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Old Latin

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Old Latin
Archaic Latin
Duenos inscription.jpg
The Duenos inscription, one of the earliest Old Latin texts
Native toLatium, later the Roman Kingdom and Republic
RegionItaly
EthnicityLatins, Romans
EraAttested since 7th century BC. Developed into Vulgar Latin as colloqiual form, and Literary Latin as literary form, during the 1st century BC.
Latin alphabet 
Official status
Official language in
Rome
Regulated bySchools of grammar and rhetoric
Language codes
ISO 639-3None (mis)
qbb
Glottologoldl1238
Expansion of Rome, 2nd century BC.gif
Expansion of the Roman Republic during the 2nd century BC. Very little Latin is likely to have been spoken beyond the green area, and other languages were spoken even within it.
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.
Library resources about
Old Latin
For the "Old Latin" Biblical texts, see Vetus Latina.

Old Latin, also known as Early Latin or Archaic Latin (Classical Latin: prīsca Latīnitās, lit. 'ancient Latinity'), was the Latin language in the period before 75 BC, i.e. before the age of Classical Latin.[1] It descends from a common Proto-Italic language; Latino-Faliscan is likely a separate branch from Osco-Umbrian with possible further relation to other Italic languages and to Celtic; e.g. the Italo-Celtic hypothesis.

The use of "old", "early" and "archaic" has been standard in publications of Old Latin writings since at least the 18th century. The definition is not arbitrary, but the terms refer to spelling conventions and word forms not generally found in works written under the Roman Empire. This article presents some of the major differences.

The earliest known specimen of Latin seems to be on the Praeneste fibula. A new analysis done in 2011 declared it to be genuine "beyond any reasonable doubt"[2] and dating from the Orientalizing period, in the first half of the seventh century BC.[3] Other Old Latin inscriptions dated to either the late Roman Kingdom or early Roman Republic include the Lapis Niger stone, the Duenos Inscription on a kernos vase, and the Garigliano bowl of Bucchero type.

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Literal translation

Literal translation

Literal translation, direct translation or word-for-word translation, is a translation of a text done by translating each word separately, without looking at how the words are used together in a phrase or sentence.

Latin

Latin

Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area around present-day Rome, but through the power of the Roman Republic it became the dominant language in the Italian region and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire. Even after the fall of Western Rome, Latin remained the common language of international communication, science, scholarship and academia in Europe until well into the 18th century, when other regional vernaculars supplanted it in common academic and political usage, and it eventually became a dead language in the modern linguistic definition.

Classical Latin

Classical Latin

Classical Latin is the form of Literary Latin recognized as a literary standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It was used from 75 BC to the 3rd century AD, when it developed into Late Latin. In some later periods, it was regarded as good or proper Latin, with following versions viewed as debased, degenerate, or corrupted. The word Latin is now understood by default to mean "Classical Latin"; for example, modern Latin textbooks almost exclusively teach Classical Latin.

Latino-Faliscan languages

Latino-Faliscan languages

The Latino-Faliscan or Latinian languages form a group of the Italic languages within the Indo-European family. They were spoken by the Latino-Faliscan people of Italy who lived there from the early 1st millennium BCE.

Italic languages

Italic languages

The Italic languages form a branch of the Indo-European language family, whose earliest known members were spoken on the Italian Peninsula in the first millennium BC. The most important of the ancient languages was Latin, the official language of ancient Rome, which conquered the other Italic peoples before the common era. The other Italic languages became extinct in the first centuries AD as their speakers were assimilated into the Roman Empire and shifted to some form of Latin. Between the third and eighth centuries AD, Vulgar Latin diversified into the Romance languages, which are the only Italic languages natively spoken today, while Literary Latin also survived.

Celtic languages

Celtic languages

The Celtic languages are a group of related languages descended from Proto-Celtic. They form a branch of the Indo-European language family. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edward Lhuyd in 1707, following Paul-Yves Pezron, who made the explicit link between the Celts described by classical writers and the Welsh and Breton languages.

Italo-Celtic

Italo-Celtic

In historical linguistics, Italo-Celtic is a hypothetical grouping of the Italic and Celtic branches of the Indo-European language family on the basis of features shared by these two branches and no others. There is controversy about the causes of these similarities. They are usually considered to be innovations, likely to have developed after the breakup of the Proto-Indo-European language. It is also possible that some of these are not innovations, but shared conservative features, i.e. original Indo-European language features which have disappeared in all other language groups. What is commonly accepted is that the shared features may usefully be thought of as Italo-Celtic forms, as they are certainly shared by the two families and are almost certainly not coincidental.

Orientalizing period

Orientalizing period

In the Archaic phase of ancient Greek art, the Orientalizing period or Orientalizing revolution is the cultural and art historical period that began during the later part of the 8th century BC, when there was a heavy influence from the more advanced art of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Ancient Near East. The main sources were Syria and Assyria as well as Phoenicia and Egypt. With the spread of Phoenician civilization by Carthage and Greek colonisation into the Western Mediterranean, these artistic trends also influenced the Etruscans and early Ancient Romans in the Italian peninsula.

Lapis Niger

Lapis Niger

The Lapis Niger is an ancient shrine in the Roman Forum. Together with the associated Vulcanal it constitutes the only surviving remnants of the old Comitium, an early assembly area that preceded the Forum and is thought to derive from an archaic cult site of the 7th or 8th century BC.

Kernos

Kernos

In the typology of ancient Greek pottery, the kernos is a pottery ring or stone tray to which are attached several small vessels for holding offerings. Its unusual design is described in literary sources, which also list the ritual ingredients it might contain. The kernos was used primarily in the cults of Demeter and Kore, and of Cybele and Attis.

Garigliano bowl

Garigliano bowl

The Garigliano bowl is a small impasto bowl with bucchero glaze likely to have been produced around 500 BC, with an early Latin inscript written in a form of the western Greek or Etruscan alphabet. It was found along the river Garigliano, between Lazio and Campania, in the vicinity of ancient Minturnae, in the ancient territory occupied by the Aurunci.A: AHUIDIES B: NEI[- - -]PARIMEDESOMKOMMEOISSOKIOISTRIVOIADDEOMDUO

Bucchero

Bucchero

Bucchero is a class of ceramics produced in central Italy by the region's pre-Roman Etruscan population. This Italian word is derived from the Latin poculum, a drinking-vessel, perhaps through the Spanish búcaro, or the Portuguese púcaro.

Philological constructs

The old-time language

The concept of Old Latin (Prisca Latinitas) is as old as the concept of Classical Latin – both labels date to at least as early as the late Roman Republic. In that period Cicero, along with others, noted that the language he used every day, presumably upper-class city Latin, included lexical items and phrases that were heirlooms from a previous time, which he called verborum vetustas prisca,[4] translated as "the old age/time of language".

In the classical period, Prisca Latinitas, Prisca Latina and other idioms using the adjective always meant these remnants of a previous language, which, in Roman philology, was taken to be much older in fact than it really was. Viri prisci, "old-time men", meant the population of Latium before the founding of Rome.

The four Latins of Isidore

In the Late Latin period, when Classical Latin was behind them, Latin- and Greek-speaking grammarians were faced with multiple phases, or styles, within the language. Isidore of Seville (c. 560 – 636) reports a classification scheme that had come into existence in or before his time: "the four Latins" ("Moreover, some people have said that there are four Latin languages"; "Latinas autem linguas quattuor esse quidam dixerunt").[5] They were:

This scheme persisted with little change for some thousand years after Isidore.

Old Latin

In 1874, John Wordsworth used this definition: "By Early Latin I understand Latin of the whole period of the Republic, which is separated very strikingly, both in tone and in outward form, from that of the Empire."[6]

Although the differences are striking and can be easily identified by Latin readers, they are not such as to cause a language barrier. Latin speakers of the empire had no reported trouble understanding Old Latin, except for the few texts that must date from the time of the kings, mainly songs. Thus, the laws of the Twelve Tables (5th century BC) from the early Republic were comprehensible, but the Carmen Saliare, probably written under Numa Pompilius (who traditionally reigned from 715 to 673 BC), was not entirely clear (and remains so). On the other hand, Polybius, a Greek historian of Rome who flourished in the late second century BC,[7] commented on "the first treaty between Rome and Carthage", (which he dated to 28 years before Xerxes I crossed into Greece; that is, in 508 BC) that "the ancient Roman language differs so much from the modern that it can only be partially made out, and that after much application by the most intelligent men".

There is no sharp distinction between Old Latin, as it was spoken for most of the Republic, and Classical Latin, but the earlier grades into the later. The end of the republic was too late a termination for compilers after Wordsworth; Charles Edwin Bennett said, "'Early Latin' is necessarily a somewhat vague term ... Bell, De locativi in prisca Latinitate vi et usu, Breslau, 1889,[8] sets the later limit at 75 BC. A definite date is really impossible, since archaic Latin does not terminate abruptly, but continues even down to imperial times."[9] Bennett's own date of 100 BC did not prevail; rather Bell's 75 BC became the standard as expressed in the four-volume Loeb Library and other major compendia. Over the 377 years from 452 to 75 BC, Old Latin evolved from texts partially comprehensible by classicists with study to being easily read by scholars.

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Cicero

Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the establishment of the Roman Empire. His extensive writings include treatises on rhetoric, philosophy and politics. He is considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the Roman equestrian order, and served as consul in 63 BC.

Idiom

Idiom

An idiom is a phrase or expression that typically presents a figurative, non-literal meaning attached to the phrase; but some phrases become figurative idioms while retaining the literal meaning of the phrase. Categorized as formulaic language, an idiom's figurative meaning is different from the literal meaning. Idioms occur frequently in all languages; in English alone there are an estimated twenty-five million idiomatic expressions.

Latium

Latium

Latium is the region of central western Italy in which the city of Rome was founded and grew to be the capital city of the Roman Empire.

Founding of Rome

Founding of Rome

The tale of the founding of Rome is recounted in traditional stories handed down by the ancient Romans themselves as the earliest history of their city in terms of legend and myth. The most familiar of these myths, and perhaps the most famous of all Roman myths, is the story of Romulus and Remus, twins who were suckled by a she-wolf as infants. Another account, set earlier in time, claims that the Roman people are descended from Trojan War hero Aeneas, who escaped to Italy after the war, and whose son, Iulus, was the ancestor of the family of Julius Caesar. The archaeological evidence of human occupation of the area of modern-day Rome dates from about 14,000 years ago.

Late Latin

Late Latin

Late Latin is the scholarly name for the form of Literary Latin of late antiquity. English dictionary definitions of Late Latin date this period from the 3rd to the 6th centuries CE, and continuing into the 7th century in the Iberian Peninsula. This somewhat ambiguously defined version of Latin was used between the eras of Classical Latin and Medieval Latin. Scholars do not agree exactly when Classical Latin should end or Medieval Latin should begin.

Isidore of Seville

Isidore of Seville

Isidore of Seville was a Spanish scholar, theologian, and archbishop of Seville. He is widely regarded, in the words of 19th-century historian Montalembert, as "the last scholar of the ancient world".

Janus

Janus

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, frames, and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces. The month of January is named for Janus (Ianuarius). According to ancient Roman farmers' almanacs, Juno was mistaken as the tutelary deity of the month of January, but Juno is the tutelary deity of the month of June.

Carmen Saliare

Carmen Saliare

The Carmen Saliare is a fragment of archaic Latin, which played a part in the rituals performed by the Salii of Ancient Rome. There are 35 extant fragments of the Carmen Saliare, which can be read in Morel's FPL.

Latinus

Latinus

Latinus was a figure in both Greek and Roman mythology. He is often associated with the heroes of the Trojan War, namely Odysseus and Aeneas. Although his appearance in the Aeneid is irreconcilable with his appearance in Greek mythology, the two pictures are not so different that he cannot be seen as one character.

John Wordsworth

John Wordsworth

John Wordsworth (1843–1911) was an English Anglican bishop and classical scholar. He was Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at the University of Oxford from 1883 to 1885, and Bishop of Salisbury from 1885 to 1911.

King of Rome

King of Rome

The king of Rome was the ruler of the Roman Kingdom. According to legend, the first king of Rome was Romulus, who founded the city in 753 BC upon the Palatine Hill. Seven legendary kings are said to have ruled Rome until 509 BC, when the last king was overthrown. These kings ruled for an average of 35 years.

Numa Pompilius

Numa Pompilius

Numa Pompilius was the legendary second king of Rome, succeeding Romulus after a one-year interregnum. He was of Sabine origin, and many of Rome's most important religious and political institutions are attributed to him, such as the Roman calendar, Vestal Virgins, the cult of Mars, the cult of Jupiter, the cult of Romulus, and the office of pontifex maximus.

Corpus

The Praeneste Fibula, the earliest known specimen of the Latin language and dated to the first half of the seventh century BC.
The Praeneste Fibula, the earliest known specimen of the Latin language and dated to the first half of the seventh century BC.
The Forum inscription (Lapis Niger, "black stone"), one of the oldest known Latin inscriptions, from the 6th century BC; it is written boustrophedon, albeit irregularly; from a rubbing by Domenico Comparetti.
The Forum inscription (Lapis Niger, "black stone"), one of the oldest known Latin inscriptions, from the 6th century BC; it is written boustrophedon, albeit irregularly; from a rubbing by Domenico Comparetti.
The Duenos Inscription on a trio of three globular kernos vases
The Duenos Inscription on a trio of three globular kernos vases

Old Latin authored works began in the 3rd century BC. These are complete or nearly complete works under their own name surviving as manuscripts copied from other manuscripts in whatever script was current at the time. There are also fragments of works quoted in other authors.

Many texts placed by various methods (painting, engraving, embossing) on their original media survive just as they were except for the ravages of time. Some of these were copied from other inscriptions. No inscription can be older than the introduction of the Greek alphabet into Italy but none survive from that early date. The imprecision of archaeological dating makes it impossible to assign a year to any one inscription, but the earliest survivals are probably from the 6th century BC. Some texts, however, that survive as fragments in the works of classical authors, had to have been composed earlier than the republic, in the time of the monarchy. These are listed below. Note that some authors, especially in recent texts, refer to the oldest Latin documents (7th-5th c. BCE) as Very Old Latin (VOL).[10]

Fragments and inscriptions

Notable Old Latin fragments with estimated dates include:

Works of literature

Authors:

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Latin

Latin

Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area around present-day Rome, but through the power of the Roman Republic it became the dominant language in the Italian region and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire. Even after the fall of Western Rome, Latin remained the common language of international communication, science, scholarship and academia in Europe until well into the 18th century, when other regional vernaculars supplanted it in common academic and political usage, and it eventually became a dead language in the modern linguistic definition.

Lapis Niger

Lapis Niger

The Lapis Niger is an ancient shrine in the Roman Forum. Together with the associated Vulcanal it constitutes the only surviving remnants of the old Comitium, an early assembly area that preceded the Forum and is thought to derive from an archaic cult site of the 7th or 8th century BC.

Boustrophedon

Boustrophedon

Boustrophedon is a style of writing in which alternate lines of writing are reversed, with letters also written in reverse, mirror-style. This is in contrast to modern European languages, where lines always begin on the same side, usually the left.

Domenico Comparetti

Domenico Comparetti

Domenico Comparetti was an Italian scholar. He was born at Rome and died at Florence.

Kernos

Kernos

In the typology of ancient Greek pottery, the kernos is a pottery ring or stone tray to which are attached several small vessels for holding offerings. Its unusual design is described in literary sources, which also list the ritual ingredients it might contain. The kernos was used primarily in the cults of Demeter and Kore, and of Cybele and Attis.

Roman Kingdom

Roman Kingdom

The Roman Kingdom was the earliest period of Roman history when the city and its territory were ruled by kings. According to oral accounts, the Roman Kingdom began with the city's founding c. 753 BC, with settlements around the Palatine Hill along the river Tiber in central Italy, and ended with the overthrow of the kings and the establishment of the Republic c. 509 BC.

Carmen Saliare

Carmen Saliare

The Carmen Saliare is a fragment of archaic Latin, which played a part in the rituals performed by the Salii of Ancient Rome. There are 35 extant fragments of the Carmen Saliare, which can be read in Morel's FPL.

Salii

Salii

In ancient Roman religion, the Salii were the "leaping priests" of Mars supposed to have been introduced by King Numa Pompilius. They were twelve patrician youths, dressed as archaic warriors: an embroidered tunic, a breastplate, a short red cloak (paludamentum), a sword, and a spiked headdress called an apex. They were charged with the twelve bronze shields called ancilia, which, like the Mycenaean shield, resembled a figure eight. One of the shields was said to have fallen from heaven in the reign of King Numa and eleven copies were made to protect the identity of the sacred shield on the advice of the nymph Egeria, consort of Numa, who prophesied that wherever that shield was preserved, the people would be the dominant people of the earth.

Numa Pompilius

Numa Pompilius

Numa Pompilius was the legendary second king of Rome, succeeding Romulus after a one-year interregnum. He was of Sabine origin, and many of Rome's most important religious and political institutions are attributed to him, such as the Roman calendar, Vestal Virgins, the cult of Mars, the cult of Jupiter, the cult of Romulus, and the office of pontifex maximus.

Praeneste fibula

Praeneste fibula

The Praeneste fibula is a golden fibula or brooch, today housed in the Pigorini National Museum of Prehistory and Ethnography in Rome. The fibula bears an inscription in Old Latin, claiming craftsmanship by one Manios and ownership by one Numazios. At the time of its discovery in the late nineteenth century, it was accepted as the earliest known specimen of the Latin language. The authenticity of the inscription has since been disputed. However a new analysis performed in 2011 declared it to be genuine "beyond any reasonable doubt" and to date from the Orientalizing period, in the first half of the seventh century BC.

Tita Vendia vase

Tita Vendia vase

The Tita Vendia vase is a ceramic impasto pithos. The pithos, which exists only as an incomplete set of sherds, carries one of two earliest known inscriptions in Latin language and is usually, but not unanimously, interpreted as the earliest instance of a bipartite female Latin name with praenomen and gentilicum.

Lapis Satricanus

Lapis Satricanus

The Lapis Satricanus, is a yellow stone found in the ruins of the ancient town of Satricum, near Borgo Montello, a village of southern Lazio, dated late 6th to early 5th centuries BC. It was found in 1977 during excavations by C.M. Stibbe. It reads:(?)IEI STETERAI POPLIOSIO VALESIOSIO SVODALES MAMARTEI

Script

Main articles: History of the Latin alphabet, Latin alphabet, and Old Italic alphabet

Old Latin surviving in inscriptions is written in various forms of the Etruscan alphabet as it evolved into the Latin alphabet. The writing conventions varied by time and place until classical conventions prevailed. Apart of old inscriptions, texts in the original writing system have been lost or transcribed by later copyists.

Old Latin could be written from right to left (as were Etruscan and early Greek) or boustrophedon.[11]

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Latin alphabet

Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions, it forms the Latin script that is used to write English and other modern European languages. With modifications, it is also used for other alphabets, such as the Vietnamese alphabet. Its modern repertoire is standardised as the ISO basic Latin alphabet.

Etruscan alphabet

Etruscan alphabet

The Etruscan alphabet was the alphabet used by the Etruscans, an ancient civilization of central and northern Italy, to write their language, from about 700 BC to sometime around 100 AD.

Right-to-left script

Right-to-left script

In a right-to-left, top-to-bottom script, writing starts from the right of the page and continues to the left, proceeding from top to bottom for new lines. Arabic, Hebrew, Kashmiri, Pashto, Persian, Uighur, Sorani Kurdish, Shahmukhi, Sindhi and Urdu are the most widespread R2L writing systems in modern times.

Boustrophedon

Boustrophedon

Boustrophedon is a style of writing in which alternate lines of writing are reversed, with letters also written in reverse, mirror-style. This is in contrast to modern European languages, where lines always begin on the same side, usually the left.

Orthography

Some differences between old and classical Latin were of spelling only; pronunciation is thought to be essentially the same as in classical Latin:[12]

  • Single for double consonants: Marcelus for Marcellus
  • Double vowels for long vowels: aara for āra
  • q for c before u: pequnia for pecunia
  • c for g: Caius for Gaius

These differences did not necessarily run concurrently with each other and were not universal; that is, c was used for both c and g.

Phonology

See also: History of Latin
Diphthong changes from Old Latin (left) to Classical Latin (right)[13]
Diphthong changes from Old Latin (left) to Classical Latin (right)[13]

Stress

Old Latin is thought to have had a strong stress on the first syllable of a word until about 250 BC. All syllables other than the first were unstressed and were subjected to greater amounts of phonological weakening. Starting around that year, the Classical Latin stress system began to develop. It passed through at least one intermediate stage, found in Plautus, in which the stress occurred on the fourth last syllable in four-syllable words with all short syllables.

Vowels and diphthongs

Most original PIE (Proto-Indo-European) diphthongs were preserved in stressed syllables, including /ai/ (later ae); /ei/ (later ī); /oi/ (later ū, or sometimes oe); /ou/ (from PIE /eu/ and /ou/; later ū).

The Old Latin diphthong ei evolves in stages: ei > ẹ̄ > ī. The intermediate sound ẹ̄ was simply written e but must have been distinct from the normal long vowel ē because ẹ̄ subsequently merged with ī while ē did not. It is generally thought that ẹ̄ was a higher sound than e (e.g. perhaps [eː] vs. [ɛː] during the time when both sounds existed). Even after the original vowel /ei/ had merged with ī, the old spelling ei continued to be used for a while, with the result that ei came to stand for ī and began to be used in the spelling of original occurrences of ī that did not evolve from ei (e.g. in the genitive singular -ī, which is always spelled -i in the oldest inscriptions but later on can be spelled either -i or -ei).

In unstressed syllables, *oi and *ai had already merged into ei by historic times (except for one possible occurrence of poploe for populī "people" in a late manuscript of one of the early songs). This eventually also evolved to ī.

Old Latin often had different short vowels from Classical Latin, reflecting sound changes that had not yet taken place. For example, the very early Duenos inscription has the form duenos "good", later found as duonos and still later bonus. A countervailing change wo > we occurred around 150 BC in certain contexts, and many earlier forms are found (e.g. earlier votō, voster, vorsus vs. later vetō, vester, versus).

Old Latin frequently preserves original PIE thematic case endings -os and -om (later -us and -um).

Consonants

Intervocalic /s/ (pronounced [z]) was preserved up to 350 BC or so, at which point it changed into /r/ (rhotacism). This rhotacism had implications for declension: early classical Latin, honos, honoris (from honos, honoses); later Classical (by analogy) honor, honoris ("honor"). Some Old Latin texts preserve /s/ in this position, such as the Carmen Arvale's lases for lares. Later instances of single /s/ between vowels are mostly due either to reduction of early /ss/ after long vowels or diphthongs; borrowings; or late reconstructions.

There are many unreduced clusters, e.g. iouxmentom (later iūmentum, "beast of burden"); losna (later lūna, "moon") lousna cosmis (> cōmis, "courteous"); stlocum, acc. (> locum, "place").

Early du /dw/ becomes b: duenos > duonos > bonus "good"; duis > bis "twice"; duellom > bellum "war".

Final /d/ occurred in ablatives, such as puellād "from the girl" or campōd "from the field", later puellā and campō. In verb conjugation, the third-person ending -d later became -t, e.g. Old Latin faced > Classical facit.

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History of Latin

History of Latin

Latin is a member of the broad family of Italic languages. Its alphabet, the Latin alphabet, emerged from the Old Italic alphabets, which in turn were derived from the Etruscan, Greek and Phoenician scripts. Historical Latin came from the prehistoric language of the Latium region, specifically around the River Tiber, where Roman civilization first developed. How and when Latin came to be spoken by the Romans are questions that have long been debated.

Plautus

Plautus

Titus Maccius Plautus, commonly known as Plautus, was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by the innovator of Latin literature, Livius Andronicus. The word Plautine refers to both Plautus's own works and works similar to or influenced by his.

Proto-Indo-European language

Proto-Indo-European language

Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists.

Duenos inscription

Duenos inscription

The Duenos inscription is one of the earliest known Old Latin texts, variously dated from the 7th to the 5th century BC. It is inscribed on the sides of a kernos, in this case a trio of small globular vases adjoined by three clay struts. It was found by Heinrich Dressel in 1880 in the valley between Quirinale and Viminale in Rome. The kernos is part of the collection of the Staatliche Museen in Berlin.

Morphological leveling

Morphological leveling

In linguistics, morphological leveling or paradigm leveling is the generalization of an inflection across a linguistic paradigm, a group of forms with the same stem in which each form corresponds in usage to different syntactic environments, or between words. The result of such leveling is a paradigm that is less varied, having fewer forms.

Carmen Arvale

Carmen Arvale

The Carmen Arvale is the preserved chant of the Arval priests or Fratres Arvales of ancient Rome.

Lares

Lares

Lares were guardian deities in ancient Roman religion. Their origin is uncertain; they may have been hero-ancestors, guardians of the hearth, fields, boundaries, or fruitfulness, or an amalgam of these.

Morphology

Nouns

Latin nouns have grammatical case, with an ending, or suffix, showing its use in the sentence: subject, predicate, etc. A case for a given word is formed by suffixing a case ending to a part of the word common to all its cases called a stem. Stems are classified by their last letters as vowel or consonant. Vowel stems are formed by adding a suffix to a shorter and more ancient segment called a root. Consonant stems are the root (roots end in consonants). The combination of the last letter of the stem and the case ending often results in an ending also called a case ending or termination. For example, the stem puella- receives a case ending -m to form the accusative case puellam in which the termination -am is evident.[14]

In Classical Latin textbooks the declensions are named from the letter ending the stem or First, Second, etc. to Fifth. A declension may be illustrated by a paradigm, or listing of all the cases of a typical word. This method is less often applied to Old Latin, and with less validity. In contrast to Classical Latin, Old Latin reflects the evolution of the language from an ancestor spoken in Latium. The endings are multiple. Their use depends on time and place. Any paradigm selected would be subject to these constraints and if applied to the language universally would give false constructs, hypothetical words not attested in the Old Latin corpus. Nevertheless, the endings are shown below by quasi-classical paradigms. Alternate endings from different stages of development are given, but they may not be attested for the word of the paradigm. For example, in the second declension, *campoe "fields" is unattested, but poploe "peoples" is attested.

The locative was a separate case in Old Latin but gradually became reduced in function, and the locative singular form eventually merged with the genitive singular by regular sound change. In the plural, the locative was captured by the ablative case in all Italic languages before Old Latin.[15]

First declension (a)

puellā, –ās
girl, maiden f.
Singular Plural
Nominative puellā,
puellă		 puellāī
Vocative puella puellai
Accusative puellam puellās
Genitive puellās,
puellāī,
puellais		 puellom,
puellāsōm
Dative puellāi puelleis,
puellabos
Ablative puellād
Locative (Rōmai) (Syrācūseis)

The stems of nouns of this declension usually end in -ā and are typically feminine.[16] A nominative case ending of -s in a few masculines indicates the nominative singular case ending may have been originally -s: paricidas for later parricida, but the -s tended to get lost.[17] In the nominative plural, -ī replaced original -s as in the genitive singular.[18]

In the genitive singular, the -s was replaced with -ī from the second declension, the resulting diphthong shortening to -ai subsequently becoming -ae.[19] The original form is maintained in some formulas, e.g. pater familiās. The genitive plural ending -āsōm (classical -ārum following rhotacism), borrowed from the pronouns, began to overtake original -om.[18]

In the dative singular the final i is either long[20] or short.[21] The ending becomes -ae, -a (Feronia) or -e (Fortune).[20]

In the accusative singular, Latin regularly shortens a vowel before final m.[21]

In the ablative singular, -d was regularly lost after a long vowel.[21] In the dative and ablative plural, the -abos descending from Indo-European *-ābhos[22] is used for feminines only (deabus). *-ais > -eis > -īs is adapted from -ois of the o-declension.[23]

The vocative singular had inherited short -a. This later merged with the nominative singular when -ā was shortened to -ă.[21]

The locative case would not apply to such a meaning as puella, so Roma, which is singular, and Syracusae, which is plural, have been substituted. The locative plural has already merged with the -eis form of the ablative.

Second declension (o)

campos, –ī
field, plain m. 		saxom, –ī
rock, stone n.
Singular Plural Singular Plural
Nominative campos campei saxom saxā,
saxă
Vocative campe saxă
Accusative campom campōs saxom saxā,
saxă
Genitive campī campōm saxī saxōm
Dative campō campeis saxō saxeis
Ablative campōd saxōd
Locative campei saxei

The stems of the nouns of the o-declension end in ŏ deriving from the o-grade of Indo-European ablaut.[24] Classical Latin evidences the development ŏ > ŭ. Nouns of this declension are either masculine or neuter.

Nominative singulars ending in -ros or -ris syncopate the ending:[25] *agros > *agrs > *agers > *agerr > ager. (The form terr "three times" for later ter Plautus.)

Many alternative spellings occur:

  • As mentioned above, the sound change -ei > -ẹ̄ > -ī leads to many variations, including the reverse spelling ei for ī. This spelling eventually appears in the genitive singular as well, though -ī is earliest and the true ending; cf. populi Romanei, "of the Roman people."[26], with both spellings in the same inscription.
  • Likewise, the sound changes -os > -us and -ōm > -om > -um affect the nominative and accusative singular, and the genitive plural.
  • One very early text, the Lapis Satricanus, has genitive -osio (an ending found in several other archaic languages descended from Proto-Indo-European [PIE], languages such as Vedic Sanskrit, Old Persian, and Homeric Greek) rather than -ī[27] (an ending appearing only in Italo-Celtic).. This form also appears in the closely related Faliscan language.
  • In the genitive plural, -um (from PIE *-ōm) survived in classical Latin "words for coins and measures";[28] otherwise it was eventually replaced by -ōrum by analogy with 1st declension -ārum.
  • The nominative/vocative plural masculine -ei comes from the PIE pronominal ending *-oi. The original ending -oi appears in a late spelling in the word poploe (i.e. "poploi" = populī "people") in Sextus Pompeius Festus.[29]
  • The dative/ablative/locative plural -eis comes from earlier -ois, a merger of PIE instrumental plural *-ōis and locative plural *-oisu. The form -ois appears in Sextus Pompeius Festus and a few early inscriptions.
  • The Praeneste Fibula has dative singular Numasioi, representing PIE *-ōi.
  • A number of "provincial texts" have nominative plural -eis (later -īs from 190 BC on[30]), with an added s, by some sort of analogy with other declensions. Sihler (1995)[29] notes that this form appears in literature only in pronouns and suggests that inscriptional examples added to nouns may be artificial (i.e. not reflecting actual pronunciation).
  • In the vocative singular, some nouns lose the -e (i.e. have a zero ending) but not necessarily the same as in classical Latin.[31] The -e alternates regularly with -us.[32]

Third declension (consonant/i)

rēx, rēges
king m. 		ignis -is
fire m.
Singular Plural Singular Plural
Nominative rēx rēgeīs,
rēgīs,
rēgēs,
rēgĕs 		ignis,
ignes		 igneīs,
ignēs,
ignīs,
ignĕs
Vocative
Accusative rēgem rēgeīs,
rēgīs,
rēgēs 		ignim igneīs,
ignēs,
ignīs
Genitive rēges,
regis,
regos,
regus		 rēgom,
rēgum,
rēgerum 		ignis igniom,
ignium
Dative rēgei,
rēgī,
rēgē,
rēgě		 rēgebus,
rēgebūs,
rēgibos,
rēgibus 		igni,
igneī,
ignē		 ignebus,
ignebūs,
ignibos,
ignibus
Ablative rēgīd,
rēgĭd,
rēgī,
rēgē,
rēgĕ 		ignīd,
ignĭd,
ignī,
ignē,
ignĕ
Locative rēgī rēgebos ignī ignibos

This declension contains nouns that are masculine, feminine, and neuter. The stem ends in the root consonant, except in the special case where it ends in -i (i-stem declension). The i-stem, which is a vowel-stem, partly fused with the consonant-stem in the pre-Latin period and went further in Old Latin.[33] I/y and u/w can be treated as either consonants or vowels; hence they are semi-vowels. Mixed-stem declensions are partly like consonant-stem and partly like i-stem. Consonant-stem declensions vary slightly depending on which consonant is root-final: stop-, r-, n-, s-, etc.[34] The paradigms below include a stop-stem (reg-) and an i-stem (igni-).

For a consonant declension, in the nominative singular, the -s was affixed directly to the stem consonant, but the combination of the two consonants produced modified nominatives over the Old Latin period. The case appears in different stages of modification in different words diachronically.[35] The Latin neuter form (not shown) is the Indo-European nominative without stem ending; for example, cor [36]

The genitive singular endings include -is and -us .[37] In the genitive plural, some forms appear to affix the case ending to the genitive singular rather than the stem: regerum reg-is-um.[38]

In the dative singular, -ī succeeded -eī and -ē after 200 BC.

In the accusative singular, -em [37]

In the ablative singular, the -d was lost after 200 BC.[39] In the dative and ablative plural, the early poets sometimes used -būs.[37]

In the locative singular, the earliest form is like the dative but over the period assimilated to the ablative.[40]

Fourth declension (u)

The stems of the nouns of the u-declension end in ŭ and are masculine, feminine and neuter. In addition there is a ū-stem declension, which contains only a few "isolated" words, such as sūs, "pig", and is not presented here.[41]

senātus, –uos
senate m.
Singular Plural
Nominative senātus senātūs
Vocative
Accusative senātum
Genitive senātuos,
senātuis,
senātī,
senātous,
senātūs		 senātuom,
senātum
Dative senātuī senātubus,
senātibus
Ablative senātūd,
senātud
Locative senāti

Fifth declension (e)

The 'e-stem' declension's morphology matches the Classical language very nearly.

rēs, reis
thing f.
Singular Plural
Nominative rēs,
reis		 rēs
Vocative rēs
Accusative rem
Genitive rēis,
rēs		 rēsom
Dative reī rēbos
Ablative rēd
Locative

Personal pronouns

Personal pronouns are among the most common thing found in Old Latin inscriptions. In all three persons, the ablative singular ending is identical to the accusative singular.

ego, I tu, you suī, himself, herself (etc.)
Singular
Nominative ego tu —
Accusative mēd tēd sēd
Genitive mis tis sei
Dative mihei, mehei tibei sibei
Ablative mēd tēd sēd
Plural
Nominative nōs vōs —
Accusative sēd
Genitive nostrōm,
-ōrum, -i 		vostrōm,
-ōrum, -i 		sei
Dative nōbeis, nis vōbeis sibei
Ablative sēd

Relative pronoun

In Old Latin, the relative pronoun is also another common concept, especially in inscriptions. The forms are quite inconsistent and leave much to be reconstructed by scholars.

queī, quaī, quod who, what
Singular
Masculine Feminine Neuter
Nominative queī quaī quod
Accusative quem quam
Genitive quoius, quoios, -a, -um/om
(according to gender of whatever is owned)
Dative quoī, queī, quoieī, queī
Ablative quī, quōd quād quōd
Plural
Masculine Feminine Neuter
Nominative ques, queis quaī qua
Accusative quōs quās
Genitive quōm, quōrom quōm, quārom quōm, quōrom
Dative queis, quīs
Ablative

Verbs

Old present and perfects

There is little evidence of the inflection of Old Latin verb forms and the few surviving inscriptions hold many inconsistencies between forms. Therefore, the forms below are ones that are both proved by scholars through Old Latin inscriptions, and recreated by scholars based on other early Indo-European languages such as Greek and Italic dialects such as Oscan and Umbrian, and which also may be compared to modern Spanish.

Indicative Present: Sum Indicative Present: Facio
Old Classical Old Classical
Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural
First Person (e)som somos, sumos sum sumus fac(e/ī)ō fac(e)imos faciō facimus
Second Person es esteīs es estis fac(e/ī)s fac(e/ī)teis facis facitis
Third Person est sont est sunt fac(e/ī)d/-(e/i)t fac(e/ī)ont facit faciunt
Indicative Perfect: Sum Indicative Perfect: Facio
Old Classical Old Classical
Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural
First Person fuei fuemos fuī fuimus (fe)fecei (fe)fecemos fēcī fēcimus
Second Person fuistei fuisteīs fuistī fuistis (fe)fecistei (fe)fecisteis fēcistī fēcistis
Third Person fued/fuit fueront/-erom fuit fuērunt/-ēre (fe)feced/-et (fe)feceront/-erom fēcit fēcērunt/-ēre

Discover more about Morphology related topics

Noun

Noun

A noun is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.

Grammatical case

Grammatical case

A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In various languages, nominal groups consisting of a noun and its modifiers belong to one of a few such categories. For instance, in English, one says I see them and they see me: the nominative pronouns I/they represent the perceiver and the accusative pronouns me/them represent the phenomenon perceived. Here, nominative and accusative are cases, that is, categories of pronouns corresponding to the functions they have in representation.

Word stem

Word stem

In linguistics, a word stem is a part of a word responsible for its lexical meaning. The term is used with slightly different meanings depending on the morphology of the language in question. In Athabaskan linguistics, for example, a verb stem is a root that cannot appear on its own and that carries the tone of the word. Athabaskan verbs typically have two stems in this analysis, each preceded by prefixes.

Root (linguistics)

Root (linguistics)

A root is the core of a word that is irreducible into more meaningful elements. In morphology, a root is a morphologically simple unit which can be left bare or to which a prefix or a suffix can attach. The root word is the primary lexical unit of a word, and of a word family, which carries aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents. Content words in nearly all languages contain, and may consist only of, root morphemes. However, sometimes the term "root" is also used to describe the word without its inflectional endings, but with its lexical endings in place. For example, chatters has the inflectional root or lemma chatter, but the lexical root chat. Inflectional roots are often called stems, and a root in the stricter sense, a root morpheme, may be thought of as a monomorphemic stem.

Classical Latin

Classical Latin

Classical Latin is the form of Literary Latin recognized as a literary standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It was used from 75 BC to the 3rd century AD, when it developed into Late Latin. In some later periods, it was regarded as good or proper Latin, with following versions viewed as debased, degenerate, or corrupted. The word Latin is now understood by default to mean "Classical Latin"; for example, modern Latin textbooks almost exclusively teach Classical Latin.

Paradigm

Paradigm

In science and philosophy, a paradigm is a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitute legitimate contributions to a field. The word paradigm is Greek in origin, meaning "pattern", and is used to illustrate similar occurrences.

Latium

Latium

Latium is the region of central western Italy in which the city of Rome was founded and grew to be the capital city of the Roman Empire.

Grammatical number

Grammatical number

In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions. English and other languages present number categories of singular or plural, both of which are cited by using the hash sign (#) or by the numero signs "No." and "Nos." respectively. Some languages also have a dual, trial and paucal number or other arrangements.

Declension

Declension

In linguistics, declension is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence, by way of some inflection. Declensions may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and articles to indicate number, case, gender, and a number of other grammatical categories. Meanwhile, the inflectional change of verbs is called conjugation.

Indo-European ablaut

Indo-European ablaut

In linguistics, the Indo-European ablaut is a system of apophony in the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE).

In popular fiction

The Italian director Matteo Rovere has shot the 2019 film The First King: Birth of an Empire and the 2020-2022 TV series Romulus with dialog in a reconstructed version of Old Latin. The linguists have had to make concessions for ease of filming and not going too much against the expectations of viewers. For example, the character of the Lady of the Wolves is Lukwòsom Pòtnia (an allusion to Homer's Potnia theron) since Latin domina did not have the desired nuances. Before rhotacism, Old Latin had lots of sibilants, so some had to be substituted to ease the actors' work.[42]

Discover more about In popular fiction related topics

Matteo Rovere

Matteo Rovere

Matteo Rovere is an Italian director, screenwriter and producer. He's the youngest Italian film-maker to have won the Nastro d'argento for best producer, with I Can Quit Whenever I Want.

The First King: Birth of an Empire

The First King: Birth of an Empire

The First King: Birth of an Empire, released as Romulus v Remus: The First King in the UK, is a 2019 Italian historical drama film directed by Matteo Rovere. It stars Alessandro Borghi and Alessio Lapice.

Romulus (TV series)

Romulus (TV series)

Romulus, graphically rendered as ROMVLVS, is a 2020 Italian television series created by Matteo Rovere about the founding of Rome. The show is notable for using archaic Latin instead of Italian.

Rhotacism

Rhotacism

Rhotacism or rhotacization is a sound change that converts one consonant to a rhotic consonant in a certain environment. The most common may be of to. When a dialect or member of a language family resists the change and keeps a sound, this is sometimes known as zetacism.

Source: "Old Latin", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, January 29th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Latin.

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Further Reading

Latin

Attic Greek

Umbrian language

Latin grammar

Proto-Italic language
See also
References
  1. ^ "Archaic Latin". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition.
  2. ^ Maras, Daniele F. (Winter 2012). "Scientists declare the Fibula Praenestina and its inscription to be genuine 'beyond any reasonable doubt'" (PDF). Etruscan News. 14. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 February 2012.
  3. ^ Maras, Daniele Federico. "Scientists declare the Fibula Prenestina and its inscription to be genuine 'beyond any reasonable doubt'". academia.edu. Archived from the original on 19 October 2017. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  4. ^ De Oratoribus, I.193.
  5. ^ Book IX.1.6.
  6. ^ Wordsworth 1874, p. v.
  7. ^ Histories III.22.
  8. ^ Bell, Andreas (1889). De Locativi in prisca latinitate vi et usu, dissertatio inauguralis philologica. Breslau: typis Grassi, Barthi et soc (W. Friedrich).
  9. ^ Bennett 1910, p. iii.
  10. ^ Weiss, M. (2020). Outline of the Historical and Comparative Grammar of Latin, 2nd ed. Beech Stave: Ann Arbor. Pp. 24.
  11. ^ Halsey, William D. (1965). Collier's encyclopedia, with Bibliography and Index. USA: The Crowell-Collier Publishing Company. p. 595.
  12. ^ Allen 1897, p. 8: "There were no such names as Caius, Cnaius"
  13. ^ Allen 1897, p. 6.
  14. ^ Bennett 1895, p. 12.
  15. ^ Buck, Carl Darling (2005) [1904]. A Grammar Of Oscan And Umbrian: With A Collection Of Inscriptions And A Glossary. Languages of classical antiquity, vol. 5. Bristol, Pa.: Evolution Publishing. p. 204.
  16. ^ Buck 1933, pp. 174–175.
  17. ^ Wordsworth 1874, p. 45.
  18. ^ a b Buck 1933, p. 177.
  19. ^ Buck 1933, pp. 175–176.
  20. ^ a b Wordsworth 1874, p. 48.
  21. ^ a b c d Buck 1933, p. 176.
  22. ^ Buck 1933, p. 172.
  23. ^ Palmer 1988, p. 242.
  24. ^ Buck 1933, p. 173.
  25. ^ Buck 1933, pp. 99–100.
  26. ^ Lindsay (1894), p. 383.
  27. ^ Weiss, M. (2020). Outline of the Historical and Comparative Grammar of Latin, 2nd ed. Beech Stave: Ann Arbor.
  28. ^ Buck 1933, p. 182.
  29. ^ a b Sihler (1995), A New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin.
  30. ^ Wordsworth 1874, p. 56.
  31. ^ Buck 1933, p. 181.
  32. ^ Grandgent, Charles Hall (1908) [1907]. An introduction to vulgar Latin. Heath's modern language series. Boston: D.C. Heath & Co. p. 89.
  33. ^ Buck 1933, p. 197.
  34. ^ Buck 1933, pp. 185–193.
  35. ^ Wordsworth 1874, pp. 67–73.
  36. ^ Buck 1933, p. 185.
  37. ^ a b c Bennett 1895, p. 117.
  38. ^ Roby 1872, p. 162.
  39. ^ Allen 1897, p. 9.
  40. ^ Gildersleeve & Lodge 1900, p. 18.
  41. ^ Buck 1933, pp. 198–201.
  42. ^ Gargantini, Gabriele (20 November 2020). "Seike Romulos deiksed". Il Post (in Italian). Retrieved 19 October 2022.
Bibliography
Further reading
  • Goldberg, Sander M. 2007. "Antiquity's antiquity." In Latinitas Perennis. Vol. 1, The continuity of Latin literature. Edited by Wim Verbaal, Yanick Maes, and Jan Papy, 17–29. Brill's Studies in Intellectual History 144. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
  • Lembke, Janet. 1973. Bronze and Iron: Old Latin Poetry From Its Beginnings to 100 B.C. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • Mercado, Angelo. 2012. Italic Verse: A Study of the Poetic Remains of Old Latin, Faliscan, and Sabellic. Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachen und Literaturen der Universität Innsbruck.
  • Vine, Brent. 1993. Studies in Archaic Latin inscriptions. Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft 75. Innsbruck, Austria: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Univ. Innsbruck.
  • Warmington, E. H. 1979. Remains of Old Latin. Rev. ed. 4 vols. Loeb Classical Library 294, 314, 329, 359. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
  • Warner, R. 1980. "Word Order in Old Latin: Copulative Clauses." Orbis 29, no.1: 251–63.
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