Colloquial and Literary Latin

Twenty-six of the world's leading Latin scholars discuss questions of colloquial Latin and its usage.

Eleanor Dickey (Edited by), Anna Chahoud (Edited by)

9780521513951, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 22 July 2010

534 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.9 cm, 0.88 kg

'… represents a clearly delineated and sustained enquiry into the nature of colloquial Latin that makes a substantial contribution to scholarship, with a series of incisive studies of Latin style that partly break down previous easy assumptions and misleading claims about the distinctions between 'colloquial' and 'literary' as different registers of the Latin language. … [The reader] comes away with a much sharper understanding of stylistic variations in Latin literature, and the collection should be of as much interest to literary critics (we need to sit up and take notice!) as to philologists.' Rebecca Langlands, Greece and Rome

What is colloquial Latin? What can we learn about it from Roman literature, and how does an understanding of colloquial Latin enhance our appreciation of literature? This book sets out to answer such questions, beginning with examinations of how the term 'colloquial' has been used by linguists and by classicists (and how its Latin equivalents were used by the Romans) and continuing with exciting new research on colloquial language in a wide range of Latin authors. Each chapter is written by a leading expert in the relevant area, and the material presented includes new editions of several texts. The Introduction presents the first account in English of developments in the study of colloquial Latin over the last century, and throughout the book findings are presented in clear, lucid, and jargon-free language, making a major scholarly debate accessible to a broad range of students and non-specialists.

Preface David Langslow
1. Introduction Eleanor Dickey
2. Colloquial language in linguistic studies James Clackson
3. Roman authors on colloquial language Rolando Ferri and Philomen Probert
4. Idiom(s) and literariness in classical literary criticism Anna Chahoud
5. Preliminary conclusions Eleanor Dickey
6. Possessive pronouns in Plautus Wolfgang David Cirilo de Melo
7. Greeting and farewell expressions as evidence for colloquial language: between literary and epigraphical texts Paolo Poccetti
8. Colloquial and literary language in early Roman tragedy Hilla Halla-aho and Peter Kruschwitz
9. The fragments of Cato's Origines John Briscoe
10. Hyperbaton and register in Cicero J. G. F. Powell
11. Notes on the language of Marcus Caelius Rufus Harm Pinkster
12. Syntactic colloquialism in Lucretius Tobias Reinhardt
13. Campaigning for utilitas: style, grammar and philosophy in C. Iulius Caesar Andreas Willi
14. The style of the Bellum Hispaniense and the evolution of Roman historiography Jan Felix Gaertner
15. Grist to the mill: the literary uses of the quotidian in Horace, Satire 1.5 Richard F. Thomas
16. Sermones deorum: divine discourse in Virgil's Aeneid Stephen Harrison
17. Petronius' linguistic resources Martti Leiwo
18. Parenthetical remarks in the Silvae Kathleen Coleman
19. Colloquial Latin in Martial's Epigrams Nigel Kay
20. Current and ancient colloquial in Gellius Leofranc Holford-Strevens
21. Forerunners of Romance -mente adverbs in Latin prose and poetry Brigitte Bauer
22. Late sparsa collegimus: the influence of sources on the language of Jordanes Giovanbattista Galdi
23. The tale of Frodebert's Tail Danuta Shanzer
24. Colloquial Latin in the insular Latin scholastic colloquia? Michael Lapidge
25. Conversations in Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Michael Winterbottom.

Subject Areas: Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB], Historical & comparative linguistics [CFF]