Anciens Latina

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cweb255
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Anciens Latina

Post by cweb255 »

Does anyone know where I can find resources for ancient Latin? Not any Latin, but specifically the kind used in Senatus Consultum de Bacchanlibus? I would appreciate it. The only things I know so far are a few rules, such as si = sei; punio = poenio; in caelo = in caelod; vulcanus = volcanus; latus = stlatus; and bonus = duenus... Am I missing something, and is there more Latin like this than just SCdB?

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benissimus
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Post by benissimus »

You can learn quite a lot of this from reading Allen & Greenough's New Latin Grammar. Whenever they discuss something, they often note the archaic forms. There are too many to list here. I don't know if they have been compiled anywhere, but it sounds like prime material for a Textkit tutorial (I'll add that to my to-do list...). It also depends on which time period you want to focus on. Ante-Classical is a large time frame. For example, the 1st declension genitive in -ai predates the -ae genitive, but both are predated by the -as genitive (i.e. pater familias). I find this to be a very interesting subject, I too would like to know of any sources of information on Old Latin. Saturnalian verses, as I understand it, are still much of a mystery.
in caelo = in caelod;
ablative singulars usually ended in -d for every declension, which did not change the length of the preceding vowel.
vulcanus = volcanus;
vowel v is normally changed o when preceding by consonantal v, though modern textbooks do not acknowledge this practice (foolishly).
latus = stlatus;
I would have thought it should be tlatus, the stem being TOL. The word lis, litis I know was formerly stlis, stlitis.
and bonus = duenus
never heard of that one...
flebile nescio quid queritur lyra, flebile lingua murmurat exanimis, respondent flebile ripae

cweb255
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Post by cweb255 »

Those were just examples I was giving from what I knew about archaic Latin. I should have guessed on the genitive -as, as that is the IndoEuropean genitive (cf. English and Greek). You're right about tlatus, my mistake. But one phonetic change was the du > b, as in duis > bis (twice), duellum > bellum (war/duel), and duenus > benus > bonus (good).

I was just wondering if you knew where I could get some more information on this, though.

nota duena: Examples I forgot to mention: arbor < arbos (honos, labos, odos, even asa > ara; cf. mos, moris); maxumus (etc...) for maximus; and the obvious c > g & k > c...

Also, does anyone know which words originally had z's and q's in them? I'm not sure which words that now have c originally had q (like quor for cur). Vobis gratias ago.

Dingbats
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Post by Dingbats »

Well, I'm not an expert, but my dictionary says the original spellings for cum were com and quum. Maybe you knew that.

Michaelyus
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Post by Michaelyus »

I've dug up this link:
A little on phonetics, but nothing specific.

I thought duellum was a native Latin word, but was supplanted by the Faliscian bellum, and not a phonetic change.

cweb255
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Post by cweb255 »

Prima, thanks for the site. Secunda, I know for sure (or at least I think I do) that duis was the old form of bis, and that a phonetic change occured that made du = b. Duenus was the older form of benus, which spawned bonus, (some argue that it was a duenus to duonus to bonus, but I'm not so sure about that...) I don't recall any other changes of that nature, but the duellum - bellum seem to fit that obscure pattern...

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