Latin and Greek were the dominant languages of the Roman Empire, but other languages were regionally important. Latin was the original language of the Romans and remained the language of imperial administration, legislation, and the military throughout the classical period.Bruno Rochette, "Language Policies in the Roman Republic and Empire," translated by James Clackson, in A Companion to the Latin Language (Blackwell, 2011), p. 560. In the West, it became the lingua franca and came to be used for even local administration of the cities including the law courts.Alex Mullen, "Introduction: Multiple Languages, Multiple Identities," in Multilingualism in the Graeco-Roman Worlds (Cambridge University Press, 2012), p. 28.Rochette, "Language Policies in the Roman Republic and Empire," pp. 554, 556. After all freeborn inhabitants of the Empire were granted universal citizenship 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".J.N. Adams, "Romanitas and the Latin Language," Classical Quarterly 53.1 (2003), pp. 185–186, 205.
Koine Greek had become a shared language around the eastern Mediterranean and into Asia Minor as a consequence of the conquests of Alexander the Great.Fergus Millar, A Greek Roman Empire: Power and Belief under Theodosius II (408–450) (University of California Press, 2006), p. 279; Warren Treadgold, A History of the Byzantine State and Society (Stanford University Press, 1997), p. 5. The "linguistic frontier" dividing the Latin West and the Greek East passed through the Balkan Peninsula.Rochette, "Language Policies in the Roman Republic and Empire," p. 553. Educated Romans, particularly those of the ruling elite, studied and often achieved a high degree of fluency in Greek, which was useful for diplomatic communications in the East even beyond the borders of the Empire. The international use of Greek was one condition that enabled the spread of Christianity, as indicated for example by the choice of Greek as the language of the New Testament in the BibleTreadgold, A History of the Byzantine State, p. 5. and its use for the ecumenical councils of the Christian Roman Empire rather than Latin. With the dissolution of the Empire in the West, Greek became the more dominant language of the Roman Empire in the East, later referred to as the Byzantine Empire.
Because communication in ancient society was predominantly oral, it can be difficult to determine the extent to which regional or local languages continued to be spoken or used for other purposes under Roman rule. Some evidence exists in inscriptions, or in references in Greek and Roman texts to other languages and the need for interpreters. For Punic, Coptic, and Aramaic or Syriac, a significant amount of epigraphy or literature survives.The Oxford Handbook of the Literatures of the Roman Empire, edited by Daniel L. Selden and Phiroze Vasunia (Oxford University Press). Richard Valantasis, introduction to Religions of Late Antiquity in Practice (Princeton University Press, 2000), p. 11. The Palaeo-Balkan languages came into contact with Latin after the Roman expansion in the Adriatic Sea in the 2nd century BC. Of the ancient Balkan languages, aside from Greek, only the precursor of Albanian survived in the Western Balkans, reflecting different chronological layers of Latin influence through contact during the entire period of spoken Latin in the region.; ; ; ; .
The Celtic languages were widespread throughout much of western Europe, and while the orality of Celtic education left scant written records,MacMullen, "Provincial Languages in the Roman Empire," pp. 15–16. Celtic epigraphy is limited in quantity but not rare.Joseph Eska, "Inscriptions in the Celtic World," in Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia (ABC-Clio, 2006), pp. 965–970. The Germanic languages of the Empire have left next to no inscriptions or texts, with the exception of Gothic.Tore Janson, A Natural History of Latin (Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 87. Multilingualism contributed to the "cultural triangulation" by means of which an individual who was neither Greek nor Roman might construct an identity through the processes of Romanization and Hellenization.Mullen, Southern Gaul and the Mediterranean, pp. 264–265.
After the decentralization of political power in late antiquity, Latin developed locally in the Western provinces into branches that became the Romance languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Catalan, Occitan, Aromanian and Romanian. By the early 21st century, the first or second language of more than a billion people derived from Latin.James Clackson, introduction to A Companion to the Latin Language, p. 1. Latin itself remained an international 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.
Main languages There was never an official language of the empire, however, Latin and Greek were the main languages. During the early years of the Roman Empire, educated nobles often relied on their knowledge of Greek to meet societal expectations, and knowledge of Latin was useful for a career in the military, government, or law. In the east, Greek was the dominant language, a legacy of the Hellenistic period. Greek was also the language of the Christian Church and trade.
Most early emperors were bilingual but had a preference for Latin in the public sphere for political reasons, a practice that first started during the Punic Wars. Classical languages expert Bruno Rochette claims Latin had experienced a period of spread from the second centuryBC onwards, and especially so in the western provinces, but not as much in the eastern provinces because of Diocletian's reforms: there was a decline in the knowledge of Greek in the west, and Latin was asserted as the language of power in the east.
Latin
Latin was the language of the Romans from the earliest known period. Writing under the first Roman emperor Augustus, Virgil emphasizes that Latin was a source of Roman unity and tradition. In Virgil's epic Aeneid about the founding of Rome, the supreme deity Jupiter dictates that the refugee Trojans who have come to settle in Italy will use the language of the native Latini as a means of unification: "they will keep the speech (sermo) and mores of their fathers ... and I will make them all Latins with one mode of expression" (uno ore, literally "with one mouth").Virgil, Aeneid 12.834 and 837; Rochette, "Language Policies in the Roman Republic and Empire," pp. 549, 563; Adams, "Romanitas and the Latin Language," p. 184. The Julio-Claudian emperors, who claimed descent from the Virgilian hero Aeneas, encouraged high standards of correct Latin (Latinitas), a linguistic movement identified in modern terms as Classical Latin, and favored Latin for conducting official business.Rochette, "Language Policies in the Roman Republic and Empire," p. 552.
Latin became the language of conquered areas because local people started speaking it, and not because the population was displaced by Latin-speakers.József Herman, Vulgar Latin, translated by Roger Wright (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000, originally published 1975 in French), p. 10. Latin was not imposed officially on peoples brought under Roman rule.Rochette, "Language Policies in the Roman Republic and Empire," p. 549; Charles Freeman, The Greek Achievement: The Foundation of the Western World (New York: Penguin, 1999), pp. 389–433. Saint Augustine observed that Romans preferred for Latin to be adopted per pacem societatis, through a social pact.Augustine of Hippo, De Civitate Dei 19.7.18, as cited by Rochette, "Language Policies in the Roman Republic and Empire," p. 549. This language policy contrasts with that of Alexander, who aimed to impose Greek throughout his empire as the official language.Rochette, "Language Policies in the Roman Republic and Empire," p. 549, citing Plutarch, Life of Alexander 47.6. Latin was not a requirement for Roman citizenship, and there was no state-supported schooling that privileged it as the medium for education: fluency was desirable for its "high cultural, political, legal, social and economic value".Mullen, Southern Gaul and the Mediterranean, p. 265.
Latin was needed for imperial service and advancement, and was the language used for the internal functioning of government.Millar, A Greek Roman Empire, p. 92. Edicts and official communications of the emperor were in Latin, including rulings on local laws that might be in another language.
The Romans placed a high value on the written word, as indicated by their obsession with documentation and public inscriptions. The Imperial bureaucracy was so dependent on writing that the Babylonian Talmud (bT Shabbat 11a) declared "if all seas were ink, all reeds were pen, all skies parchment, and all men scribes, they would be unable to set down the full scope of the Roman government's concerns."Clifford Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (University of California Press, 2000), pp. 86–87. Estimates of the average literacy rate in the Empire range from 5 to 30 percent or higher, depending in part on the definition of "literacy".William V. Harris, Ancient Literacy (Harvard University Press, 1989), p. 5; William A. Johnson, Ancient Literacies: The Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome (Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 3–4, especially note 5; T.J. Kraus, "(Il)literacy in Non-Literary Papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt: Further Aspects of the Educational Ideal in Ancient Literary Sources and Modern Times," Mnemosyme 53.3 (2000), p. 325; Marietta Horster, "Primary Education," in The Oxford Handbook of Social Relations in the Roman World, pp. 89, 97–98. The lack of state intervention in access to education was a barrier to literacy, since formal education was available only to children from families who could pay for it.Christian Laes, Children in the Roman Empire: Outsiders Within (Cambridge University Press, 2011, originally published in Dutch 2006), p. 108; Horster, "Primary Education," in The Oxford Handbook of Social Relations in the Roman World, p. 89.
The birth certificates and wills of Roman citizens had to be written in Latin until the time of Alexander Severus (reigned 222–235).Adams, "Romanitas and the Latin Language," pp. 186–187. Illiterate Roman subjects would have someone such as a government scribe (scriba) read or write their official documents for them.Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire, p. 101; Kraus, "(Il)literacy in Non-Literary Papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt," pp. 325–327. Laws and edicts were posted in writing as well as read out.Susan P. Mattern, Rome and the Enemy: Imperial Strategy in the Principate (University of California Press, 1999), p. 197; Teresa Morgan, Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds (Cambridge University Press, 1998, 2000), pp. 1–2 et passim; Greg Woolf, "Literacy or Literacies in Rome?" in Ancient Literacies, p. 46ff.; Horster, "Primary Education," in The Oxford Handbook of Social Relations in the Roman World, p. 97. Ando poses the question as "what good would 'posted edicts' do in a world of low literacy?' in Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire, p. 101. Public art and religious ceremonies were ways to communicate imperial ideology regardless of language spoken or ability to read.Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire, pp. 152, 210. An early form of story ballet (pantomimus) was brought to Rome by Greek performers and became popular throughout the multilingual empire in part because it relied on gesture rather than verbal expression.Edith Hall, introduction to New Directions in Ancient Pantomime (Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 6–7.