To: tejek who wrote (385993 ) 5/23/2008 5:07:22 PM From: Brumar89 Read Replies (1) | Respond to The Roman conquest of the Hellenistic kingdoms in the eastern Mediterranean did not erase the culture and language of those areas, which remained Greek. When the capital of the Roman Empire was transferred to Constantinople in the 4th century AD, the official language of the state continued to be Latin, yet the literary and spoken language of the entire eastern part of the empire continued to be Greek. Greek was also the language of the church and education, while the university preserved a diglossia between the two. Even though this new Greco-Latin diglossia lasted more than two centuries, the Byzantine emperors had been favouring the official use of Greek over Latin since the beginning. Latin was preserved on inscriptions and coinage until the 11th century AD. The separation of the mixed or non Greek-speaking populations of the Western part of the Empire, accelerated the Hellenisation of the Eastern one. Later, when Greek dynasties of emperors established themselves on the Byzantine throne and changed the official language of the public services, Greek displaced Latin completely. The Greeks of the Eastern Roman Empire retained the Roman name, and the medieval Greek state of Byzantium continued to refer to itself as "??µa??a" (Romania, or land of the Romans), long after the city of Rome and the western half of the Roman Empire were overrun by barbarians. Eventually, "Romans" (??µa???) became a synonym for "Greeks" (?????es). The name "??µa???" (Romans) was used as a broad title of political prestige whereas the term "??µ???" ("Romioi") was developed in order to describe both the ethno-cultural identity of the Greeks and their Roman citizenship. The name "??µa???" symbolised the awe of the old Roman Empire, and typically declared the land claims of the Byzantine state. en.wikipedia.org
