Re: GSF revisited

Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
> On 7.5.2007 R A Brown wrote:
>
> > It's meant to have a similar relationship to ancient Greek
> > as "Latino sine flexione" has to Classical Latin.
>
> And later:
>
> > BTW I'm dropping the "Bactrian Greeks move eastward"
> > scenario for the moment - it producing other distractions
> > and is probably not plausible.
>
> Still it caught my imagination, as you saw. I may take it up
> some time in the future, if you don't mind.
>
> > I'll just concentrate and keeping the thing as close
> > to early Koine Greek as I can, but dropping,
> > hopefully, all grammatical flexions. I'll return the
> > question of a conhistory/ althistory when the thing
> > has taken better shape.
>
> Wouldn't then the best scenario be one where (South) Western
> Europe was Graecized rather than Latinized, and
> Παιάνο�? spoke a "Ephellenic" language derived from
> Greek, and the only classical prestige languageof his Europe
> was Attic and Koiné Greek? The scenario which comes most
> readily to mind is one where Alexander survived and
> proceeded to conquer the west, I think. (Now of course that
> would be an extremely interesting althistory in its own
> right: what would the various Ephellenic languages look
> like, for starters? :-)
>
> /�?�?δαίμ�?ν Φιλί�?�?ο�?
Or instead of having Alexander conquer the west, what if the Macedonians
in the days of the Roman Republic were even weaker militarily?  Rome
fights Macedonia, various parts of Greece rise up to aid the Romans in
their fight.  Then, like the Italian revolts in the west, the Greek
allies also demand (and receive) full Roman citizenship.  The Republic
develops with Greeks making up a large part of the citizenry, and
therefore a large part of the Senate and the army.  With so much Greek
involvement in Rome, the colonias set up all over the Empire later on
are just as likely to end up Greek-speaking as Latin.  Greek might be
used as the language of education, or Classical Latin might remain in
that role, with Greek the vernacular of merchants and soldiers.

This scenario could give us a Spanish-style Greek, with Greeks settling
Hispania after the Punic Wars.  Or a version of Greek anywhere on the
German frontier, as a largely Greek-speaking army would be stationed there.