Re: Slovanik, Enamyn, and Slavic slaves

--- Thomas R. Wier wrote:

> > In fact, I really can't think of any time or place *here* in which a
> > population of Slavs could have ever come under Roman domination. While, as
> > you later pointed out, the Slavs were not unknown to the Imperials, they
> > never came under Roman cultural influence to any significant degree.
>
> As I tried to point out in my earlier post, this depends on which
> period of history you're talking about, and what you mean by "Romans".
> The Byzantines, for example, did not call themselves Byzantines;  they
> called themselves _Rhomaioi_, the Greek word for "Romans", and continued
> to do so for centuries after the Empire officially ceased to exist in
> 1453. [...] And what was happening during all that time?  Lots and lots of
> interaction with Slavs, though the Slavs were often only
> nominally vassal states. But even when the Slavs were not under
> the political sway of the Eastern Emperors, they were most certainly
> under the cultural sway, for even when they tried to secede from the
> church hierarchy and create an autocephalous Slavic church, they
> modelled this on Constantinopolitan customs, traditions and
> guidelines.  So, if you're willing to call the Byzantines "Romans"
> (as they themselves did), then there were plenty of instances in
> which Slavs both lived within the Empire, and were influenced by
> it culturally.
That is true, of course. IIRC, the South-Slavs settled on the Balkan peninsula
during the sixth and seventh centuries, and as a result, they spent almost a
millennium within the borders of the East-Roman Empire, cut off from their
fellow Slavs after the arrival of the Magyars. But as Peter pointed out
already, the common language of the Byzantine Empire was Greek, not Latin.
It seems that the Greeks weren't such cultural/linguistic imperialists as the
Romans, since their language left little or no trace at all; nor did the Turks
in the four centuries afterwards.

Somehow, I can't imagine Slovanik as a language of the Balkan. I'll have to
think about an alternative, though.

Jan

=====
"Originality is the art of concealing your source." - Franklin P. Jones

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