Languages of Two Oikoumenês

[rfmcdonald]

Oikoumenê: Term from the Greek, referring to the sum total of Classical civilization, broadly defined as the area incorporated in the sphere of the Roman Empire. The Oikoumenê is an integrated economic and political space marked by the presence of a common culture. Let's say that early 21st century Earth, Western-dominated as it is, is also an Oikoumenê.

Latin = English

• The dominant languages of the two Oikoumenês. Both languages were originally spoken by populations at the far fringes of the civilized world--Latin in central Italy amid savage Italic-speaking tribes and incorporated at the margins of the Etruscan sphere, English on the island of Britain. The two languages rapidly expanded only as a result of imperial acquisitions, of grand efforts at colonization in their immediate hinterlands (Italy; Ireland) and then by a maritime-driven expansion initially linked to trade then by colonization and assimilation (Iberia, Africa and Gaul; North America and Australasia). From these greatly expanded territories, the future hegemonic languages of the Oikoumenê were then spread throughout the old colonized world by imperial conquest, trade, and migration.

Greek = French, Spanish, German

• These four languages were the old linguae franca of the civilized world, but were marginalized by the rapid expansion of their contemporary linguistic hegemons. Nonetheless, in the areas of the world that they influenced--Latin America, West Africa, the Hellenistic sphere in the east, central Europe, Sicily--they remain languages of note, entirely competitive in their limited domains with the Oikoumenê's dominant language.

Egyptian/Coptic = Italian, Polish, Portuguese

• These four languages might have large numbers of speakers, but for all intents and purposes their are limited exclusively to the lands where these languages originally developed, with perhaps one or two outliers. They are associated with the Oikoumenê's semiperiphery, with labour- and population-exporting areas, and generally politically subordinate to the core.

Yes, it's a bit of an ethnocentric comparison. Still, there's some points of interest.

(Thanks to the various--first James B., then ebeloic and taem.