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This book contains over fifty passages of Latin from 200 BC to AD
900, each with translation and linguistic commentary. It is not
intended as an elementary reader (though suitable for university
courses), but as an illustrative history of Latin covering more
than a millennium, with almost every century represented.
Conventional histories cite constructions out of context, whereas
this work gives a sense of the period, genre, stylistic aims and
idiosyncrasies of specific passages. 'Informal' texts, particularly
if they portray talk, reflect linguistic variety and change better
than texts adhering to classicising norms. Some of the texts are
recent discoveries or little known. Writing tablets are well
represented, as are literary and technical texts down to the early
medieval period, when striking changes appear. The commentaries
identify innovations, discontinuities and phenomena of long
duration. Readers will learn much about the diversity and
development of Latin.
This book addresses the question of whether there are continuities
in Latin spanning the period from the early Republic through to the
Romance languages. It is often maintained that various usages
admitted by early comedy were rejected later by the literary
language but continued in speech, to resurface centuries later in
the written record (and in Romance). Are certain similarities
between early and late Latin all that they seem, or might they be
superficial, reflecting different phenomena at different periods?
Most of the chapters, on numerous syntactic and other topics and
using different methodologies, have a long chronological range. All
attempt to identify patterns of change that might undermine any
theory of submerged continuity. The patterns found are summarised
in a concluding chapter. The volume addresses classicists with an
interest in any of the different periods of Latin, and Romance
linguists.
This book contains over fifty passages of Latin from 200 BC to AD
900, each with translation and linguistic commentary. It is not
intended as an elementary reader (though suitable for university
courses), but as an illustrative history of Latin covering more
than a millennium, with almost every century represented.
Conventional histories cite constructions out of context, whereas
this work gives a sense of the period, genre, stylistic aims and
idiosyncrasies of specific passages. 'Informal' texts, particularly
if they portray talk, reflect linguistic variety and change better
than texts adhering to classicising norms. Some of the texts are
recent discoveries or little known. Writing tablets are well
represented, as are literary and technical texts down to the early
medieval period, when striking changes appear. The commentaries
identify innovations, discontinuities and phenomena of long
duration. Readers will learn much about the diversity and
development of Latin.
Languages show variations according to the social class of speakers
and Latin was no exception, as readers of Petronius are aware. The
Romance languages have traditionally been regarded as developing
out of a 'language of the common people' (Vulgar Latin), but
studies of modern languages demonstrate that linguistic change does
not merely come, in the social sense, 'from below'. There is change
from above, as prestige usages work their way down the social
scale, and change may also occur across the social classes. This
book is a history of many of the developments undergone by the
Latin language as it changed into Romance, demonstrating the
varying social levels at which change was initiated. About thirty
topics are dealt with, many of them more systematically than ever
before. Discussions often start in the early Republic with Plautus,
and the book is as much about the literary language as about
informal varieties.
Classical Latin appears to be without regional dialects, yet Latin
evolved in little more than a millennium into a variety of
different languages (the Romance languages: Italian, French,
Spanish, Portuguese etc.). Was regional diversity apparent from the
earliest times, obscured perhaps by the standardisation of writing,
or did some catastrophic event in late antiquity cause the language
to vary? These questions have long intrigued Latinists and Romance
philologists, struck by the apparent uniformity of Latin alongside
the variety of Romance. This book, first published in 2007,
establishes that Latin was never geographically uniform. The
changing patterns of diversity and the determinants of variation
are examined from the time of the early inscriptions of Italy,
through to late antiquity and the beginnings of the Romance
dialects in the western Roman provinces. This is the most
comprehensive treatment ever undertaken of the regional
diversification of Latin throughout its history in the Roman
period.
Languages show variations according to the social class of speakers
and Latin was no exception, as readers of Petronius are aware. The
Romance languages have traditionally been regarded as developing
out of a 'language of the common people' (Vulgar Latin), but
studies of modern languages demonstrate that linguistic change does
not merely come, in the social sense, 'from below'. There is change
from above, as prestige usages work their way down the social
scale, and change may also occur across the social classes. This
book is a history of many of the developments undergone by the
Latin language as it changed into Romance, demonstrating the
varying social levels at which change was initiated. About thirty
topics are dealt with, many of them more systematically than ever
before. Discussions often start in the early Republic with Plautus,
and the book is as much about the literary language as about
informal varieties.
Since the 1980s, bilingualism has become one of the main themes of
sociolinguistics - but there are as yet few large-scale treatments
of the subject specific to the ancient world. This book is the
first work to deal systematically with bilingualism during a period
of antiquity (the Roman period, down to about the fourth century
AD) in the light of sociolinguistic discussions of bilingual
issues. The general theme of the work is the nature of the contact
between Latin and numerous other languages spoken in the Roman
world. Among the many issues discussed three are prominent:
code-switching (the practice of switching between two languages in
the course of a single utterance) and its motivation, language
contact as a cause of change in one or both of the languages in
contact, and the part played by language choice and language
switching in the establishment of personal and group identities.
Classical Latin appears to be without regional dialects, yet Latin
evolved in little more than a millennium into a variety of
different languages (the Romance languages: Italian, French,
Spanish, Portuguese etc.). Was regional diversity apparent from the
earliest times, obscured perhaps by the standardisation of writing,
or did some catastrophic event in late antiquity cause the language
to vary? These questions have long intrigued Latinists and Romance
philologists, struck by the apparent uniformity of Latin alongside
the variety of Romance. This book, first published in 2007,
establishes that Latin was never geographically uniform. The
changing patterns of diversity and the determinants of variation
are examined from the time of the early inscriptions of Italy,
through to late antiquity and the beginnings of the Romance
dialects in the western Roman provinces. This is the most
comprehensive treatment ever undertaken of the regional
diversification of Latin throughout its history in the Roman
period.
LIke other languages, Latin contained certain words its speakers
considered obscene as well as a rich stock of sexual euphemism and
metaphor. Our sources for this information range from surviving
graffiti to literary works with a marked sexual content. Yet
despite its manifest literary and linguistic interest, the sexual
vocabulary of Latin has remained uninvestigated by scholars. J. A.
Adams's pioneering and unique reference work collects for the first
time evidence of Latin obscenities and sexual euphemisms drawn from
both literary and nonliterary sources from the early Republic to
about he fouth century A.D. Separate chaptes treat each of the
sexual pasrts of the body and the terminology used to describe
sexual acts. General topics include the influence of Greek language
on Latin, changes in the Latin vocabulary over time (including the
evolution of sexual words into general terms of abuse), and lexical
differences among various literary genres.
Bilingualism has seen an explosion of work in recent years. This volume introduces classicists, ancient historians, and other scholars interested in sociolinguistics to bilingualism in the ancient Mediterranean. The fifteen chapters cover theoretical and methodological issues and key aspects of the contact between Latin and Greek and among Latin, Greek, and other languages.
Languages show variations according to the social class of speakers
and Latin was no exception, as readers of Petronius are aware. The
Romance languages have traditionally been regarded as developing
out of a 'language of the common people' (Vulgar Latin), but
studies of modern languages demonstrate that linguistic change does
not merely come, in the social sense, 'from below'. There is change
from above, as prestige usages work their way down the social
scale, and change may also occur across the social classes. This
book is a history of many of the developments undergone by the
Latin language as it changed into Romance, demonstrating the
varying social levels at which change was initiated. About thirty
topics are dealt with, many of them more systematically than ever
before. Discussions often start in the early Republic with Plautus,
and the book is as much about the literary language as about
informal varieties.
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