Orthographic Traditions and the Sub-elite in the Roman Empire

Explores the history of spelling in Latin to reveal that sophisticated education in literacy was not restricted to the elite.

Nicholas Zair (Author)

9781009327664, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 8 June 2023

314 pages
22.3 x 14.5 x 2.4 cm, 0.52 kg

This book makes use of digital corpora to give in-depth details of the history and development of the spelling of Latin. It focusses on sub-elite texts in the Roman empire, and reveals that sophisticated education in this area was not restricted to those at the top of society. Nicholas Zair studies the history of particular orthographic features and traces their usage in a range of texts which give insight into everyday writers of Latin: including scribes and soldiers at Vindolanda, slaves at Pompeii, members of the Praetorian Guard, and writers of curse tablets. In doing so, he problematises the use of 'old-fashioned' spelling in dating inscriptions, provides important new information on sound-change in Latin, and shows how much can be gained from a detailed sociolinguistic analysis of ancient texts.

1. Introduction
Part I. Old-fashioned Spellings: 2. for /a?/
3. and for /i:/
4. for /u/
5. for /u:/
6. Alternation of and
7. for /we/ before a coronal
8. and for /wu/ and /uu/, and and for /kwu/
9. Double letters to write long vowels
10. for /g/
11. for /jj/
12. before /(a:)/ and before /u(:)/
13. for /k/ before back vowels
14. for /ks/
15. Geminates and singletons
16. spepondi
17. popl- and pupl- for publ-
Part II. Apices and i-longa: 18. Introduction
19. Apices and i-longa in the Isola Sacra inscriptions
20. Apices in the Vindolanda tablets
21. Apices in the tablets of the Sulpicii
22. Apex use in teh Vindolanda and TPSupl. tablets in comparison
23. Apices in the tablets from Herculaneium
24. I-longa in the tablets of the Sulpicii and the tablets from Herculaneum
25. Conclusions
Appendix.

Subject Areas: Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1]