# Talk:Languages of the Roman Empire

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Languages of the Roman Empire/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: 3family6 (talk · contribs) 20:33, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
It is reasonably well written.
a (prose, no copyvios, spelling and grammar):  b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists): 
No major errors or copyvios. A few things that I found though:
"Atticism was a trend of the Second Sophistic." - What was the Second Sophistic? There's not even a wikilink.--¿3family6 contribs 18:48, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
Addressed below, not a problem.--¿3family6 contribs 05:37, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
In the section "Western provinces" it discusses Aquitanian and Basque. It includes the claim "the Aquitanian language they spoke was Vasconic like Basque." However, the Wikipedia articles on Vasconic, Aquitanian, and Basque state that the idea of a Vasconic language family is controversial, and that most scholars consider Aquitanian the ancestor to Basque. This needs to be expressed here in the article.--¿3family6 contribs 18:48, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
Per the discussion below, this is a complicated issue, and the content in this section on this article is sourced, so I'm okay with this as is.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 17:52, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
Some citations should go to the end of sentences to improve flow: "Latin was pervasive in the Roman Empire[3] as the language of the law courts in the West, and of the military everywhere.[4]"; "The form of private or personalized ritual characterized as "magic"[178] might be conducted in a hodgepodge of languages."; "The PGM are written primarily in Greek with substantial passages in Demotic Egyptian[183] and inserted strings of syllables that are "pronounceable, though unintelligible".[184]"--¿3family6 contribs 18:48, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
Per response, not a problem.--¿3family6 contribs 05:37, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (reference section):  b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR): 
Accepting sources AGF. All are offline except for the first, and I had difficulty with the reader and could not access it. The article is referenced very well.
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects):  b (focused): 
The sections on "Greek" and "Linguistic legacy" are rather sparse. I'd suggest taking some of the information on each of these from the lead and writing that in the appropriate section.--¿3family6 contribs 18:48, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
Per the discussion below, I am reconsidering and accept the article as-is.
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias: 
Neutral, encyclopedic tone.--¿3family6 contribs 18:48, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.: 
Was subject to persistent vandalism in October, but the semi-protect seems to have resolved that problem.--¿3family6 contribs 18:18, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales):  b (appropriate use with suitable captions): 
Images are relevant with suitable captions. All are licensed for us in the US, though one might not be licensed for non-US countries. Even so, it should fall under fair use guidelines. One image also was incomplete in filling out the permission parameters, so I rectified that.--¿3family6 contribs 18:18, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
Overall: A few issues with the content, and two sections need a bit of expanding. On the whole, though, this article is quite well done, and if these issues are cleared up I'd say it's ready for the next step of a featured article nomination.--¿3family6 contribs 18:48, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
N Problems not resolved.
Y Per the discussion below, I've reconsidered and will pass this nomination.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 17:52, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
Pass/Fail: 


### Request
Historian7, would you allow another day or two to review this article? It is quite extensive and I want time to review it properly. Thanks, --¿3family6 contribs 17:17, 20 November 2014 (UTC)


### Note
Per these discussions, Talk:Women in ancient Rome/GA1#Comment and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome#GA reviews of Women in ancient Rome and Languages of the Roman Empire, Historian7 is now inactive. I will leave this review up for seven days from today, during which any editor can feel free to address the issues I've highlighted. If no one responds, I regretfully will have to fail this nomination. A shame, since it is a high quality article.--¿3family6 contribs 18:48, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Failed, as article has not been improved.--¿3family6 contribs 13:43, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
Some of the requested changes above seem to be matters of personal preference, not whether the article meets GA standards. It may not; but here are a few points:
The reviewer is wrong about the placement of footnotes; see WP:INTEGRITY. The footnotes come in the middle of sentences to avoid synthesis and to make sourcing clear: when two closely related ideas from different sources have been combined into a sentence, each idea is attributed separately.
The reviewer appears not to have noticed that "Second Sophistic" is linked and described as a "cultural milieu" two paragraphs earlier. It would be off-topic to try to define this terribly nebulous movement/milieu here.
About Aquitanian: that's what the cited source said, and all it says here is that Aquitanian is Vasconic, as is Basque. If Basque is derived from Aquitanian, that makes it a Vasconic language, does it not? And this is a rather minor point in the greater scheme of things.
The talk archive will show that the Greek section was a subject of concern from the beginning: it took the paltry shape that it did because Greek is talked about throughout, in multiple contexts, and so the section is treated as a summary section. There's no indication what the reviewer thinks readers need to know about the use of Greek in the Roman Empire that isn't in the article.
Since the introduction summarizes content from the body of the article, moving content from the intro to the body would introduce redundancies without adding content.
"Linguistic legacy" would necessarily be a summary section representing Romance languages, Ecclesiastical Latin and Legal Latin. It's certainly possible to expand that section, but it could also be easy to wander off-topic. Again, the reviewer's suggestion lacks specificity as to what content needs to be added. The length of the section isn't what determines whether it's adequate for the purpose of the article. Cynwolfe (talk) 05:06, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
I'm reopening the review, as you have responded. The reason I failed is because there was no discussion.
Point one - thank you for that link. The guideline shows pros and cons to both, so it is purely the consensus reached for a particular article how it should be done.
Point two - thank you. I tried to find Second Sophistic elsewhere in the article, and I missed that bit.
My point of contention is that the paragraph does not indicate that Aquitanian was probably the ancestor to Basque. When I first read that paragraph, it to me seemed like they are considered sister languages as part of the Vasconic family, which has been hypothesized but mostly rejected.
The lead is supposed to summarize content in the article, and thus is going to be redundant. My contention is not with the length of the sections - it's that information was stated in the lead that I expected to find elaborated in the the relevant sections, and it was not. I don't mind the lead having citations and content not included elsewhere - this isn't an FA. But there is information in the lead that is not elaborated on in the article.--¿3family6 contribs 05:37, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
Cynwolfe, are you willing/able to expand slightly in those two sections per my comments?--¿3family6 contribs 17:11, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
Wish I could, but I'm up to my ears outside Wikipedia. Could you point to something that's in the lead, but not in the article? If the wording in the section on Aquitanian is misleading, that seems easy to fix—though I may've made it vague because I'm not sure all scholars do think Basque develops directly from "Aquitanian", about which we know relatively little. I seem to recall that some think there were multiple Vasconic languages and we can't be sure that Basque developed from what gets called "Aquitanian" in Roman antiquity. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:10, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
Coming at this a while later, with some time to look the article over more, the problems that I saw are not as extensive as I thought. There is this sentence in the lead, "In the early 21st century, the first or second language of more than a billion people derived from Latin" that I had expected would be elaborated on in the linguistic legacy section. Likewise with the use of Latin today. Upon consideration, I don't think these will affect GA status. If this was an FA review, I'd expect a lot more on those areas. With the whole Vasconic languages issue, I was just voicing my experience as a reader that I found it confusing when I clicked-through on some of the wikilinks. But considering that those articles aren't as well developed as this one, I'll chalk it up to the need for further development on the part of those articles. Per this discussion, I have re-considered my fail, and will list this as a GA.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 17:47, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I think the reasons for this edition are inadequate. I respect the knowledge of the editor but his subjective impression about a possible plagiarism (that I explicitly deny because I wrote this section) is not a valid argument. I only used information available in wikipedia (specific articles of the languages contain the information about the time and location of each language), so my section is only a re-writing of the alredy available information, no new information was added, only compiled in a convenient way, --Davius (talk) 18:32, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

I have a concern about the neutrality of this article. It attempts to promote the misconception that Latin was almost exclusively the dominant language of the Empire which is, at best misleading.
Please see Talk:Roman_Empire#"Languages" problem for details of the concern.
- MC  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.131.2.3 (talk) 18:12, 25 August 2016 (UTC) 

I read somewhere that in the Late Empire, Rome itself was a Greek-speaking city surrounded by a Latin-speaking countryside.
It was later that Latin recovered the city.
Could you reference it and add it to the article?
Besides there was a Greek-speaking neighborhood in Rome (near Cosmedin)?
--Error (talk) 11:50, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

The article about Santa Maria in Cosmedin says:
Since it was located near many Byzantine structures,[according to whom?] in 7th century this church was called de Schola Graeca, and a close street is still called della Greca. Greek monks escaping iconoclastic persecutions decorated the church around 782,
so it may be irrelevant for the Empire era. --Error (talk) 11:55, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

I think Arabic, or dialects of it were spoken in the south of the Levant, as it was the place of Arabic people of Petra!

Hello
I'm reviewing the latest scholarship, particularly the ones about Latin and Greek and which I also believe better aligns and strengthens with this article. If people want to join the discussion about the propose rewrite, refer here: Talk:Roman Empire#Languages
Biz (talk) 16:31, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm unclear what the non-technical heading "Main languages" adds to the article, and the text under it seems largely to repeat information already given either just above or throughout the article. When adding sources, it's possible and usually best not to create redundancies but actually to incorporate the new sources into the relevant sections, especially when an article has already been reviewed as "good." Cynwolfe (talk) 13:27, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
Hi thanks for the feedback. However, the sources make it clear Latin and Greek were the main languages of the empire. The first sentence says so as well. By splitting “main languages” from “regional languages” we can make the information more accessible. Do you still disagree?
Further, the lead should not be introducing information and simply summarising what is in the article. The addition supports the ‘above’ in the lead and we can move out the references from there.
I can take a look and integrate after we clear this point. If the additions are a problem to GA status in your eyes, we can remove them as well. Biz (talk) 21:13, 20 April 2025 (UTC)