Bilingualism and the Latin Language (review)

"How much Latin did Jesus Christ know?" This question, prompted by the Latin-speaking Jesus of Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ, was posed to me several times recently. In our age of globalization awareness of the position of linguistic and cultural minorities is rising: people are under pressure to learn the dominant international language (English), while many other languages are marginalized or even threatened with extinction. In the train of the sociolinguists, scholars of ancient languages are coming to grips with shifts in the language used by individuals and communities and the fact that bilingualism is/was more common than traditional accounts of language acknowledge.

Bilingual inscriptions are one symptom of a transitional state, as is the imitation of the formulas of one language in another. Besides inscriptions, stray literary references and linguistic borrowings are relevant, as is script. The treatment of names, including filiation, is another telling indicator. Such an intricately ramified subject demands knowledge of a number of ancient languages and the scripts used to write them, onomastics, socio- and general linguistics, and broad reading in ancient sources and the relevant modern literature. It is Adams' great merit to have painstakingly gathered the disparate materials and subjected them to probing analysis.

The heart of the book comprises a survey of languages in contact with Latin, a detailed analysis of code switching, and a study of the linguistic features Latin developed in contact with other languages. Adams also considers such topics as Latin in Egypt, bilingualism at Delos, and the recently edited bilinguals from the Gallic-Latin pottery at La Gaufesenque. The book has been beautifully produced by Cambridge University Press and is remarkably error-free. A brief review can offer the merest taste of this substantial feast.

Out of his evidence Adams teases the profiles of some bold linguistic border-crossers. For non-Romans, the Roman army offered an attractive career, but officers had to have at least some Latin. The Vindolanda tablets show that Cerealis, a Roman officer of Batavian origin, wrote very competent Latin. In the other direction, Romans were less likely to learn foreign languages, but trade provided incentives, as in the case of Q. Atilius, whose epitaph is extant. Another example, for different reasons, is St. Jerome, who achieved an excellent knowledge of Hebrew but had great difficulty with Aramaic.

Code switching, i.e., changing to language x within a context of language y, is widespread in bilingual communities, and sociolinguists have tried to develop a typology of triggering situations. Adams explores the phenomenon with particular reference to the rich vein of code switching in Cicero's letters. Here he shows the inadequacy of previous interpretations that emphasized Greek as a "language of intimacy" because it was the language of early élite education. He shows Cicero's code switching to be much more complexly motivated, part accommodation to the taste of the addressee, part showing off, part expression of (in)group solidarity, part distancing device, part quest for the mot juste.

Latinists will find a number of insights here, such as the possible Punic origin of the common greeting aue, the significance of Julius Caesar's last words, a Semitism in the language of one of Petronius' freedmen, and a solid treatment of the much-discussed question of African Latinity. Historians will also want to be familiar with Adams' findings, since issues of ethnic identity and dominance or recessiveness of language and culture are implicated at every turn.

To return to my initial problem: though Jesus evidently knew enough Latin to make out the legend on a coin, Romans generally communicated with Aramaic speakers via Greek (see 294).