The language of Byzantine Italy

From what I have read, before the Norman invasion of Byzantine Italy, the Sicilian language or Calabro-Sicilian was a language similar to Romanian and its remnants would be the Castelmezzano dialect, would this remain this way if Sicily and the Catapenate of Italy remained existing.
 
From what I have read, before the Norman invasion of Byzantine Italy, the Sicilian language or Calabro-Sicilian was a language similar to Romanian and its remnants would be the Castelmezzano dialect, would this remain this way if Sicily and the Catapenate of Italy remained existing.
Similar to Romanian? To this day most varieties in the Peninsula are Eastern Romance like Romanian, but I imagine the Romance speeches at the time would have been in Naples and Sicily more Greek influenced and less influenced by northern Gallo-Italian, Occitan or French speeches.
 
Similar to Romanian? To this day most varieties in the Peninsula are Eastern Romance like Romanian, but I imagine the Romance speeches at the time would have been in Naples and Sicily more Greek influenced and less influenced by northern Gallo-Italian, Occitan or French speeches.

Perhaps we could have Slavic influences from foederati as well..just like Romanians..


The dialect of Castelmezzano is a Romance variety spoken in Castelmezzano in the Province of Potenza in Italy. It differs from surrounding Neapolitan language and Gallo-Italiclanguages as it has an Eastern Romance vocalism (the same merger of Latin vowels that the Dalmatian[clarification needed] and Romanian languages do). It is therefore sometimes classified as Eastern Romance.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castelmezzano_dialect
 
It certainly shares features of Eastern Romance, but it's important to remember that Eastern Romance is a relatively broad category which formed an increasingly disparate continuum with Romanian being the most isolated from Latin culture of the period and Castelmezzano probably the most exposed. Though this brings to mind an interesting related question; what was the normal language of administration in the Catapenate?
 
Top