Politics of Language: Foreign Nativeness and Identity in the Roman Empire

Examining the identity and belonging of native and non-native speakers of Greek during the time of the High Roman Empire, Eleni Bozia closely studies grammarians, lexicographers and literary writers who used Attic Greek.

Bozia argues that transculturalism and translingualism created a new space for both the naturalised and native citizenry. In the act of imitating, emulating and recreating Attic Greek, speakers formed a socio-politically distinct and nuanced mode of expression in the social...