The one part of the Roman world in which Latin did not gain an undisputed pre-eminence was the Greek East.  The Romans freely recognized the peculiar position which Greek was destined to hold in that part of the Empire, and styled it the altera lingua.  Even in Greek lands, however, Latin gained a strong hold, and exerted considerable influence on Greek[8].

In a very thoughtful paper on “Language-Rivalry and Speech-Differentiation in the Case of Race-Mixture,"[9] Professor Hempl has discussed the conditions under which language-rivalry takes place, and states the results that follow.  His conclusions have an interesting bearing on the question which we are discussing here, how and why it was that Latin supplanted the other languages with which it was brought into contact.

He observes that when two languages are brought into conflict, there is rarely a compromise or fusion, but one of the two is driven out of the field altogether by the other.  On analyzing the circumstances in which such a struggle for supremacy between languages springs up, he finds four characteristic cases.  Sometimes the armies of one nation, though comparatively small in numbers, conquer another country.  They seize the government of the conquered land; their ruler becomes its king, and they become the aristocracy.  They constitute a minority, however; they identify their interests with those of the conquered people, and the language of the subject people becomes the language of all classes.  The second case arises when a country is conquered by a foreign people who pour into it with their wives and children through a long period and settle permanently there.  The speech of the natives in these circumstances disappears.  In the third case a more powerful people conquers a country, establishes a dependent government in it, sends out merchants, colonists, and officials, and establishes new towns.  If such a province is held long enough, the language of the conqueror prevails.  In the fourth and last case peaceful bands of immigrants enter a country to follow the humbler callings.  They are scattered among the natives, and succeed in proportion as they learn the language of their adopted country.  For their children and grandchildren this language becomes their mother tongue, and the speech of the invaded nation holds its ground.

The first typical case is illustrated by the history of Norman-French in England, the second by that of the European colonists in America; the Latinization of Spain, Gaul, and other Roman provinces furnishes an instance of the third, and our own experience with European immigrants is a case of the fourth characteristic situation.  The third typical case of language-conflict is the one with which we are concerned here, and the analysis which we have made of the practices followed by the Romans in occupying newly acquired territory, both in Italy and outside the peninsula, shows us how closely they conform to the typical situation.