Re: Roman Empire and lingos

Mike Adams wrote:

> I know that the result of the end of the native romans being leaders of
> the Empire was a major cause for a change in the Empire, with no center
> any more the empire devided.
Not really.  The traditional division into Eastern and Western halves of the
Empire was a constitutional reform of Diocletian aimed at making it more
possible for the Augusti and their junior Caesares to micromanage affairs
of state.  Partly this was necessary, because after nearly a century of civil
war, whole swaths of the Empire were operating as independent states, and
in some cases, as with Britain under Alectus, this was made this official.

> I think alot of it had to do with the fact
> that the external immigration out paced the internal ability to absorb,
> and make those immigrants truely Roman..
No, it's way, way more complicated than barbarian hordes destroying
Roman purity.  That 19th Century (heck, it's really 18th)  notion based on
racial purity ought to be put firmly in the grave where it belongs.  If you
want to read a good account of it, read _Roman Britain_ by Peter Salway.
It's big, long, thick book (739 pages, not counting appendices), which though
it concentrates on Britain manages to keep the reader abreast of events going
on in the rest of the Empire very well, especially during the later period.

> Less wish to be Roman, and more
> to be Spanish, Italian or what ever..  I know G[au]l, Italia, H[i]spania,
> and Dacia, all had Roman lingos
[I have to ask:  why do you call them lingos?]

> after the major migrations but they were majorly changed, seperate?
The fact that different regions would develop different dialects has little
to do with the locals' notions of nationhood, and a lot more to do with
the way language works.  French, Italian, etc. did not develop because
the people wanted to be different from each other, but because they lived
hundreds of miles away from each other when such trips would take weeks
at best.

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Tom Wier   |     "Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
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