Old Latin


Old Latin, also known as Early, Archaic or Priscan Latin, was the Latin language in the period roughly before 75 BC, i.e. before the age of Classical Latin. A member of the Italic languages, it descends from a common Proto-Italic language; Latino-Faliscan is likely a separate branch from Osco-Umbrian. All these languages may be relatively closely related to Venetic and possibly further to Celtic.
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. An analysis done in 2011 declared it to be genuine "beyond any reasonable doubt" and dating from the Orientalizing period, in the first half of the seventh century BC. 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.

Philological constructs

The old-time language

The concept of Old Latin 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.
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 than in fact it really was. Viri prisci, "former 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 reports a classification scheme that had come into existence in or before his time: "the four Latins",. These were:
  • Prisca, spoken before the founding of Rome, when Janus and Saturn ruled Latium, to which period Isidore dated the Carmen Saliare
  • Latina, dated from the time of king Latinus, in which period he placed the laws of the Twelve Tables
  • Romana, essentially the same as Classical Latin
  • Mixta, "mixed" Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin, known today as Late Latin.
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."
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 from the early Republic were comprehensible, but the Carmen Saliare, probably written under Numa Pompilius, was not entirely clear. On the other hand, Polybius, a Greek historian of Rome who flourished in the late second century BC, commented on "the first treaty between Rome and Carthage", saying 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 latter. 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, 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." 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.

Corpus

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 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. Some authors, especially in recent texts, refer to the oldest Latin documents as Very Old Latin.

Fragments and inscriptions

Notable Old Latin fragments with estimated dates include:
Authors:
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. A part 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 or boustrophedon.

Orthography

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

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 time, 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


Most original PIE diphthongs were preserved in stressed syllables, including ; ; ; .
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. Even after the original vowel 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.
In unstressed syllables, *oi and *ai had already merged into ei by historical times. 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.
Old Latin frequently preserves original PIE thematic case endings -os and -om.