Multilingualism in Late Antiquity cannot be studied without placing it in the perspective of the Ancients, at the risk of a skewed perception. It cannot be dissociated from a certain "linguistic imaginary" that directly influences the use of languages and the way they were conceived, felt and represented.
Representations are first and foremost linked to the vocabulary used. Our starting point is therefore the terminology used by the Ancients to describe multilingualism, as it reveals their conceptions, values and prejudices. Three types of terms were used: those designating knowledge or use of more than one language ("bilingual", "plurilingual"); glottonyms ("language", "dialect"); and logonyms ("French", "Italian"). This lecture has proposed the study of the first two (the latter will be dealt with when examining each of the languages spoken in Egypt).
The terms designating the practice of another language are formed on two of the three main glottonyms known to Greek: γλῶττα and φωνή, designating language in general without taxonomic nuance. This terminological poverty reflects metalinguistic thinking held back by prejudice, which naturally led us to a study of the perception of multilingualism in the Greco-Roman world serving as a backdrop to the Egyptian situation. Multilingualism was subject to prejudices that tainted it with certain suspicions, while its practice was hindered by obstacles resulting in part from these prejudices.
The Greeks used their language as a yardstick of their own gregariousness: anyone who didn't speak it was classed as a barbarian, barbaroi, an onomatopoeic word for those who stammer, or lack an articulate language. They saw their language as unique and superior, in opposition to the indistinct peat of multiple, inferior barbarian languages. This bipolar vision of the world runs through the whole of their literature.
