Template:Did you know nominations/Languages of the Roman Empire

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The following discussion is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Allen3 talk 11:52, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Languages of the Roman Empire[edit]

Palmyrene Aramaic on a bust from Roman Syria

Created by Cynwolfe (talk). Nominated by SL93 (talk) at 03:35, 18 July 2013 (UTC).

  • The creator originally added content from the article Roman Empire, but has significantly expanded on that since then. SL93 (talk) 03:38, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
Whoa, thanks for the nom, but the hook is factually incorrect. The language reform movements had to do with things like standards of correct Greek or Latin, or clarifying that Latin was to be used for internal government business or laws and such. The hook reads as if there were rebellions against the dominance of Greek and Latin. I think there's probably a better hook somewhere having to do with multilingualism rather than the better-known bilingualism of the Empire, but that section isn't fully developed yet. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:47, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
If it's OK, I'm proposing an alt hook and striking the original. No offense! I appreciate the nom. It's just that language reform didn't result from dominance; the language reform movements reflect anxieties about decline of quality or influence of either of the two languages. There may be better hooks, but the point of the article is mainly that multilingualism (usually trilingualism) would've been common outside Italy and Greece. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:25, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

That's fine. SL93 (talk) 18:01, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

An excellent, well-written and -referenced article which had long been missing. Kudos to Cynwolfe for creating it and SL93 for nominating it. The proposed image doesn't quite encapsulate the article or the hook IMO, something more multilingual would be better. Otherwise, it is good to go. Constantine 11:04, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for your extremely kind words, and I agree about the image. My thinking was that it read as "human speaker" rather than just written text. The Punic-Latin inscription from Leptis Magna, alas, would probably not show up at that size. I do find the Syrian bust arresting, and am not sure anything else in the article would show up at that size. Cynwolfe (talk) 19:15, 25 July 2013 (UTC)