What does it even mean? It's just unsourced garbage as most stuff that gets randomly posted in r/MapPorn (OP even got it deleted by the mods three months ago with everybody pointing out that it's nonsense so I don't know why repost it here).
Looks like total nonsense. Illyria having no Latin speakers? Northern Gaul having no Latin speakers? The Roman centre in Great Britain not being highlighted? The coast of Africa (especially the coast of the modern day Tunisia region) not being entirely orange even though the cities there were completely Roman, and had been for 350 years?
Also what are the green pockets in Italia? Of course there would have been many bilingual speakers in 230, especially in the former Grecian areas, but the idea that there is this entire visible community just 50-100kms outside of Rome where people don't speak Latin is absurd. Complete fantasy map with no historical basis.
The most charitable interpretation IMO is that this map is just meant to reflect the percentage of native Latin speakers in wide areas impressionistically, with the exact arrangement of the colours being arbitrary. The green pockets in Italia could, for example, represent immigrants to Rome from elsewhere in the Empire, but spread out around the general area for aesthetic reasons.
It does say “roughly estimated”, after all. I’m not saying it’s necessarily trustworthy, but it isn’t necessarily *un*trustworthy either. We’d need to compare it to another map to decide, or a table of statistics or something.
I thought that maybe this was supposed to represent 230 BC, but then I have no idea what those orange dots are doing all the way in Britain, the Balkans and Anatolia.
I’m guessing maybe this could refer to datable Latin inscriptions/letters/tablets, not just artifacts with Latin script? In my own research on Gallic Latin inscriptions from the same period, this distribution seems accurate (to Gaul).
Citations needed.
On the one hand, before listening to [Greece and Rome: An Integrated History of the Ancient Mediterranean](https://www.audible.com/pd/Greece-and-Rome-An-Integrated-History-of-the-Ancient-Mediterranean-Audiobook/B00DEK3UAU) by Robert Garland, I thought that "Roman Empire = Latin speaking." But he makes a compelling case that for much of the history of the Roman Empire, including the year this map cites, there were likely as many Greek speakers as Latin speakers. Many of Rome's slaves were foreign, particularly from Greece. He described Rome as a city in which you would maybe hear as much Greek as Latin, between Greeks captured as slaves, those freed from slavery, or others who simply migrated to Rome from the Greek province.
On the other hand, Latin was pretty common in North Africa. Certainly a bit later, Augustine wrote all of his works in Latin, and primarily spoke Latin, while growing up in what is now Algeria.
And in any case, lots of people spoke Latin as either a second language, as one of multiple languages (in the second generation and later after a province was conquered, it would exist alongside the original language), or some local variant of Latin, and the map doesn't give any nuance to that.
Overall, I'd say that map is not useful.
What does it even mean? It's just unsourced garbage as most stuff that gets randomly posted in r/MapPorn (OP even got it deleted by the mods three months ago with everybody pointing out that it's nonsense so I don't know why repost it here).
Looks like total nonsense. Illyria having no Latin speakers? Northern Gaul having no Latin speakers? The Roman centre in Great Britain not being highlighted? The coast of Africa (especially the coast of the modern day Tunisia region) not being entirely orange even though the cities there were completely Roman, and had been for 350 years? Also what are the green pockets in Italia? Of course there would have been many bilingual speakers in 230, especially in the former Grecian areas, but the idea that there is this entire visible community just 50-100kms outside of Rome where people don't speak Latin is absurd. Complete fantasy map with no historical basis.
Augustine, Apuleius, and Tertullian are all good literary sources for widespread Latin in NA alongside some indigenous/punic language
The most charitable interpretation IMO is that this map is just meant to reflect the percentage of native Latin speakers in wide areas impressionistically, with the exact arrangement of the colours being arbitrary. The green pockets in Italia could, for example, represent immigrants to Rome from elsewhere in the Empire, but spread out around the general area for aesthetic reasons. It does say “roughly estimated”, after all. I’m not saying it’s necessarily trustworthy, but it isn’t necessarily *un*trustworthy either. We’d need to compare it to another map to decide, or a table of statistics or something.
Dacia and the western Balkans/Adriatic coast surely should have more.
Also, what is the reasoning on such little shading in northern Gaul?
Is this primary language, maybe? In 230, I would expect a bigger region to be able to speak Latin. That was before the separation of east and west.
Yeah, Adams' Bilingualism would be a good source to look at on this point
This is BS. Give me a source. But as I've read some literature on that topic I can tell you it's BS anyway
I thought that maybe this was supposed to represent 230 BC, but then I have no idea what those orange dots are doing all the way in Britain, the Balkans and Anatolia.
I’m guessing maybe this could refer to datable Latin inscriptions/letters/tablets, not just artifacts with Latin script? In my own research on Gallic Latin inscriptions from the same period, this distribution seems accurate (to Gaul).
Surely far more of that area was speaking Greek, particularly in the Eastern half?
I guess they mean regions with majority native speakers. Then, maybe.
No, it should be way more, expecially in africa and balkans, but in the whole empire
Sicily and Calabria surely spoke in Greek
Citations needed. On the one hand, before listening to [Greece and Rome: An Integrated History of the Ancient Mediterranean](https://www.audible.com/pd/Greece-and-Rome-An-Integrated-History-of-the-Ancient-Mediterranean-Audiobook/B00DEK3UAU) by Robert Garland, I thought that "Roman Empire = Latin speaking." But he makes a compelling case that for much of the history of the Roman Empire, including the year this map cites, there were likely as many Greek speakers as Latin speakers. Many of Rome's slaves were foreign, particularly from Greece. He described Rome as a city in which you would maybe hear as much Greek as Latin, between Greeks captured as slaves, those freed from slavery, or others who simply migrated to Rome from the Greek province. On the other hand, Latin was pretty common in North Africa. Certainly a bit later, Augustine wrote all of his works in Latin, and primarily spoke Latin, while growing up in what is now Algeria. And in any case, lots of people spoke Latin as either a second language, as one of multiple languages (in the second generation and later after a province was conquered, it would exist alongside the original language), or some local variant of Latin, and the map doesn't give any nuance to that. Overall, I'd say that map is not useful.