The Political Inquirer

The List Universe has a new list: the top ten myths about the Romans. We sometimes mention the Romans in our discussions on history at the Inquirer, so I thought this might be appropriate and interesting to some:

(Click here for the full list)

7. ) Romans Spoke Latin

While it is true that the Romans did speak a form of Latin known as vulgar Latin, it was quite different from the Classical Latin that we generally think of them speaking (Classical Latin is what we usually learn at University). Vulgar Latin is the language that the Romance languages (Italian, French, etc.) developed from. Classical Latin was used as an official language only. In addition, members of the Eastern Roman Empire were speaking Greek exclusively by the 4th century, and Greek had replaced Latin as the official language.