CHAPTER 2
Ethnicity and Language in the
Ancient Mediterranean
Harald Haarmann
Introduction
The relationship of ethnicity and language and their significance for the understanding
of historical processes in antiquity have long been underestimated or marginalized. His-
torians still speak about “the Greeks,” “the Romans,” and “the Scythians”—a projection
of nineteenth-century conceptualizations—and identify them as “ancient peoples,” as if
these concepts represented homogeneous entities, such as the labels that were given to
the peoples of Europe in the era of nationalism. Already in antiquity, people were aware
of ethnic distinctions between local tribes and within language communities (e.g., Athe-
nians versus Spartans, Scythian nomads versusHellenes Skuthai, the bilingual offspring
of Scythians and Greeks living in the Greek colonies on the shores of the Black Sea).
Recent research on the complex issue of identity and ethnicity calls for a fresh study of
the relationship of language to ethnic identity in antiquity.
From earliest times, people have been aware of language and cultural traditions as mark-
ers of ethnicity (Haarmann 1986). The marking of a collective ethnic identity has always
been linked to a name for the group (i.e., an ethnonym) and to the language of its mem-
bers (Smith 1986). Paradoxically, the best proof of the validity of language as a marker
of ethnicity in antiquity is the Greek, specifically Athenian, concept of the “barbarian,”
a designation that equated the inferiority of others with their inability to speak compre-
hensible Greek. The prestige of Greek culture was thus tied to mastery of the Greek
language. The relationship of language to ethnicity has always been of significance for
classical studies, but until recently was rarely studied systematically. It seems that, dur-
ing the past decade, ethnicity-related research has been attracting ever-growing attention
(see Graves-Brown, Jones, and Gamble 1996; Hall 1997, 2002; Insoll 2007; Derks and
Roymans 2009; Lape 2010).
A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean, First Edition. Edited by Jeremy McInerney.
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.