[epluribus_2]

the reason the greeks still speak greek is that they never sacked rome. The Celts and the Carthaginians did and the former were decimated and the latters were "delenda est".

[wideawake]

the reason the greeks still speak greek is that they never sacked rome. The Celts and the Carthaginians did and the former were decimated and the latters were "delenda est".

The Celts sacked Rome in 295 BC. Yet they retained their language until they were conquered by the Franks 800 years later.

The Carthaginians never sacked Rome - though Hannibal certainly tried very hard. The Carthaginian language (Punic) was eliminated in Africa by eliminating its speakers through genocide (and a well-deserved genocide it was), not by a large pool of subjects learning the language of their conquerors.

Punic was still spoken in the Near East but was gradually replaced by Aramaic.