Which of these Empires do you have a higher opinion of: British, or Roman?

[parochial boy]

We already know that your historical takes aren't the best but the idea that Christianity is the only thing which was spread by the Roman Empire is just utterly laughable.

Look, there is absolutely no connection between the Roman Empire and the Latin alphabet, or the Romance language, or the word « empire ». None whatsoever.

[parochial boy]

We already know that your historical takes aren't the best but the idea that Christianity is the only thing which was spread by the Roman Empire is just utterly laughable.

Look, there is absolutely no connection between the Roman Empire and the Latin alphabet, or the Romance language, or the word « empire ». None whatsoever.

Most of the spread of the Roman Language and Alphabet that is used today is from the Roman Republic, not the Roman Empire.

As much as it being weirdly pedantic and pointless to try and treat the two as two totally discrete political entities (France didn't colonise Quebec you see, because it was the Kingdom of France, a totally different thing), at the time the Republic became the Empire, Gaul was very definitely not predominantly Latin speaking.

In fact even beyond that, if you just get rid of Rome in 47 BC you never have the development of vulgar latin which goes on to be the language that most contemporary romance languages derive from. You know, because otherwise Latin was going to that one unique language that doesn't change at all in 500 years. Likewise, if Gaul never starts speaking Latin, the French language never develops and consequentially modern English is a completely unrecognisable and incomprehensible language compared to what it is today.

So, uh, yes. Even with your logic, no Roman empire = no modern romance languages and no modern English either and god knows how much that changes the modern world.

[parochial boy]

There’s a difference between “contributing” and “influencing.” Nazi Germany influenced the modern world greatly- it’s pretty difficult to imagine what the world would be like has it never existed, and it hasn’t even been 80 years since their fall. But Nazi Germany didn’t “contribute” anything to the modern world. The Roman Empire existed for 500 years and controlled a massive amount of territory, and many many shoot-offs, therefore was guaranteed to have a great deal of influence.

Anyways, conflating the Roman Empire and the Roman Republic is like conflating Turkey with the Ottoman Empire. It’s definitely not “pointless” to treat those as separate entities.

Modern-day England is more influenced by German and Celtic people than Romance ones, lol. 

Adding to Conservatopia's point. The transition of the Ottoman empire to Turkey involved a massive territorial restructuring; waves of genocide and ethnic cleansing; a complete reorientation of the institusions of state; the place of religion and of national identity. That's quite... different.

On the other point, about half of the modern English lexicon consists of originally Latin, principally French ones. Just to cite a few example in your recent posts: "modern", "influence", "people", "romance", "contribution", "election" and "Britain" all come from Latin originally. All bar the last coming through the medium of medieval French. It's why English is so distinct from other germanic language.

England was also ruled by a French speaking (ie romance) ruling class for centuries - which can still be seen in the names of many of it's modern institutions. You know "parliament", "prime minister", the "city" of London. That's quite a lot of influence; or "contribution" to what makes modern Britain Britain.

It's a large part of why English is so distinct from every other germanic language

[parochial boy]

Adding to Conservatopia's point. The transition of the Ottoman empire to Turkey involved a massive territorial restructuring; waves of genocide and ethnic cleansing; a complete reorientation of the institusions of state; the place of religion and of national identity. That's quite... different.

On the other point, about half of the modern English lexicon consists of originally Latin, principally French ones. Just to cite a few example in your recent posts: "modern", "influence", "people", "romance", "influence", "election" and "Britain" all come from Latin originally. All bar the last coming through the medium of medieval French. It's why English is so distinct from other germanic language.

England was also ruled by a French speaking (ie romance) ruling class for centuries - which can still be seen in the names of many of it's modern institutions. You know "parliament", "prime minister", the "city" of London. That's quite a lot of influence; or "contribution" to what makes modern Britain Britain.

It's a large part of why English is so distinct from every other germanic language

Latin was already widespread in France before the formation of the Roman Empire. While the Roman Empire continued it’s use and further solidified it, the reason why it got there was the Roman Republic, which contrary to what your saying, was absolutely a very distinct political entity from the Roman Empire, with a very turbulent transition between the two.

The transition from the Kingdom of France to the first republic was also famously "turbulent". Still does not mean we consider post revolution France as a separate entity. In fact part of the propaganda of many of the early Roman empires was even centred around the need to "protect" or "restore" republican institutions; the senate still existed, etc, etc. They saw themselves as a continuation of the Republic, shall we say.

As for Latin. As anyone who has ever read an Asterix book would know, Gaul was finally conquered by Rome in about 50 BC. Does not leave much time for the local population to become romanised in the two odd decades before the Republic fell.

In fact, it was only by the second century AD that Latin really became a vehicular language used across the empire. A long time after Rome started having emperors.