What if a Latin based language like Aromanian became the language of the Byzantine Empire?

So, in most places controlled by the Roman Empire, with sizeable Latinized populations a version of vulgar Latin became one of today's Romance languages, with the exception of Britain and Greece/Byzantium.

Why in the Eastern Empire did Greek eventually replace Latin and why didn't the population adopt Latin or a vulgar Latin like in Gaul, Hispania, and Romania?

What if a language like Aromanian became the language of the Byzantine Empire?

I'm thinking of Aromanian because it is a Hellenic influenced Romance tongue. How would this affect the development of the Byzantine Empire if it all?

How would it change the Greek National identity? Would their even be a "Hellenic" Greece?
 
Greeks had been colonizing inland Anatolia, Alexandria Egypt, and northern Syria (Antioch, Laodicea) since Alexander had conquered the Persian Empire. This started in the 330s B.C.

This continued on 1) even after Rome conquered Greece Proper because Greeks had set up at least multiple independent states in these areas I just mentioned, allowing the Hellenization to keep going, 2) if Greeks didn't colonize the area wholesale they at least became the ruling class and so Greek became THE lingua franca at the very least, and 3) Rome admired Greece and Greek-settled lands so much Greek colonization or at least cultural Hellenization continued on even when the lands were part of the Roman Empire.

When the Western Empire fell and then Egypt and southern Syria to the Arabs in the 610s, most of the areas left were ethnically Greek (Greece, Thrace, Cyprus, Aegean Turkey, the area of the Trebizond Empire/northeastern coastal Turkey) or at least dominated by a Greek upper class and a Greek lingua franca (everywhere else in Anatolia, north Syria). Essentially you're left with 'Greece' in a sense, if a much greater version of it and so it was de-facto a Greek Empire with the Roman name and governmental institutions. Remember, Greek colonization in these areas occurred from Alexander the Great (330s B.C.) to Heraclius, under whom the Syriac lands were lost to the Arabs and Greek became the official language (610 A.D.). That's a LONG TIME for Greek culture and language to settle in and get entrenched, especially by a power that respects you and lets your local culture and language to continue on unabated.

Aromanian was basically a language spoken by poor peasants on the fringes of the Byzantine Empire and wasn't even spoken by THAT many as a monolingual tongue (again, Greek lingua franca!). It'd be like Spanish becoming an official language of the USA, especially before the 20th century Mexican migration from the 1940s onward.

I'm sure there's tons to nitpick in my generalization, by Byzantophiles on this board but I think that's a reasonable gist of it.
 
Why in the Eastern Empire did Greek eventually replace Latin and why didn't the population adopt Latin or a vulgar Latin like in Gaul, Hispania, and Romania?
Thing is, Greek didn't replace Latin, as much as it was already an institutional language in Eastern Romania since the beggining : Latin law is virtually absent in these provinces, Roman law is limited to an handful of colonies, etc.
Even if eastern Roman institutions (municipal or provincial) goes trough an important romanisation or adaptation to roman state structures, it's almost entierly done in Greek, as hellenization becomes a main feature of eastern romanisation.

Heraclius' edict is eventually more the acknowledgement that the Roman empire is essentially hellenic (altough in its romanized form), after decades of de facto domination of Greek (except, maybe, in the western armies).
 
Thing is, Greek didn't replace Latin, as much as it was already an institutional language in Eastern Romania since the beggining : Latin law is virtually absent in these provinces, Roman law is limited to an handful of colonies, etc.
Even if eastern Roman institutions (municipal or provincial) goes trough an important romanisation or adaptation to roman state structures, it's almost entierly done in Greek, as hellenization becomes a main feature of eastern romanisation.

Heraclius' edict is eventually more the acknowledgement that the Roman empire is essentially hellenic (altough in its romanized form), after decades of de facto domination of Greek (except, maybe, in the western armies).

So, no way to Romanize the Greeks? Or at least, create a lasting Latin speaking upper class?
 
That's the whole point : they were romanized. But remember that romanisation is more political than cultural, even in the West (even if it's definitely more the case in the West) : eastern Romania's political structures underwent a romanization with various boulè being more akin to either municipes or even senates, or hellenic cities develloping a taste for gladiatorial fights, or the important participation of hellenized orators and civil servants to Romania administration, etc.

It's just that linguistically, there was not much to do : Greek was already not only an immensely prestigious language, but it was a lingua franca of all the eastern Mediterranean basin. Rather than force all elites to learn Latin at the very real risk to antagonize them, critically when Roman elite take good care to learn Greek themselves, it was simply far easier to use Greek in everyday and even formal management in Eastern Romania.

And it did worked : Greek language, in Eastern Romania, was a vector of romanisation.

The more obvious way that Greek wouldn't become an almost-official language in Romania would be to prevent Rome conquering the core of hellenic culture (which are, by the IInd century BCE, the hellenic kingdoms in Asia and Asiatic shores, rather than Greece proper). But of course, it would imply a whole migration of butterflies to the OP.
 
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