Languages

[Belog]

Hello I didn't know where to place this but I hope you all can help.

We are doing research on the movement patterns of ancient languages. Does anyone have a good source that would detail if Rome utilized translators or linguists to converse with their outer territories. Since the class is theology, we are very interested in the territories around Judea @44 b.c- 10 a.d. We know Latin based languages and Semitic based languages (Aramaic, Hebrew) where in the region, and that the Aramaic script was adopted by the Hebrews known as the Old Hebrew script and later as the Jewish script. We have seen examples of the old Hebrew alphabet translated into Roman-based Latin but no time frame was documented for reference. All of our other sources we found are based on religious works (though they cannot be proven historically).

[Guest spartacus]

Belog

 

I am impressed!

 

Write out a virtual unanswerable question

[Primus Pilus]

Spartacus, le'ts not jump to quickly here. It's a question I can't answer because I've never studied language to any great detail, but there may be some willing to take it on. Besides, the initial question is valid....

 

Does anyone have a good source that would detail if Rome utilized translators or linguists to converse with their outer territories.

[Guest spartacus]

We shall see !

[Primus Pilus]

Oh feel free to retort, but I only wanted to point out that Belog's post is perfectly viable in my opinion. Where it goes from here is anyone's guess.

[Guest spartacus]

Game on !!

[paolo]

Well, I the way I interpret this question is; did they use translators (of written texts etc) as interpreters.

 

I did a google search using : ancient roman interpreters relations -bible -literature

 

Ad Hoc webpage says :

 

Julius Caesar refers to the provision of the "customary interpreters", and it was Cicero who first formulated the dictum - as valid today as it ever was - that only a foolish interpreter will translate word-for-word. The ancient Greeks and Romans needed interpreters in large numbers because they generally considered it beneath their dignity to learn the languages of the peoples whom they conquered. There were also political implications behind the interpreter's profession in classical antiquity. As Valerius Maximus repeatedly points out, Roman statesmen felt obliged to have interpreters present even when their services were superfluous, merely to highlight Rome's superiority. It should be added that interpreting was not a highly esteemed profession in ancient Rome. Most interpreters were slaves, prisoners of war or residents of frontier lands - in other words, thoroughly untrustworthy individuals. To make matters worse, their command of foreign languages put them more or less on a par with the shamanistic seers who communed with the gods in trance and the medicine men who could speak to daemons and diseases. When the Roman emperor Caracalla negotiated a treaty with the rulers of several conquered tribes by which they would march on Rome if he were murdered, the only eye-witnesses of the clandestine talks were the interpreters. As soon as the deal was sealed, Caracalla had them assassinated

 

 

Also, I found this, but I didn't read through it, it looked like there might be something in it :

pdf file

[pompeius magnus]

Anyone who can learn Latin as their native language will have no problem learning any language. Greek was very wide spread even in parts of Gaul, and Romans learned the Gaulic languages to a certain extent from their vast dealing with them.

[Jimbow]

But the question is, did they learn Hebrew or Aramaic? Or did they use translators. I imagine they could be very different to Greek or Gallic, and especially Latin.

[P.Clodius]

Well Greek was the defacto international language due to Alexander's conquest so communication issues wouldn't have been that much of an issue. Some modern scholars maintain even relatively poor uneducated people like Jesus would have had some knowledge of Greek.

[Silentium]

As far as old Hebrew go I can

[lucius artorius castus]

i think they used pictures to communicate either that or yell at each other

[Lost_Warrior]

I read somewhere that Rome had several official languages. I however, don't know what they are/were.

[Q Valerius Scerio]

Well Greek was the defacto international language due to Alexander's conquest so communication issues wouldn't have been that much of an issue. Some modern scholars maintain even relatively poor uneducated people like Jesus would have had some knowledge of Greek.

If Jesus had existed, and lived in Galilee as reported by the gospels, then indeed Jesus would have been fluent in Greek, as Galilee was a bilingual area.

 

Greek was dominant in the area for official purposes, and I'd bet two pence that most upper fora of soldiers knew it, but doubtful that the grunts did.

 

The Bible was first translated into Greek around the second century BCE and Latin followed with the conquest by Rome in the second century CE.