Project description
The use of Greek in the Late Antique West
During Late Antiquity (300-700 CE), key transformations shaped European history, including the rise of Christianity and the fragmentation of the Western Roman Empire. Greek, spoken by about half the population of the Roman Empire, was seen as a language of high culture, yet it was also associated with lower-status people such as slaves and merchants. The ERC-funded GREEKWEST project aims to reconstruct the role of the Greek language in the sociolinguistic landscape of western Europe during 300-700 CE. By integrating textual and epigraphic evidence, it will investigate how Greek was used in literary and political culture, in religion and in daily life. This groundbreaking study will identify who learned and used Greek, their social backgrounds, their motivations for engaging with the language, and how communities accessed Greek knowledge.
Objective
This project reconstructs the place of Greek in the sociolinguistic landscape of western Europe during Late Antiquity (300–700 CE). Integrating textual and epigraphic evidence, it will trace the evolving use and knowledge of Greek in literary and political culture, religion, and daily life. This period witnessed transformations that would change the shape of European history: the rise of Christianity, the fragmentation of the western Roman empire, the introduction of new political and economic institutions, and the resulting restructuring of civic society. Views on the place of Greek in the late antique West still centre around deterministic narratives of ‘decline and fall’, leading to instances of Greek knowledge being dismissed as outliers, thus missing opportunities to examine the period’s continuing cultural, political, and linguistic interactions between ‘East’ and ‘West’. Challenging this consensus, GREEKWEST is ground-breaking in that it is the first study to examine Greek’s changing role in the late antique West and to do so across multiple social contexts. Spoken by roughly half the empire’s inhabitants, Greek had long occupied a central role in Roman society. On the one hand, Greek was seen as a language of high culture and prestige, and educated elite Romans were expected to be bilingual in Latin and Greek. At the same time, Greek was often associated with people from less privileged parts of society: slaves, performers, and merchants. This project seeks a) to establish who knew and used Greek in the late antique West and what sectors of society they came from, b) to reconstruct the motivations for using and learning Greek, and c) to trace how individuals and communities in the West learned and accessed Greek knowledge. This research will fundamentally change our understanding of the social history of language and migration, late antique intellectual and political culture, and the paradigms by which we view the transformations of the Roman world.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- humanities history and archaeology history ancient history
- humanities philosophy, ethics and religion religions christianity
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2025-STG
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L69 7ZX LIVERPOOL
United Kingdom
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