Peoples and languages in Early Byzantium
  In the Early Byzantine empire, Greek (in the east) and Latin (in the west) were the two languages of administration and culture. Greek was traditionally spoken in Greece and Cyprus, along the coastal strips of Asia Minor, and on the southern shore of the Crimea; further east, it was widespread in those cities established during Hellenistic rule, such as Antioch, Apamea, Seleucia and Laodicea. Similarly, Latin was the dominant language in Italy and the extensively romanized north African coast. But the Early Byzantine empire was also a mosaic of countries and ethnicities, where most of the ordinary country folk spoke neither Greek or Latin. Inland Asia Minor, for example, was populated with indigenous peoples and long time immigrants, such as the Celts of Galatia or the Jews of Phrygia, all of which spoke their native languages (Phrygian, Celtic, Cappadocian, Isaurian). To the east of Asia Minor, lived a series of Caucasian people, among which Armenians and Iberians (Georgians) had strong feelings of national identity and languages of their own. To the south of Armenia, the frontier district of Mesopotamia, as well as the lands of Syria and Palestine, spoke mainly Aramaic languages, such as Syriac and Hebrew. Sedentary and nomadic Arabs living in Syria and Palestine long before the Arab conquest of the seventh century, also spoke their native language. Beyond the Palestinian desert lay the land of Egypt, where apart from a few Greek strongholds, such as Alexandria, Naukratis and Ptolemais, Egyptian (Coptic) was the dominant language. In North Africa, local dialects (Berber and remnants of ancient Phoenician) coexisted with the administrative Latin. The native peoples of the Balkans, Illyrians to the west, Thracians and Daco-Mysians to the East, spoke Illyrian and Thracian (in particular Bessic).