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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Linguists hope for Aramaic revival
  • Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 04:10:24 -0800

On 24/02/2004 15:41, Harold R. Holmyard III wrote:

Dear Peter,


Are you sure? As I understood it, in the first century CE even in ROME
the lingua franca was Greek, not Latin, and that Latin was dying out
until it was revived under the Flavians. (That explains why Paul wrote
his letter to the Romans in Greek.) I suppose that Latin was used by the
Romans for official administrative purposes, but that Romans in
Palestine would have spoken mostly Greek among one another, The language
spoken in the army may have varied from regiment to regiment, and some
of the regiment names are recorded, e.g. in Acts 10:1, Cornelius was

from the Italian regiment, and so is more likely to have been a Latin

speaker - although he probably conversed with Peter in Greek.


HH: I did not know that, but there seem to be other opinions. ...


OK, there are other opinions. But most of what you quote (including from Internet sites which can be very unreliable and partisan) is passing comments by people who have simply assumed the point without looking at the evidence. I think you should look at proper scholarly studies of Rome in the 1st century CE. I don't have any at hand, but I have seen references to them. But this list is not the place to discuss this issue.

Even Cicero acknowledged that Greek was a more international language than Latin: "Graeca leguntur in omnibus fere gentibus, Latina suis finibus, exiguis sane, continentur."

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/





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