The Latinization of southern Italy.

[Artemidoros]

A different perspective of the Latinization of the Italian South and especially Calabria, seeing it through an onomastic study.
I found a very interesting site.

www.maridonna.com/onomastics/Southern%20Italian%20Names/SITN_INTRO.htm

I was already aware that the Greek language had persisted in parts of Magna Graecia and is indeed barely alive to date. What I had not realized was that Greek was by far the dominant language right up until the 12th century and beyond. I thought that Latin had competed for supremacy in the area starting a few centuries after the Roman conquest. This does not appear to be the case until after the end of the Norman era. It is obvious that somebody called Ioannis Leandros can only be a Greek speaker. Of course there are plenty of non-Greek influences but the names are Hellenized, giving away the fact that the person spoke Greek. For example Girardos Kalaphatis. Most Greek names show a Byzantine influence which is not surprising since the area was a Byzantine "thema" until the midle of the 11th century.
It is not until the 14th century that the names appear in Latin form. Some are Latinisized Greek names, other names are non-Greek (newcomers?). The phenomenon seems very sudden and in my opinion points to the direction of forced assimilation.

[Artemisia]

Could it be that Greek was dominant in southern Italy until the 12th century due to Byzantine rule?

Many former Greek cities in Italy did indeed keep their Greek language alive during Roman rule, but many others were Romanized and lost it. The cities which were mostly Greek-speaking until the 3rd century and after were Neapolis, Rhegium, Tarentum (Taras) and Velia (Elea). Interestingly, many of the citizens of the Roman colonia of Corinth in Greece were actually Romanized freedmen and freedwomen, many of them the descendents of the original Greek citizens of Magna Graecia. Corinth officially switched to the Greek (rather than the former Latin) language during the reign of Hadrian.

With the onset of Byzantine rule and its influence in southern Italy, I am sure that many of these Romanized descendents of Greeks were more than pleased to return back to their original language/culture. Hundreds of years of Roman rule does not necessarily mean that these Italian Greeks forgot their original ancestry. Look at the Arvanites in Greece and Italy for example: many of them speak Arvanitika and are very willing to converse with Albanian immigrants in Albanian (although their Albanian is poor and sometimes too old-fashioned .)

[Artemidoros]

Could it be that Greek was dominant in southern Italy until the 12th century due to Byzantine rule?

It certainly prolonged its existense and strenghtened it but I think Greek was already dominant in most areas. The Byzantines never seriously tried to Hellenize other ethnic groups in the empire. The east (Anatolia), the west (southern Italy) and the south (Greece) were already Hellenized. The north (Albanians, Bulgarians, Serbs) retained their languages with minor Greek influence. Of course the type of Greek spoken in southern Italy must have been seriously influenced, much like the Greek spoken in Cyprus is influenced by Helladic Greek today. Then I am no expert, I might be completely wrong.

[Artemisia]

Artemidoros said:

It certainly prolonged its existense and strenghtened it but I think Greek was already dominant in most areas.

It was actually NOT dominant in Magna Graecia after the 1st Century AD. There were still Greek-speakers in most of the former Greek cities but the Romans sent Latin colonists to most of these Greek cities and enforced a Latinization policy. Neapolis was the one major Greek city where they intentionally allowed Greek to be the official language (many Romans sent their children to learn Greek at Neapolis).

The Byzantines never seriously tried to Hellenize other ethnic groups in the empire. The east (Anatolia), the west (southern Italy) and the south (Greece) were already Hellenized. The north (Albanians, Bulgarians, Serbs) retained their languages with minor Greek influence.

Well, they did try to Hellenize the non-Greek elements of Anatolia but many were Hellenized at a much later date (e.g., the Mysians weren't fully Hellenized until the 9th century.)
That's why I have a feeling that southern Italy became re-hellenized during Byzantine times. The Byzantines must have activated the Hellenic ancestry of many of these inhabitants of south Italy and hellenization must have soon spread to other non-Greek elements.

[Artemidoros]

A relevant piece from the book Polyglot Italy by Dr. Jeoffrey Hull.

"The expanding Roman Empire had annexed the whole of Magna Graecia and Sicily by 241 B.C.; and while the Romans planted Latin colonies here and there, on the whole they treated the Italian Greeks as confederates, respecting their language and culture. In Rome itself Greek was employed as a second language and in the first Christian centuries the city had a large Greek-speaking minority. Latin spread through the Greek cities of the South as an administrative language but Greek held its own as a literary medium and the speech of the common people in many areas. At the height of the Empire Vulgar Latin had inplanted itself as the vernacular only as far south as the Apulian towns of Tarentum and Brundisium, and the river Crati in Buruttium (the modern Calabria) The Salentine peninsula, lower Calabria and eastern Sicily remained for the time being strongholds of the Greek language.

In the last centuries of the Empire Latin began to encroach upon literary Greek in Magna Graecia, and it is possible that the Greek vernacular itself might have given way to early Romance had it not been for the Byzantine invasion of 535. Once Constantinople had replaced Rome as the centre of government, Greek was restored as the official language of southern Italy and Sicily and cultural ties with the Hellenic mainland were reaffirmed."

There is some more opax.swin.edu.au/~303289/greek.htm