a total relic. Indeed, decrees and messages sent by Roman emperors to Egypt, Judea, Anatolia and the like are in Greek from the time of Nero, if not before, and they never really switch to Latin.

Yet the overwhelming mass of people spoke Koine Greek - the language of the New Testament, used precisely because most of the eastern Mediterranean understood it - or their local language: the 'Roman' east was a diverse place, with languages such as Aramaic or Syriac much more common on the ground than the official tongues. You're right that Latin-derived languages did exist in the Balkans, but these were on the decline almost from the beginning of the Byzantine period, and existed in a swathe from Dalmatia through central Greece into Romania which bypassed the more culturally significant, densely populated areas in Southern Greece and Thrace.

Vlakhs was the name given to the speakers of Latin-derived languages in the east, which for all intents and purposes today means Romanian.

They were relabeled Vlakhs, a borrowing of the Germanic word for 'Roman' via Slavic. Greek-speakers, not Vlakhs, were the Romans ... and even Latin writers of the early Crusading era recognized this by naming Anatolia Romania.

Indeed, because they lived in the Roman Empire. My point is that Greek is a cultural and ethnic label, while Roman is a political one, in this period. In the Classical period, this was not the case; 'Roman' denoted a civis Romanus, but also and primarily a citizen of the City of Rome, and to a lesser extent a Latin. You could thus quite easily be a Roman and a Greek, or a Roman and a Gaul, or just a Roman.

 

[Kyriakos]

Seems equally correct as his other points. I mean they were speaking latin in most of Greece by the late medieval era, but due to the Byzantine Empire rising again in just over 400 years afterwards, the Greek was restored instead of the lame latin.

edit: stuff.

 

[otaman1]

Did Greeks speak Turkish when the Ottomans conquered them?

 

[Flying Pig]

Nope. Indeed, that's why Istanbul is called Istanbul - when the Turkish surveyors asked the locals where the road to the city went, they replied εἰς τὴν πόλιν - 'es tehn polin', roughly, though p and b got a bit confused after the Classical period - even today, to make a b sound, you write μπ in Greek.

 

[Pangur Bán]

Wikipedia iscertainly wrong if it's saying that Latin was a small language in the Balkans. It was probably a minority in many places where perhaps pre-Roman languages lingered on, but Greek was virtually absent north of the coastal cities. Anyway, the way the Roman Empire worked was that you had a permanent bureaucracy, system of palaces and so on. In the east this was Greek speaking. The military who defended the empire were, by later antiquity, drawn from communities in and around military zones. These were almost exclusively Latin and rural, and provided most of Rome's emperors until the 7th century; from the 4th cent. or so new Germanic groups were introduced to supplement these, but these guys didn't provide emperors. Beneath it all were a system of local communities run by local assemblies until late antiquity, but increasing taken over by bishops and holy men, who knew Greek or Latin depending on being in the East or West and, depending on where they lived Latin, Coptic, Syraic, Celtic, and so on.

The disassociation of Latin from Roman identity in the Empire, as evidenced by the emergence of Vlakhs, is most likely due to the contraction of the empire in the Balkans during the 7th century crisis and the tribalisation and Slavicization of Balkan Romania in the following centuries.

Nope. Indeed, that's why Istanbul is called Istanbul - when the Turkish surveyors asked the locals where the road to the city went, they replied εἰς τὴν πόλιν - 'es tehn polin', roughly, though p and b got a bit confused after the Classical period - even today, to make a b sound, you write μπ in Greek.

I think that's a myth, though not completely sure ... but the name is used much earlier in Arab sources. I think it's actually from how they stressed it in some eastern language... conSTANtinoPOLis. Arab has no p, but Cf. Nikomedia > Izmit, Nikaia > Iznik, Smyrna > Izmir; and Prusas > Bursa, Pergamon > Bergama, and so on

EDIT: and μπ is used for /b/ because the original Greek beta became a /v/, and μπ is the is the closest thing to /b/ basically because that's what an /m/ does to a /p/ when next to it (say 'impale' very quickly and you'll see).

 

[Flying Pig]

Wikipedia iscertainly wrong if it's saying that Latin was a small language in the Balkans.

It's more that the Balkans, in terms of population, were a very small part of the ERE, especially the Latin-speaking places. The coastal cities and the Peloponnese were the centres of population, not the central uplands - specifically, the most populated areas of Greece were Attica and the area around Thessaloniki and Constantinople. Even today, the parts of Greece in which Latin was commonly spoken are sparsely populated - they're hilly and poor farmland, after all.

Anyway, the way the Roman Empire worked was that you had a permanent bureaucracy, system of palaces and so on.

Yes, but this is misleading because it ignores the fact that the Roman Empire, at least in the Classical period, had an incredibly small state apparatus. You can think of Ancient Egypt, or Minoan Crete, or Babylon, which were able to keep accurate records of what every peasant in the countryside owned and paid in tax because they had huge bureaucratic machines - this simply didn't exist in the Roman empire until rather late on. The Classical empire largely depended on the acquiescence of local elites, who would manage day to day matters of justice and taxation, which was secured by imperial prestige and the threat of force if they failed to please the emperor - as repeatedly happened to poor Judea.

The military who defended the empire were, by later antiquity, drawn from communities in and around military zones. These were almost exclusively Latin and rural, and provided most of Rome's emperors until the 7th century

This is true of what we would call the 'legionaries', which in the later army meant the comitatenses, who were mostly drawn from the Latin areas of the Balkans. Later on, the theme system developed, in which large areas of Asia Minor were carved out and given to soldiers in exchange for service; this later became the pronoia system in which larger estates were granted to officers in exchange for service. German troops were nothing new in Roman service - Augustus had briefly used a German unit of bodyguards, because he realised that men with no stake in the government who would certainly be lynched if their protector died made trustworthy sorts - but their use was dramatically expanded in the foederati. However, these were largely a Western phenomenon - they played a relatively small part in the armies of the ERE, while they came to dominate those of the West.

The disassociation of Latin from Roman identity in the Empire, as evidenced by the emergence of Vlakhs, is most likely due to the contraction of the empire in the Balkans during the 7th century crisis and the tribalisation and Slavicization of Balkan Romania in the following centuries.

Yes, although I'm not convinced that learning Latin was ever part of 'Roman' identity. The empire was always multilingual, and the number of people speaking standard Latin was hugely smaller than the historical and archaeological record would have us believe. Mind you, I'm also not convinced that 'Roman' identity was particularly strong in the Greek parts of the empire, but that's another story.

I think that's a myth, though not completely sure ... but the name is used much earlier in Arab sources. I think it's actually from how they stressed it in some eastern language... conSTANtinoPOLis. Arab has no p.

Unfortunately, I think that's more likely, but I do like the Greek story.

 

[Pangur Bán]

Balkans were Latin, western Anatolia Greek, eastern Anatolia Armenian, Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine Aramaic/Syraic ... but the most populous part of the Byzantine Empire in the era you are talking about was Coptic-speaking! Greek's prominence in elite urban bureaucratic culture should not disguise the fact that Greek was definitely a minority language of the ERE even in the 7th century.

 

[Flying Pig]

Oh, absolutely - I thought I made that point already!

 

[Lone Wolf]

I severely doubt that Latin was ever predominant in geographical Hellas. Rest of Balkans (Illyria, Moesia etc), sure.

For what it's worth, in Byzantine coinage inscriptions, anything recognizably Latin disappears c. 900, and it's mostly Greek in 9th century, anyway. It's still mostly Latin in 7th century, which does imply that the Greek-Latin switch didn't happen that fast.

 

[Traitorfish]

There were pretty considerable chunks of "geographical Hellas" that were predominantly Albanian-speaking until the 20th century, which doesn't seem any more probable than Latin.

 

[Kyriakos]

Maybe it had to do with the muslim vilayet system.

And those areas were just bits in Epirus, and Attica. It's not like Albanians numbered in the millions (they are 4-5 million currently, afaik, in Albania+Fyromia+Kosovia).

 

[Traitorfish]

Well, exactly. If as marginal a language as Albania could displace Greece in an ancient Hellenic heartland like Attica, it doesn't seem beyond imagining that Latin could have the sort of impact Pangur describes.

 

[Kyriakos]

Try better. Muslim-Greek relations, muslim Albanians, vilayets. A bit different from Roman and Greek cultural relations.

 

[Pangur Bán]

Modern Romans:

Link to video.

 

[Flying Pig]

Well, exactly. If as marginal a language as Albania could displace Greece in an ancient Hellenic heartland like Attica, it doesn't seem beyond imagining that Latin could have the sort of impact Pangur describes.

I imagine that in Attica and Constantinople, you could find just about any language if you looked hard enough. By the 1100s or so Constantinople was probably the world's busiest trading city - you'd have heard plenty of Norse and even Chinese along with all of the other languages of the empire. It's not hard to imagine a kind of Albaniatown developing in Attica, if enough people from Albania came there and decided that they liked it. After all, there are significant parts of London in which English isn't understood, but things like Swahili, Pashto or Arabic are.

 

[Traitorfish]

I imagine that in Attica and Constantinople, you could find just about any language if you looked hard enough. By the 1100s or so Constantinople was probably the world's busiest trading city - you'd have heard plenty of Norse and even Chinese along with all of the other languages of the empire. It's not hard to imagine a kind of Albaniatown developing in Attica, if enough people from Albania came there and decided that they liked it. After all, there are significant parts of London in which English isn't understood, but things like Swahili, Pashto or Arabic are.

It wasn't simply that Attica had a large population of Albania-speakers, but that it was predominantly Albanian-speaking. It was the result of a wholesale shift in language across the region, not simply because of immigration. These people, the Arvanites, were not a migrant population and didn't regard themselves as ethnically Albanian. An analogy might be to Southern Wales, were English predominates but the English, i.e. people of English ethnicity, do not.

Try better. Muslim-Greek relations, muslim Albanians, vilayets. A bit different from Roman and Greek cultural relations.

I'm not saying that it is or is not the case, just that it's plausible. That languages are much more fluid than allowed by all the blood-and-soil stuff advanced by- well, people such as yourself.

 

[Kyriakos]

Blood and soil is some Civ mod that carries a Scottish civ at last, i suppose

(ie: don't you get tired of making projections and then fighting those projections as if they now magically left your own self and are part of the other person? :/ Cause i become tired even noticing you endlessly do that routine. ).

 

[Traitorfish]

(ie: don't you get tired of making projections and then fighting those projections as if they now magically left your own self and are part of the other person? :/ Cause i become tired even noticing you endlessly do that routine. ).

See, Kyriakos, when someone makes a veiled criticism of you, the appropriate response is to rebuff it or to return it in kind, not to go "HAHA I SEE THAT I AM BEING INSULTED BUT HAHA NO MATTER FOR I AM NOT INSULTED RATHER IT IS YOU WHO ARE TO BE INSULTED HAHA BE INSULTED NOW FOREIGN PERSONS." Ain't in the very best tradition of the Hellenic satirists, y'know?

 

[Kyriakos]

See, Kyriakos, when someone makes a veiled criticism of you, the appropriate response is to rebuff it or to return it in kind, not to go "HAHA I SEE THAT I AM BEING INSULTED BUT HAHA NO MATTER FOR I AM NOT INSULTED RATHER IT IS YOU WHO ARE TO BE INSULTED HAHA BE INSULTED NOW FOREIGN PERSONS." Ain't in the very best tradition of the Hellenic satirists, y'know?

Well, TraitorFish, let's just say that i have other things to do instead of caring if one thinks they have insulted me or similar, moreso on some web forum. I am sure you will come to feel the same in the future. Regards

 

[Flying Pig]

It wasn't simply that Attica had a large population of Albania-speakers, but that it was predominantly Albanian-speaking. It was the result of a wholesale shift in language across the region, not simply because of immigration. These people, the Arvanites, were not a migrant population and didn't regard themselves as ethnically Albanian. An analogy might be to Southern Wales, were English predominates but the English, i.e. people of English ethnicity, do not.

I see - that's quite interesting, actually. Any account of what happened to them?