Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Chapter I Introduction
- Chapter II The Republic: inscriptions
- Chapter III Explicit evidence for regional variation: the Republic
- Chapter IV Explicit evidence: the Empire
- Chapter V Regionalisms in provincial texts: Gaul
- Chapter VI Spain
- Chapter VII Italy
- Chapter VIII Africa
- Chapter IX Britain
- Chapter X Inscriptions
- Chapter XI Conclusion
- Maps
- Bibliography
- Index verborum
- Subject index
- Index locorum
Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Chapter I Introduction
- Chapter II The Republic: inscriptions
- Chapter III Explicit evidence for regional variation: the Republic
- Chapter IV Explicit evidence: the Empire
- Chapter V Regionalisms in provincial texts: Gaul
- Chapter VI Spain
- Chapter VII Italy
- Chapter VIII Africa
- Chapter IX Britain
- Chapter X Inscriptions
- Chapter XI Conclusion
- Maps
- Bibliography
- Index verborum
- Subject index
- Index locorum
Summary
No reader of Cicero and Martial, however attentive and learned, could possibly tell from their Latin that the one came from Arpinum in the Volscian territory and the other from Spain. It has sometimes been thought paradoxical that Latin of the Roman period seems to lack regional variations yet was able to generate in little more than a millennium a diversity of Romance tongues that are usually classified as different languages. Was the language at first uniform but subject in late antiquity to some catastrophic event that caused it to split up into numerous varieties? Or was regional diversity there from the beginning, obscured perhaps by standardised forms of writing? These questions have long been of interest, particularly to Romance philologists keen to identify the genesis of the different Romance languages. The study of regional variation by Latinists suffered a setback more than a hundred years ago when the supposed discovery of African features in certain African literary texts was exposed as misguided, but even among Latinists an interest in the subject has never entirely faded away. Several of the great names in Latin philology have addressed the subject, not infrequently lamenting its difficulty, and expressing frustration that the variations that common sense and their experience of other languages told them must be there, could not be found.
In this book it will be shown that Latin had regional variations from the earliest period, first within Italy itself and later across the provinces.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Regional Diversification of Latin 200 BC - AD 600 , pp. xv - xviiPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007