A common critic we hear about an EU wide army is What language are they gonna speak but let’s forget Europe 2024,

Rome had a huge empire over the whole Europe, I may be wrong, but I don’t think that commoner spoke proper Latin in remote province. What happens when they join the legion ? Would the units be split by origin region (Dacian with Dacian, Lugdunumese with Lugdunemese) with only officer speaking latin ? Or would you merge legionaries from different province (So you have Tingitanian, a Lustitanian and a Thracian in the same unit) and give them a crash course in military latin (the way the french foreign legion does? ) Even going as far as Rome, Karl the great empire also spread over half of Europe, and modern European nation used to be way more multi-lingual than they are today, and most likely a random southerner/northerner in Britain, France or Germany couldn’t talk to each other.

So how did ancient armies managed the language question ?

  • Lazycog
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    13 days ago

    Yeah no I think I would just butcher the language trying to speak it.

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      13 days ago

      Though, it’d be fun to have some French guy be like “how Vulgar!” And not be calling me rude.