COMPARING ENGLISH IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD AND LATIN IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE: IS LINGUISTIC IMPERIALISM A NEW PHENOMENON?

Abstract

http://dx.doi.org/10.7220/2335-2027.7.1

Some scholars support the existence of a close similarity between the role played by Latin in the Roman Empire and by English in the contemporary world as supra-local languages, by resorting to the assumption of a close similarity between the Roman Empire and today’s globalized world. However, an overview on these two historical phenomena shows substantial differences. First of all, Latin was the supra-local language par excellence only in the Western part of the empire, because in the Eastern part this role was mostly played by Greek. In addition, during the Roman Empire Latin was the language of the administration, but on the whole it did not have a notable clout, since the actors that had traditionally played a key-role in spreading languages in Modern Europe were absent: the concept of national language was unknown, there was no compulsory education, and nothing comparable to mass-media existed. By focusing on the contemporary globalized society, one can observe that language is crucial in legitimizing the institutions, in supporting specific economic powers and the cultures related to such powers. In particular, the current linguistic imperialism of English is strictly bound to those economic powers that interlock with (and take advantage of) political, military, educational structures and mass-media (as significantly witnessed by the processes of McDonaldization and Coca-Colonization). The present comparison between past and present situations is not limited to these situations as such, but is aimed at better highlighting the respective differences: in this case, the recourse to the past is useful to see the contemporary issues concerning multilingualism under a different viewpoint.