Lost in Translation - How Rome's Multi-Ethnic Army Communicated 

@@baconbaron1776 agreed

This is why the east was far more stable. Greek

Strong parallels with the Austro-Hungarian Empire and their performance in the First World War, although they *only* had to deal with 10 major languages plus a few dozen dialects.

Legate: “Nien! Around the hill” General: “Novem?! No the whole cohort” Centurion: “Colle? ....an Mons?” Infantryman: “Quis in Primus?”😏

Basically yes.

A beautiful classic

“Now don’t do it again.”

“What did the Romans do for us anyway?”

​@@retro_boy_advanceshowed us how an empire falls

Dude in Cree i love to swear!!! Do you know what weent chisk means?

hahaahah

I mean it was so "diverse" linguistically that 90% of western europe still speaks latin

@CipiRipi00 what? I was talking how almost all of western europe speaks a derivative of latin today Which means the general populace spoke Latin back then which means it was not as diverse linguistically

@CipiRipi00 today its barely intelligible, thousand years ago it was just dialects of the same language

Broooooo wij hebben dezelfde naam

@@bramvanhooijdonk1185 Gelukkig niet 100% hetzelfde

Funny enough I just watched a video not 30 minutes ago about a Batavian trade ship.

Stop simping for Germanics, your national root lies within Celtic Belgae.

@theleetworldbest Many Belgae tribes were at least partly Germanic. But these ethnocultural divisions are mostly bullshit/conjecture anyway. ‘Stop simping’ for white supremacist pseudo-historians.

Roman general: Climb the hill and set up the archers. Soldier: I don’t understand you. Roman general: hold on..... hey google, translate.

What's a subtitle? (a roman soldier probably)

"Weeaboos go to Japan and be like 'Wh...where are the subtitles?" -Filthy Frank

@@Theevil6ify east african and arab traders in se asia and china be like:

Its common even today when being abroad to take a name of the place you are in . I have a Korean name, Arabic name and my English name

@T teg Egg common thats not legible

This is the first thing I'm watching post nut.

More interesting than the idea rome was all white by losers who think knowing a lot about rome makes them more interesting than everyone else

Same

What was I doing again? Oh yeah my chem hw.

@@GoogleRuinsAnythingItTouches horny bonk

Well during Maurices time Latin was still the langauge of Administration so it makes sense that latin was still used in the army

@@heloo7773 but later in the Tactica, in the IX century, the army commands were still in latin and of course, greek

You all have an incorrect vision of latin and greek of the time fir exemple some word in latin were taken directly from greek for exemple chaos / caos. Same pronouce. It was easier in fact be double languace at time that it would be prob today with lets say with any post medieval latin vs post medieval greek. Also all commander did properly their study during young age and they studied greek autors which made again ppl fluently with both languages.

@@Ermagron the languages shared borrowed words for sure, but they were not mutually intelligible. Proto-Greek and Proto-Latin underwent various sound changes before the civilizations as we know them came into contact with each other, and during this period they wouldve encountered much borrowing from separate languages as well (e.g. etruscan and other italic languages into latin, luwian into greek etc)

That is until the 800s AD when Greek became the formal administrative language and writing of the State, supplanting Latin. During the 8th-9th century AD, the Byzantine Empire also fundamentally changed the government system by further limiting the power of the senate, removing certain certain governmental bodies, dividing the empire into ‘Themes’ and restructuring the hierarchy within those themes to service the state and emperor better. Important to note is that the culture of the Byzantines/Romanoi was influenced ‘mainly’ by the Hellenic and Hellenistic eras of Greek history, as the Greek culture didn’t really change much in that region since the time of Alexander (except for Christianity, in which pagan cultural aspects were incorporated into the nascent Christianity)... and the Romans didn’t really try to change the culture in that region. Only in the formal matters of state like the language and writing of bureaucratic matters was there noticeable change... until as I mentioned it was reversed in the 800sAD. Also important is that the Byzantines/Romanoi had a Greek Orthodox culture that eventually became more and more distinct and divergent over time from the Christian culture that existed during the time of the Emperor Constantine.

He said it's lunchtime.....

@Mrkabrat In a situation like that, the general would probably use a translator.

@@zainmudassir2964 Yep, they'll feast in the human blood and corpses of their enemies

@@zainmudassir2964 Is that an Asterix and Obelix reference?

@@Mrkabrat what did he say ?

Or Glutus Macimus....

* try to hold my laugh *

@@khanhtran8772 "was that man laughing?" (Muffled guffaw) "ffrooow him to the ground"

You ever hear the tragedy of Phallus Giganteus the Massive? I thought so. Not a story the Greeks would tell you.

@@robertbruce7686 Wuffly!

SO ARE THEY ALL; ALL HONORABLE MEN!

@@clovispadilha3237 I have come here to speak at Caesar's funeral. He was my friend, he was faithful and just to me.

@@MusaMansu But Brutus says he was ambitious, and Brutus is an honourable man.

@Hernando Malinche If it were so it was a grievous fault! And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it. He hath brought many captives home to Rome whose ransoms did the general coffers fill: did this in Caesar seem ambitious? When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept! Ambition should be made of sterner stuff, yet Brutus says he was ambitious; and Brutus is an honourable man. You do know that on the Lupercal , Antony thrice presented him a kingly crown, which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition? Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; and, sure, he is an honourable man. I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, but here I am to speak what I do know. We all did love him once, not without cause: what cause withholds us then, to mourn for him? O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason! Bear with me; my heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, and I must pause till it come back to me.

BTW does anyone know if Brutus is a regional name, meaning someone from Brutia? Same with the word brutal. You know, the Brutti tribe from Campania

So Simplified German was a thing?

Yes and the german parts pissed the rest off by their superior attitude

the legion was a mean for foreigners to serve and later becoming French proper, so it's different than the Austro-Hungarian, having multi-lingual army domestically.

Good point, Reof.

FFL requires recruits to "learn" French, but it's a rudimentary version of French enough for them to follow orders. You're not going to master the language in 6 months.

.. and to then tax them mercilessly 😈

@@Rampart.X And steal property when they government needed money. Maybe that's why burrowed vases with coins and jewelry have been found.

Wasn't the first census taken in Egypt?

@@TheAlmightyAss I believe the Sumerians did it even before them, perhaps Babylonians or Assyrians .

i like to think 'census' exist since the dawn of organized society

Hmph... southerners... /this comment was brought to you by the Ultima Thule tribes

I see a noble here.

Is there a latin keyboard? How do u have the - on your letters?

@@full-timepog6844 there is a Latin keyboard, it’s the one you are using actually... The English alphabet is really just the Latin alphabet with a few more letters. As far as the - above some of the letters in my name, they are accent marks, and most keyboards have access to them.

I find Metatron profoundly cringy and boring. 45 minute videos which could be condensed in 20 minutes, as well as his new Cringe Legion stuff. Urgh, hard pass.

Some days Rome regrets conquering the hood.

@@stephenkenney8290 😂😂😂

@@stephenkenney8290 BY JUPITER, MY SIDES!!

@@stephenkenney8290 best

@@procrastinator99 By Odin My Ears

At least in China the language itself was the same in a literary sense but there was an official dialect spoken for administration for each dynasty

@@horsenuggets1018 exactly, and with it constantly changing with every dynasty, it's amazing how they managed to keep the communication going

Because they had a lingua franca. It's the same today ,just look at what language we are using here and how many of us are not native speakers, I am not for example.

@@JayzsMr still though, the idea is amazing to me

Well India was never really untied except a few times in history. Under the Mauryan dynasty (325BC-185BC), Mughals (1500s-1700s) and British (1800s-1947).

It's like how today, there are pictures and numbers in fast food restaurants above the ordering counter, which must serve the same purpose. The more things change...

Giorgio Tsoukalos, who himself speaks Greek, English, German, French and Italian fluently.

Is that even possible? ( suspense pause) it may just be.... Aliens

Epstein non sibi mortem.

@@Dankschon nice

Caralho, o dovahatty comentando em um canal que só fala de Roma? Que coisa estranha! Kkkkk

Inclusive, parabéns pelo conteúdo cara, um dos melhores do RU-vid.

Looking forward to your video on Justinian!

Patricians in the comment section.

The auxiliaries were at it again.

Last time i was this early Venus was fucking with a random man.

@@Ermagron If Venus exists, wouldn't she be doing so right now? Do you have any idea how little that narrows it down?

Boring

@@davidmoser3535 yeah like your Mom

For me I really enjoyed reading as a kid (and also watching it as well).

They're awesome

@@casparvoncampenhausen5249 Agreed.

Im just surprised how far it is known. Im from eastern Europe and also know about asterix and obelix

@@cactuslietuva I'm from Australia - and I know it was around when my parents were children as well.

@CipiRipi00 those are essential, but a soldier still needs to ask for the prices at the local brothel, and must be able to insult the owner for the bad wine/beer.

Lmao cringe

Soldiers have been drunks and skirt chasers since forever. Its pretty much a rule. Any soldier that says 'the guys in my platoon are not like that' is either lying or he's incredibly naive about the people he's dealing with.

The first thing I learned was how to do a four count push up. Only later was I told about the four fundamentals of the army. 1. Find oil. 2. Secure oil. 3. Buy a Dodge Charger. 4. Marry a stripper. But “corrective training” comes first.

1 call them a soldier, 2 punch a liver beforehand and 3 they don't have a choice. soldiers, everyone!

Cicero still had hands.

@Anessen All three of them! Definitely before he got his tongue pierced by Fulvia

@@MrAwrsomeness I think he is referring to how Antony ordered Cicero's hands to be cut (as well as his head) and be brought to the speaking platform he used, as revenge for Cicero's criticism towards him. I am probably wrong though

You know that ancient aliens built the pyramids, and they were present also present in the first thanksgiving.

@Swissmith: I still remember reading one issue during my childhood in which the two wound up in a city in southern Gaul and everyone but them had a deep tan..

Bad wifi on the fringes of the empire

They did, but they would’ve had to use 5G, and we all know how that causes cancer.

Dude are you for real? Google didn't even exist in this time! They probably used Bing or something...

@@chienbanane3168 Pretty sure the root of the problem is that they had to use the ancien "Internet Explorer", and we all know how horrendous it runs.

Their GPS was bogus too. Everywhere said "hic sunt leones"

@@swissmilitischristilxxii3691 Nero had a thing for greeks

@@CDNShuffle me too

@Marcelo Henrique Soares da Silva Yes, in the XI century. In the beginings, when the Varengians where really Varengians, and not exiled Saxons, the commander was a greek Akolouthos.

Or, they start racking up diciplinary infractions for misunderstanding orders fast...

considering the absolute abysmal pay for the french foreign legion, recruits must primarily come from the third world or from people seeking EU citizenship. money is a great motivator.

@@zeriyx That's so not true. Majority of legionnaires today are from Europe or North America. It usually has to do with countries downsizing their militaries, a bunch of unemployed ex-military on the market looking for new work. And legionnaire pay is not that bad, it's on par with that of the US army.

@@taoliu3949 it's less than the US army and it scales more slowly, unless it has recently changed.

@@zeriyx A brand new Legionnaire makes 1348Euro/1636USD a month, which is about the same as a brand new E1 in the US Military. Pay goes up significantly if you're in a Para regiment, moreso than US Army Jump Pay. The same goes for deployment pay too. Pay does scale slower with rank, but by then we're not talking about new joins anymore.

*Historia Civillis has entered the chat*

peter macolino yup.

The show is German and so are actors portraying Germanic people. There is almost no evidence about language of Germanic people at the time of events depicted by the show, only speculative linguistic theories based on later historical sources.

@@dinodinoslav linguistics "theories" are not speculative, but logical derivations in the sense of a mathematical proof. That's why they are no theories, but laws.

@@sualtam9509 "Logical derivation" is what kind of nonsense? Linguists can only speculate about their language, there is no historical evidence in written form and no living speakers... Even if they spend lifetime doing this, they will only have unprovable theory at best - bullshit science.

@@dinodinoslav No because you can also predict real languages before you find the textual evidence. For example Mycenean was for a long time a reconstructed language of Ancient Greek until the Linear B script was decoded and it could be read.

Me too.

😭😭😭😭🔥

My heart is broken every time I see a video about it.

Me as a history geek 😢

Unfortunately, yeah.

Or their wive/women screaming

@@ronjayrose9706 lmao

The late army spoke Greek as the Roman empire had developed into the Byzantine empire.

@LegoGuy87 Latin was dropped in the Byzantine empire over 1000 years ago. As the so called Byzantine empire actually was called "the Roman empire", because it was a continuation of it. Whatever they were called or called themselves, the language they spoke was Greek. Also many people seem not to know that the Roman empire turned into the greco-roman empire after Greek territories were conquered. Greek was one of the two official languages of the Roman empire, the Roman elite spoke Greek as well as Latin. It was common for Roman noble families to send their sons to study in Greece or have them educated by a Greek teacher. Greek was used in Roman administration and military already when the republic ended . There is though an area where Latin was in use until not many centuries ago, which is the German speaking world.

too soon

@@_raresis5405 just like that assault

Boring

This. Its been a year already

After all, it's "Integrate or suffer" kind of a world. Very objective. Very pragmatic. Something we can all pick up right now.

the roman language is called latin

Lives in very windy lands. Decides that a mini skirt is acceptable wear for men. Spends their lives imitating Marylin Monroe. I will never understand Scottish men.

in english, the netherlands is an odd name for a country, and it seemingly has nothing to do with the demonym "dutch". "holland" is just easier on the ears.

The Dutch government only put actions to rebrand it as Netherlands from Holland only in 2019. So you can't say people are ignorant when your own government didn't make it clear. If you can't tell the difference between the UK, Great Britain and England then you are arrogant... Get off your pedestal lad, from a country that just has bikes and weed you need to chill.

It's ironic really. Seeing as the batavians came from the southern regions of the Netherlands. So... Brabant. Which explains a lot.

In Spanish we call the Netherlands Holanda. I learned something new now.

@@nffctrickett In some languages the UK is known as a rendition of England. In Mandarin Chinese the UK is still England and the Netherlands is still Holland.

Rickon?!

@@clovispadilha3237 Dickon *Bronn laughs*

I bet there was an earlier Celtic version of the "fookin legend".

Britain also had 4 legions stationed there for about 100 years and 3 for 250 years which was more than the average province with 2 remaining after 300AD until the last few decades of direct Roman rule. Partially because of the tribes beyond Hadrian's Wall and partially because Britannia was a pretty rebellious province, especially what is now North Wales which in modern day is still where you will find the most native speakers of Welsh.

@CipiRipi00 True although they did strike a deal with Gallia or were part of the same revolt a couple of times. And in the case of Carausius, he was in charge of the Classis Britannica and got legions to join him rather than a legion or governor convincing him to join them.

What minute is this in?

Really?

Do you have any mention, article or book to support your point? and if you could also explain what you call 'a sarasin' or an 'arab pirate' in the 10th century that would be cool too.

Me too.