Comment on How Come Latin Didn't Spread in the Middle East as Much as it did in Europe?
robomuffin79@lemmy.world 1 day ago
The Levantine areas were controlled by the Eastern Roman Empire which used Greek as the main language. Plus, Greek had been spoken in some form or another since Alexander invaded centuries earlier. The only time Latin may have been used in the region was during the Crusades when European settlers began arriving
grue@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Wait a second, does that mean Life of Brian was inaccurate and the graffiti grammar correction should’ve been in Greek instead?
1hundred47@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I will create a historically accurate version, using grok!
Rothe@piefed.social 1 day ago
Latin would have been used by governors and their administration when reporting to Rome, and there would have been Latin speaking personnel, but they would have been the exception.
So yes, it would have been more accurate to use Greek, but of course it would have made the whole thing a lot less funny because most of the audience wouldn’t have been able to decipher the Greek letters (and it would have added an extra layer of confusion to a clever joke).
icanbrewmushrooms@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Even in the Western half of the empire a lot of the elites spoke Greek. For example: while he would definitely have been capable of speaking Latin, Marcus Aurelius wrote Meditations in Greek.
AccoSpoot1@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Does this mean we should cut off John Cleeses balls?