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Old 03-02-2010, 12:41 AM
 
Location: Florida
3,359 posts, read 7,311,307 times
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Originally Posted by BlackShoe View Post
Am not an expert on any era of history, history has been a lifelong interest along with other interests. Somewhat informed layman would be more correct. An area of interest that covers all periods is weapons and warfare in general; arms and armor, firearms, things like that. There are two completely different periods that hold the most appeal and are perhaps my strongest. The first is the nearly 400 years of the Indian wars in North America. The second is the last years of the Roman Republic, 133-27 BC.
Was the Roman empire more reflective of N-African culture or Southern European culture? or a mixture of both?

And when Rome fell, what nations were the citizens absorbed into?
Were Italy, France, and other meditaranian Euro-states once apart of the Roman Empire?
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Old 03-02-2010, 09:27 PM
 
Location: Florida
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Originally Posted by BlackShoe View Post
Much more Southern Europe. The Romans were very strongly influenced by the Greeks, and much of their society reflected this. They even adopted the Greek gods, and just gave them different names. As the empire expanded, they may have absorbed a bit of the culture of North Africa, the Near East, and Western Europe, but it was much more the other way; the conquered peoples became quite Romanized. When the Western empire colapsed in the 5th century, the so called Dark Ages descended, with the former empire fought over by various barbarian and semi barbarian tribes. What is now modern France, Germany, and Britain became lands often divided into petty kingdoms often at war with their neighbors.
Something that has always baffled me, is how could countries so bunched up together, develop such different languages...Such as Spain, France, and Italy...

Also, I just looked at a map or Europe...and for some reason, I always visioned Greece as being located in the upper Mid-west of Europe, and not in the southern east of Western Europe...
And I've always visioned Poland being to the West of Germany...not to the east...

Nor did I realize France was so large...
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Old 03-02-2010, 09:41 PM
 
Location: Parts Unknown, Northern California
48,564 posts, read 24,010,222 times
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The term "Dark Ages" has evolved in historical use to where today it would simply reference the early middle ages, the time between the fall of classical antiquity and the beginning of the rise of nation states.

"Dark is commonly understood to reference a period when there was a regression in the organization of societies with an accompanying loss in the arts, sciences and general scholarship.

It also is frequently employed to reference an era which left behind less historical documentation...thus, a dark page in the history books. We know a great deal more about the Peloponnesian War which took place nearly 2500 years ago, than we do about the Saxon conquest of Britain 1600 years ago. Where Thucydides provided us with exacting details, names and places, Gildas, the only contemporary to chronicle the saga of the Britains, left us still guessing about people and events in the age that inspired the Arthur legends. As an example, historians agree that the Battle of Mount Batan, or Mount Badon....or Mons Badoni ... or maybe Mynydd Baddon, well, whatever it was called, took place somewhere between 490 and 517 CE. Where this place called Mount Batan was, remains completely unknown other than probably being somewhere in SW England or Wales. It was the last great victory for the Britains and it set back the Saxon onslaughts for a generation. We do not know who commanded the armies, how large they were, or how many casualties were inflcited.

As I had cause to note in another thread, advancement in political theory, science, art and education are all the products of civilizations which have created leisure time for segments of the population. The greater the central organization of a society, the more leisure time is generated. It follows that the reverse is true, that the more a society is in a fragmented state, the more it must concentrate on daily survival, the less time is available to devote to the development of an advanced culture.

That is what happened to Europe when the Roman Empire was removed from the equation. Central organization was replaced by chaotic and serial scrambling for minor kingdoms. The men of wealth, the ones who might have had leisure time, now devoted all such hours to to being a full time warrior and nothing else. People did not suddenly become more stupid, it was the environment which changed.
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Old 03-02-2010, 10:00 PM
 
Location: New York City
2,745 posts, read 6,445,871 times
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Originally Posted by Time and Space View Post
Something that has always baffled me, is how could countries so bunched up together, develop such different languages...Such as Spain, France, and Italy...

Also, I just looked at a map or Europe...and for some reason, I always visioned Greece as being located in the upper Mid-west of Europe, and not in the southern east of Western Europe...
And I've always visioned Poland being to the West of Germany...not to the east...

Nor did I realize France was so large...
This post made my day.
No offense
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Old 03-03-2010, 06:53 AM
 
13,134 posts, read 40,540,433 times
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Originally Posted by Time and Space View Post
Something that has always baffled me, is how could countries so bunched up together, develop such different languages...Such as Spain, France, and Italy...
Well yes and no as those languages slowly morphed out of latin (vulgar) as they mixed with the different migrating Germanic peoples ovver the centuries and lastly add in a bit of the different Celt tongue's and culture that survived the Romans.

Heck look at how english it'self has changed numerous times since the 450's as no one today unless specifically trained can speak what we call ''old english'' .

Well except maybe history moderator Trudy Rose
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Old 03-03-2010, 09:43 AM
 
Location: Florida
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Originally Posted by 6 FOOT 3 View Post
Well yes and no as those languages slowly morphed out of latin (vulgar) as they mixed with the different migrating Germanic peoples ovver the centuries and lastly add in a bit of the different Celt tongue's and culture that survived the Romans.

Heck look at how english it'self has changed numerous times since the 450's as no one today unless specifically trained can speak what we call ''old english'' .

Well except maybe history moderator Trudy Rose
Ye, ok thanks for the explanation,

it would kinda be like if a visitor to America came to visit, and the people of Washington, Idaho and Oregon all spoke distinct different languages...

I mean it's like how do you get english from spanish, and how did french evolve from italion and so on...but I ll take your explanation and run with it...
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Old 03-03-2010, 09:47 AM
 
2,377 posts, read 5,389,089 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 6 FOOT 3 View Post
Well yes and no as those languages slowly morphed out of latin (vulgar) as they mixed with the different migrating Germanic peoples ovver the centuries and lastly add in a bit of the different Celt tongue's and culture that survived the Romans.

Heck look at how english it'self has changed numerous times since the 450's as no one today unless specifically trained can speak what we call ''old english'' .

Well except maybe history moderator Trudy Rose
Naht me
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Old 03-03-2010, 10:20 AM
 
13,134 posts, read 40,540,433 times
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Originally Posted by Time and Space View Post
Ye, ok thanks for the explanation,

it would kinda be like if a visitor to America came to visit, and the people of Washington, Idaho and Oregon all spoke distinct different languages...

I mean it's like how do you get english from spanish, and how did french evolve from italion and so on...but I ll take your explanation and run with it...
Just for the sake of discussion ... lets just say that if America was formed in the 400's A.D. from the current peoples here (english, spanish, french, irish/scots, native american) then America could have had seperate countries like western Europe does today.

Also you didn't get english from spanish or french from italian and vice versa as they all (except english) evolved from Latin as that was the Lingua Franca of western Europe for about 500 years and as the different peoples slowly migrated to a certain area in western Europe then over time their tongues morphed several times to eventually speak what we call italian, french, spanish etc. today.
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Old 03-03-2010, 10:25 AM
 
Location: Florida
3,359 posts, read 7,311,307 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 6 FOOT 3 View Post
Just for the sake of discussion ... lets just say that if America was formed in the 400's A.D. from the current peoples here (english, spanish, french, irish/scots, native american) then America could have had seperate countries like western Europe does today.

Also you didn't get english from spanish or french from italian and vice versa as they all (except english) evolved from Latin as that was the Lingua Franca of western Europe for about 500 years and as the different peoples slowly migrated to a certain area in western Europe then over time their tongues morphed several times to eventually speak what we call italian, french, spanish etc. today.
Ok, I know Russia is a country or nation...
But is Russian a language as well?

What language do Russians speak?
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Old 03-03-2010, 10:34 AM
 
13,134 posts, read 40,540,433 times
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Originally Posted by Time and Space View Post
Ok, I know Russia is a country or nation...
But is Russian a language as well?

What language do Russians speak?
I believe Russian is Slav ... however Russia is not my area of study as someone else would know better than me and could help you more about that as my interest of history is in ancient western Europe .
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