Paraphrasing and Summarising (Week 4)

1.  In this short excerpt from David Crystal’s English as a Global Language, take note of the way that power relationships rather than the number of speakers influenced Latin   language use.

“Latin became an international language throughout the Roman Empire, but this was not because the Romans were more numerous than the peoples they subjugated. They were simply more powerful.” 

Crystal (1997) suggests that it was power, rather than the number of speakers, that caused the widespread of Latin language.

2. “Why a language becomes a global language has little to do with the number of people who speak it. It is much more to do with who those speakers are. Latin became an international language throughout the Roman Empire, but this was not because the Romans were more numerous than the peoples they subjugated. They were simply more powerful. And later, when Roman military power declined, Latin remained for a millennium as the international language of education, thanks to a different sort of power – the ecclesiastical power of Roman Catholicism.”

Source: Crystal, D. (1997). English as a global language. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.

The widespread of Latin language is caused by the powerful status of speakers instead of the number of people in the Roman Empire. Due to the 'ecclesiastical power of Roman Catholicism', the language continued to be the international language of education.

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