Classical Latin

Abstract: 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.

Abstract: F EW LATIN TERMS COME as heavily loaded with conceptual baggage as paterfamilias. In both scholarly and popular discourse, paterfamilias, defined as "head of household," evokes the patriarchal organization characteristic of the Roman family and of the wider society.' Debates over family values in contemporary popular discourse make shorthand (and clumsy) references to the "paterfamilias model" of the family or "the Roman code of Paterfamilias," as if everyone understands the content of that model.2 A survey of undergraduate syllabi and study guides on the internet shows that paterfamilias is often listed as a key term for understanding Roman society. At the other end of the scholarly spectrum, the Real-Encyclopddie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft includes a long entry on paterfamilias by E. Sachers, who asserts that in the reverence and obedience toward the paterfamilias "lay the characteristic foundation for the greatness of ancient Rome."3 A comprehensive survey of all uses of paterfamilias in classical texts, however, reveals a major disjunction between this modern understanding of the term (rooted in Roman law) and ancient usage. The following sections draw on the survey to generalize about where the term is used and where it is not, and present quotations from ancient texts to illustrate what the term connotes. I begin by illustrating the common modern understanding of pater familias as the severe patriarch whose power defined the Roman family. The next sections analyze the use of paterfamilias in legal texts and then nonlegal texts. The full word study shows that the term appears predominantly in legal texts and much less densely in literary texts. In both discourses, the most common meaning of pater familias is "estate owner" without reference tofamilial relations. The final section of this paper seeks to offer a gendered perspective on the meaning of paterfamilias by a parallel survey of uses of materfamilias in classical Latin prose. Sociolinguists

Abstract: Foreword to the second edition Foreword to the first edition Phonetic introduction 1. Consonants 2. Vowels 3. Vowel length 4. Vowel junction 5. Accent 6. Quality Appendices Supplementary notes Select bibliography Summary of recommended pronunciations.

Abstract: THERE has been some discussion of late among descriptive linguists and socio-linguists as to the nature of "standard" English, the one tending to deny the existence of a standard, because of variations in the spoken language, and the other arguing that the standard language is an elitist shibboleth erected to perpetuate the authority of the dominant culture.' Neither of these positions recognizes the historical fact that in every society there is a formal, official language in which business is carried on, which is different from the various casual dialects of familiar exchange. The more stable and enduring a society becomes, the more regular become its administrative procedures. Part of the process of regularizing the procedures is the standardizing of the official language in which they are transacted and recorded. The official language thus very early achieves a regular written form.2 Official languages have always been the prerogatives of ruling hierarchies, from Mandarin Chinese to Sanskrit to Classical Latin. The "standard" West Saxon used throughout England in the tenth and eleventh centuries was evidently the product of King Alfred's royal secretariat.3 That this language was different from the spoken Old English dialects may be deduced from the rapidity with which it disappeared as soon as the central administration turned to Latin and French.4 My interest is in the re-emergence of English in the fifteenth century as an administrative language, independent of the spoken dialect of any region or class, and, in the long run, imposing its own structure and idiom upon those who conduct the affairs of the nation. Curiously, the rise of standard written English has never been studied in