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3 - Language Shift, Attitudes and Management in the Roman West

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2023

By
Alex Mullen
Edited by
Aneta Pavlenko
Aneta Pavlenko
Affiliation:
University of York
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Summary

To explain Latinization of the Roman West, scholars have long searched for evidence of a language policy mandating the use of Latin. They have found none under the Principate. The Roman centre was not interested in policies involving all its subjects, and elite Romans were uninterested in languages other than Latin and Greek and had no concerns about their use, as long as the Empire’s functioning remained intact. Indeed, it is not clear that any such policy would have made much sense for provincials in illiterate and translingual environments. However, though there may not have been an Empire-wide policy of Latinization, there were certainly language ideologies and multiple narrowly focused facets of language management concerning the use of Latin and Greek in the running of the Empire.

Keywords

historic multilingualismhistorical sociolinguisticslanguage attitudeslanguage ideologieslanguage managementlanguage policylanguage shiftLatinLatinizationtranslingualism.
Type
Chapter
Information
Multilingualism and History , pp. 71 - 89
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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