The Roman world was a multilingual community. Aiming on one side to ensure effective communication (as Latin was not so widely known and spoken) but not to encourage nationalistic revivals on the other, Romans choose Greek as an additional official language. Indeed, Greek, by then already deprived of any national character, was already used as a ‘lingua franca’ in the eastern Mediterranean. Despite Jewish tendency to refer to Hebrew as a mark of national and religious identity, early Christianity adopted (and maintained until the second half of the II century) Greek as its own language. This choice was not only due to practical considerations related to communication needs, but also to more ‘political’ reasons, and therefore it must be framed in the more general friendly approach to the Roman empire which was always taught during his life by Jesus and was practiced by him even in front of Pilate.

Il mondo romano era una comunità multilingue. Per garantire da una parte una comunicazione efficace (dato che il latino non era così diffuso e parlato) ma per non incoraggiare revival nazionalistici dall'altro, i romani scelgono il greco come lingua ufficiale aggiuntiva. Il greco, infatti, privato di ogni carattere nazionale, era già utilizzato come 'lingua franca' nel Mediterraneo orientale. Nonostante la tendenza ebraica a riferirsi all'ebraico come segno di identità nazionale e religiosa, fin dall'inizio il cristianesimo adottò (e mantenne fino alla seconda metà del II secolo) il greco come propria lingua. Questa scelta non fu dovuta solo a considerazioni pratiche legate alle esigenze della comunicazione, ma anche a ragioni più 'politiche', e quindi deve essere inquadrata nel più generale approccio amichevole verso l'impero romano che fu sempre insegnato durante la sua vita da Gesù e da lui praticato anche davanti a Pilato.

Barzano', A., Cristianesimo delle origini e politica linguistica, <<ERGA / LOGOI>>, 2021; 9 (1): 133-166. [doi:10.7358/erga-2021-001-barz] [http://hdl.handle.net/10807/188121]

Cristianesimo delle origini e politica linguistica

Barzano', Alberto
2021

Abstract

The Roman world was a multilingual community. Aiming on one side to ensure effective communication (as Latin was not so widely known and spoken) but not to encourage nationalistic revivals on the other, Romans choose Greek as an additional official language. Indeed, Greek, by then already deprived of any national character, was already used as a ‘lingua franca’ in the eastern Mediterranean. Despite Jewish tendency to refer to Hebrew as a mark of national and religious identity, early Christianity adopted (and maintained until the second half of the II century) Greek as its own language. This choice was not only due to practical considerations related to communication needs, but also to more ‘political’ reasons, and therefore it must be framed in the more general friendly approach to the Roman empire which was always taught during his life by Jesus and was practiced by him even in front of Pilate.
2021
Italiano
Barzano', A., Cristianesimo delle origini e politica linguistica, <<ERGA / LOGOI>>, 2021; 9 (1): 133-166. [doi:10.7358/erga-2021-001-barz] [http://hdl.handle.net/10807/188121]
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10807/188121
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