Hot answers tagged language
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The Holy Roman Empire (of the German Nations) was a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, and multi-lingual coalition from its (unofficial) founding by Charlemagne in the 9th century AD. The German Empire would be a better term in fact, as it was founded and typically ruled by Germanic peoples. (Charlemagne himself was a Frank.) As Voltaire once perceptively ...
20
There was a separation between the noble french and the vulgar Old English.
Or as I wrote in my comment: Who cares about the language of peasants
I found a nice source for this assumption
Middle English (1100-circa 1500 AD): After William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy, invaded and conquered England in 1066 AD with his armies and became king, he ...
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Scotland has gradually changed to using English without being conquered by England. Now I shall temper that a little in that there have been English speaking people living in Scotland just as long as there have in England. The Anglo-Saxons settled south east Scotland as well as north east England. However, English didn't become the majority language for ...
17
You neglect the fact that the 'indigenous' population of France before the Great Migrations (of mainly Germanic tribes) was Gallo-Roman, and by the end of the Roman era (5th century AD), the populace spoke a dialect of Vulgar Latin, which evolved into a distinct "Gallic" Latin over the following centuries. Note however that the ancient Celtic (Gaulish) ...
11
The Burgundians were originally a Germanic tribe that settled the area that became known as Burgundy. Because it was so deeply in the heart of "French" territory, it adopted the French language and culture as soon as the Franks started pushing back the Saxons under King Charles Martel, and his grandson, Charlemagne. After the death of the latter, it ...
10
(A little background for others reading this post) In 1868 Emperor Meiji re-established imperial rule. To move Japan into the modern era, he encouraged his people to explore and learn from the more technologically advanced cultures of the world.
Even in the late 1800s, English was the language of international commerce. Emperor Meiji's push to learn ...
9
When it comes to western Europe, medieval Latin would be closer to an "official" language, especially for international affairs. The Roman Catholic Church's power and influence at the time was unparalleled and several major events of the era started with a Papal Bull. Here's a short list of Papal Bulls that were political in nature and were addressed, ...
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The Roman Empire, at it start under emperors Julius Caesar (44 BC) and Augustus (27 BC) had Latin as its main language, and the one spoken by its elites and leaders. At the end of it, with the capture of Constantinople by the Ottomans in 1453, the prevailing language of the elites was Greek. The main change came under emperor Heraclius (610 to 641), whose ...
9
ἀνάξε (pronounced ah-NAHX-eh) is the vocative, if I've handled the accent right.
I vaguely suspect it might be ἄναξε (AH-nax-eh) - my greek is rusty.
Example (Odyssey 24.251):
οὐ μὲν ἀεργίης γε ἄναξ ἕνεκ᾽ οὔ σε κομίζει,
"It is not on account of your idleness your master does not take care of you"
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"A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language" By Egbert J. Bakker
The only context in which titles can have been at all common in Greek society is addresses from slaves to their masters and mistresses.
In literary representations of such addresses δέσποτα “master” and δέσποινα "mistress" frequently occur, but they are by no means the rule, and in ...
8
The concept of praying to the Roman Gods as well as to whatever local deity did mean that the Republic then Empire could assimilate a lot of cultures. After all, they were always worshuiping the same gods, and now they can have access to all the good things that Rome provides -- see Life of Brian's "What did the Romans ever do for us?" speech. Even when the ...
8
Here's my proposition, basically it's just a set of Caucasus characteristics making this region especially interesting. By which we mean: there're numerous languages, 3 distinct language families, characteristic just for this region.
My first point is, language diversity / fragmentation is normal for regions without a strong state / commerce / any unifying ...
8
"The best thing that Euskara could contribute to the humanity is to die out" - Miguel de Unamuno
Euskara, Basque language, is a very interesting subject. It survived on two time levels. First, being an ancient language which is still in use, and now, being a minority language which is still in use in 21st century, where we have to deal with stronger and ...
7
Isra'el means "he struggles with God" and is the name granted to Jacob after he wrestles with an angel in Genesis 32:
Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket of his thigh; so the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him. Then ...
7
Frankly a country made up of two large population lobes completely separated by 3000 kilometers of relatively hostile neighbor (or twice that in ocean) is bound to break up eventually. It just logistically can't work out very well, and culturally they are bound to start going their separate ways. I'm unaware of any country like that in history that lasted ...
6
The reasons are so numerous and overlapping.
There would have been very little to gain from establishing dominance of French culture. People did not form sympathies or loyalties based on language or culture – that development had to wait for another 700 years or so.
It would have been completely impossible to enforce such a ban. There were no such ...
6
Being that Britain had been exposed to Roman influence for close to a century - Caesar having made first contact with his invasion around 55bc. There was constant diplomatic and trade relations between the British and Romans following that.
As Caractacus was a member of the ruling class, it's entirely possible that he spoke Latin to some extent.
As ...
5
As backup for Noldorin's point, note that the (French-speaking) Normans conqured England in 1066 and made French the country's official language for centuries. This didn't really change the fact that the vast majority of Englishmen spoke only English, and still do (although with a lot of French loan-words for things mostly of concern to the upper-classes). ...
5
Burgundian and Franc-Comtois dialects of the langues d'oïl was certainly spoken by a vast proportion of subjects. I suspect some form of Flemish and early German as well although I am not sure which one. Burgundy eventually split into Belgium, the Netherlands, and France with the core of Burgundy remaining in France.
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All of the countries under Roman rule gradually migrated away from common Latin into their own distinctive languages. One example Is French, which is a modification and combination of Gaulish and vulgar Latin. England reverted to English as the official tongue of the court sometime in the 13th century after 300 years of french.
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Well, written language was, at the time, an economic tool primarily. It was used to record business, political and liturgical transactions, and to cary on a conversation at a distance through correspondance. The things we use it for, instructive texts (such as language instruction courses) and recreational reading, developed much, much later.
But! There ...
5
The original is lost, so we don't know. There were copies made in Latin and Old French which are available online... apparently, many copies were made upon its proclamation, in various languages, each intended for a particular audience.
Here's a free ebook courtesy of the Google Books scanning project that goes into the difficulties in identifying the ...
4
There were sadly few writers of the Arab world who wrote in French until 1945. There were, however, lots of French writers who wrote about the Arab culture. My preferred one is René Guénon, also known as Shaykh `Abd al-Wahid Yahya. On the other side, the French culture influenced a lot of francophile writers. In Lebanon nowadays a lot of writers write in ...
4
Apart from the fact that they were both Muslims, the people of the former East and West Pakistan were basically different people. The people of West Pakistan were more Caucasian and spoke Urdu, while the people of East Pakistan were more "Asian" and spoke Bengali. In the latter respect, the people of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) were more like their ...
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This has been answered with a comment on English.SE:
mezrag seems to be a primitive barter/trade-pact custom, so this
tribal sheikh is effectively someone acting in a "ceremonial" role
ensuring the rules are followed. An honest broker, is my guess. Or
maybe he's just the guy that looks after all the loot/danegeld our
hero has collected. – ...
4
It definitely wouldn't be English. In 1100, Old English was the language of the conquered Anglo-Saxon slaves (serfs). The Language of the conquerors of 1066 was Norman French or Anglo Norman. I'd put money on Latin.
Anglo-Norman was never the main administrative language of England: Latin was the major language of record in legal and other official ...
4
Latin was the lingua franca of the Church, provided a means of communication between people of different areas. It was also the prescribed language of the liturgy. However not all would have known it (especially laypersons and new trainees) so local languages would also be spoken (and quite possibly commonly spoken in non-official capacity).
I seriously ...
4
I think a simple google search will reveal the answer. There is a fairly detailed answer at Ask A Linguist; this is particularly nice because it examines some of the issues that make the question difficult to answer. Either Sumerian or Egyptian is the oldest written form, and that the answer for spoken languages is undefined.
Yahoo takes a different ...
3
Well, these days I'd say Spanish certainly counts. It is spoken as a first language in just about every country in the Americas south of the Rio Grande (Brazil being the most prominent exception). North of there, English has roughly the same status.
Historically, the best analog I know of is Mongol, which at one point was spoken across Asia from Russia to ...
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I am not sure this question would have made much sense to the Romans themselves. The whole concept of formal guidelines/directives is something which is associated with the modern bureaucratic state (especially in its totalitarian forms). The Romans just didn't work that way and probably would have been amazed at the suggestion that the Senate or the Emperor ...
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