The Eastern Roman Empire lasted all the way to 1453! Was it Greek or Roman though?!
 

(As you may or may not know Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese all come from the Romans.)

The best teacher I ever had was a World History teacher(He taught me to believe in myself etc. etc.) so no wonder my favorite subject in school was World History and my favorite part of W.H. was studying about the Romans. (I loved everthing about the Romans and then I end up living in what was the center of the Roman Empire.)http://my.lifeinitaly.com/images/smilies/smile.gif At any rate seems like most of us learned something about the Roman Empire or the Western Roman Empire in school but what about the Eastern Roman Empire or how it is better known as the Byzantine Empire?(The study of the Eastern Roman Empire was never taught as much as the Western Roman Empire was yet it lasted much longer.) As you know they spoke Latin in the Western Roman Empire but Greek in the Eastern Roman Empire. So was the Eastern Roman Empire a Greek Empire or a Roman Latin Empire?

The Western Roman Empire collapsed in 476 as Romulus Augustus was forced to abdicate by Odoacer. The Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire endured until 1453 with the death of Constantine XI and the capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks led by Mehmed II.

Although it is true that Greek was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire(Eastern Roman Empire), that can not be taken as proof that the empire was "Greek". Latin was the original official language, imposed by the Romans who established and ruled the Roman Empire. In 395 AD when the Roman Empire split into western and eastern (Byzantine), Latin continued to be used as the official language but in time it was replaced by Greek as that language was already widely spoken among the Eastern Mediterranean nations as the main trade language. Yet the Emperors, the Church clergy, the army, and the artists, although they spoke Latin and Greek, where not exclusively of Greek ethnicity. The Empire was made up of many nationalities - Thracians, Macedonians, Illyrians, Bythinians, Carians, Phrygians, Armenians, Lydians, Galatians, Paphlagonians, Lycians, Syrians, Cilicians, Misians, Cappadocians, etc. The Greeks composed only a small portion of this multi-ethnic Empire and evidence shows that they did not posses much of the power either, for we know exactly who were the Byzantine Emperors, and we know they were not ethnic Greeks.

To be honest, this is very much a simplification. In the Western Roman Empire, Latin was used as a legal language, but most people spoke Vulgar Latin of various dialects, and probably their own local language as well. Similarly, in the Eastern Empire, Greek was used as a lingua franca in much the same way that English is used everywhere by travellers these days. But this Greek used was a very much watered down and simplified language compared with the Greek of (say) Perikles :rolleyes:, as global English (Globish) is these days. Evidence for this is New Testament Greek, which is (relatively) easy to understand. I suspect that whilst it could be understood, this Greek was not used much on a daily basis, and people communicated usually in their own language. I also suspect that this Greek was quite divorced from the Greek cultural background, so the Eastern Roman Empire was not really 'Greek'.

Roman - but I'll ask my older brother :P

Muy interesante , de todas las épocas me gusta ese tiempo, me parece una buena época de vivir. Me pregunta cuando el español moderno empezó de aparecer..

SEguro es una cosa. Si yo viviera aquí siempre estará perdido todo el tiempol los nombres de las ciudades y las nacionalidades son extremamente confundidos!

Cappadocians:crazy::crazy:

Perhaps you could be in a place forgot for the man and the modern man being the new of the age.
I know the new age is the beginning of the new humanity history.:)

"Confundido" is "confused", like in "I am confused" -> "estoy confundido";
"Confuso" is "confusing", like in "information is confusing" -> "la información es confusa". :)


As for your question, as far as I know, modern Spanish was born sometime at the end of 17th century or the beginning of 18th century, but I'll let someone else who has more formal knowledge on it to correct the date. :)

En el año 284, el emperador Diocleciano, intenta solucionar la crisis interna del Imperio romano, que se tenía por ingobernable, debido a su enorme extensión, dividiéndolo en dos partes, occidental y oriental y nombrando una "tetrarquía", un gobierno colegiado formado por cuatro personas, que ejercerían su autoridad por parejas en cada una de las dos mitades del Imperio. Así se nombran dos Augustos, con facultades principalmente militares y éstos eligen a dos Césares, que en principio, los ayudan dotados de "imperium" (poder legítimo) y llegado el caso los sustituyen y remplazan. El propio Diocleciano se reserva el cargo de Augusto en el Imperio oriental, lo que da idea de que su voluntad era la de seguir manteniendo la condición romana de dichos territorios.
Con todo el sistema no se mantuvo mucho tiempo y a la muerte del emperador Teodosio en el año 395, se cumple su voluntad de entregar la parte oriental del Imperio a su hijo Arcadio y la occidental a su hijo Honorio.
Es curioso pero tras la caída del Imperio romano de occidente, el poder que marcó la pauta de su época siguió siendo el del imperio romano oriental o de Bizancio, lo que se ve en los restos arqueológicos visigodos que encontramos en España, pues éstos no sólo copian los modelos arquitectónicos de Bizancio, sino también los urbanísticos. Así, los textos antiguos que describen la capital visigoda de Toledo incluyen una catedral metropolitana dedicada al culto de la Virgen María, como mandaban las normas bizantinas y otra catedral pretoriana, junto al palacio real, también como mandaban las normas bizantinas. Las coronas visigodas, que todavía se conservan, siguen también el modelo de las coronas votivas de Bizancio e incluso la legislación visigoda aplica el código del emperador bizantino Justiniano.
En otro orden de cosas, una parte del levante español se mantuvo, tras la invasión visigoda bajo el poder del Imperio oriental.
En lo relativo al idioma, con excepción del actual país vasco, en la Península Ibérica desapareció todo vestigio de las lenguas anteriores al Latín, siendo éste, en su versión vulgar (con la sustitución de las terminaciones en us, por la terminación o y la sustitución del sistema de declinaciones por el de preposiciones), el que se mantendría hasta la extensión de las lenguas romances y en algunos lugares, como en las comunidades cristianas bajo control musulmán hasta la conquista de los reinos cristianos.
El imperio Bizantino mantuvo la oficialidad tanto del Griego como del Latín, que fue la verdadera lingua franca de toda la Edad Media. Ciertamente, la lengua cotidiana de Bizancio fue el Griego y con él los misioneros cristianos Cirilo y Metodio evangelizaron los países de la actual Europa oriental, razón por la cual, el alfabeto de la mayor parte de las lenguas eslavas es hoy día el llamado "cirílico", bastante similar al Griego del que procede.

About your question on when appeared the Spanish tongue I must say that there is no exact moment, The Latin languaje simply evolved to give rise to a new one. The medieval Casitlian is no more than that, the evolution of the former Latin at a particular place. However, we do know that around the year 1200 was composed "El Cantar del Mío Cid", the first epic poem in the Castilian Literature, so this date may serve as a reference. However, as this language may seem strange to today's Spanish speakers, I include a fragment of the original text to give an idea about it.

Conbidar le ien de grado, mas ninguno non osaba
el rey don Alfonso tanto avie le grand sanna (saña).
Antes de la noche en Burgos dél entró su carta.
Con gran recabdo e fuertemente sellada:
que a mío Çid Roy Díaz que nadi nol diessen posada,
e aquel que gela diesse sopiesse vera palabra
que perdiere los averes e más los ojos de la cara,
e aun demás los cuerpos e las almas.
Grande duelo avien las yentes cristianas:
ascóndense de mio Çid, ca nol osan dezir nada.
...

Anyway, as my Spanish Grammar teacher at the University used to say, The Spanish -as all the romance languages- is no more than a Latin dialect, and probably a Roman legionary still could understand it.

The Latin language it's historic in the planet and since the beginning.
I know that the Latin it's important in the books, but you know what it the kind to language you should to learn now in this epoch.