Old Latin, also known as Early Latin or Archaic Latin (Classical la, prīsca Latīnitās, lit=ancient Latinity), was the

Latin language Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of ...

in the period before 75 BC, i.e. before the age of

Classical Latin Classical Latin is the form of Literary Latin recognized as a literary standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It was used from 75 BC to the 3rd century AD, when it developed into Late Latin. In some later period ...

. It descends from a common Proto-Italic language;

Latino-Faliscan The Latino-Faliscan or Latinian languages form a group of the Italic languages within the Indo-European family. They were spoken by the Latino-Faliscan people of Italy who lived there from the early 1st millennium BCE. Latin and Faliscan belong ...

is likely a separate branch from Osco-Umbrian with possible further relation to other Italic languages and to

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language *Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Foo ...

; e.g. the Italo-Celtic hypothesis. 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 The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Roman Republic, Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings aro ...

. This article presents some of the major differences. The earliest known specimen of

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

seems on the

Praeneste fibula The Praeneste fibula (the "brooch of Palestrina") is a golden ''fibula'' or brooch, today housed in the Pigorini National Museum of Prehistory and Ethnography in Rome. The fibula bears an inscription in Old Latin, claiming craftsmanship by o ...

. A new 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 The Roman Republic ( la, Res publica Romana ) was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Ki ...

include the

Lapis Niger The Lapis Niger ( Latin, "Black Stone") is an ancient shrine in the Roman Forum. Together with the associated Vulcanal (a sanctuary to Vulcan) it constitutes the only surviving remnants of the old Comitium, an early assembly area that preceded ...

stone, the

Duenos Inscription The Duenos inscription is one of the earliest known Old Latin texts, variously dated from the 7th to the 5th century BC. It is inscribed on the sides of a ''kernos'', in this case a trio of small globular vases adjoined by three clay struts. It w ...

on a ''

kernos In the typology of ancient Greek pottery, the kernos ( or , plural ''kernoi'') is a pottery ring or stone tray to which are attached several small vessels for holding offerings. Its unusual design is described in literary sources, which also li ...

'' vase, and the

Garigliano bowl The Garigliano bowl is a small impasto bowl with bucchero glaze likely to have been produced around 500 BC, with an early Latin inscript written in a form of the western Greek or Etruscan alphabet.Cf. page 200, BALDI (2002) It was found along the ...

Bucchero Bucchero () is a class of ceramics produced in central Italy by the region's pre-Roman Etruscan population. This Italian word is derived from the Latin ''poculum'', a drinking-vessel, perhaps through the Spanish ''búcaro'', or the Portuguese ' ...

type.

Philological constructs

The old-time language

The concept of Old Latin (''Prisca Latinitas'') is as old as the concept of Classical Latin – both labels date to at least as early as the late

. In that period

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the esta ...

, 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'', translated as "the old age/time of language". 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 in fact than it really was. ''Viri prisci'', "old-time men", meant the population of

Latium Latium ( , ; ) is the region of central western Italy in which the city of Rome was founded and grew to be the capital city of the Roman Empire. Definition Latium was originally a small triangle of fertile, volcanic soil ( Old Latium) on w ...

before the founding of Rome.

The four Latins of Isidore

In the

Late Latin Late Latin ( la, Latinitas serior) is the scholarly name for the form of Literary Latin of late antiquity.Roberts (1996), p. 537. English dictionary definitions of Late Latin date this period from the , and continuing into the 7th century in t ...

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 ( 560 – 636) reports a classification scheme that had come into existence in or before his time: "the four Latins" ("Moreover, some people have said that there are four Latin languages"; ''"Latinas autem linguas quattuor esse quidam dixerunt"''). They were: * ''Prisca'', spoken before the founding of Rome, when Janus and Saturn ruled

, 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 equal to Classical Latin * ''Mixta'', "mixed" Classical Latin and

Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve into numerous Romance languages. Its literary counterpa ...

, known today as

. This scheme persisted with little change for some thousand years after Isidore.

Old Latin

In 1874,

John Wordsworth John Wordsworth (1843–1911) was an English Anglican bishop and classical scholar. He was Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at the University of Oxford from 1883 to 1885, and Bishop of Salisbury from 1885 to 1911. Life ...

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 Kings or King's may refer to: *Monarchs: The sovereign heads of states and/or nations, with the male being kings *One of several works known as the "Book of Kings": **The Books of Kings part of the Bible, divided into two parts **The ''Shahnameh'' ...

, mainly songs. Thus, the laws of the Twelve Tables (5th century BC) from the early Republic were comprehensible, but the '' Carmen Saliare'', probably written under Numa Pompilius (who traditionally reigned from 715 to 673 BC), was not entirely clear (and remains so). 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", (which he dated to 28 years before Xerxes I crossed into Greece; that is, in 508 BC) 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 later. 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 (painting, engraving, embossing) 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 A monarchy is a form of government in which a person, the monarch, is head of state for life or until abdication. The political legitimacy and authority of the monarch may vary from restricted and largely symbolic ( constitutional monar ...

. These are listed below. Note that some authors, especially in recent texts, refer to the oldest Latin documents (7th-5th c. BCE) as Very Old Latin (VOL).

Fragments and inscriptions

Notable Old Latin fragments with estimated dates include: * The Carmen Saliare (chant put forward in classical times as having been sung by the Salian brotherhood formed by Numa Pompilius, approximate date 700 BC) * The

(date from first half of the seventh century BC.) * The Tita Vendia vase (c. 620-600 BC) * The Forum inscription (''see illustration'', c. 550 BC under the monarchy) * The

Duenos inscription The Duenos inscription is one of the earliest known Old Latin texts, variously dated from the 7th to the 5th century BC. It is inscribed on the sides of a ''kernos'', in this case a trio of small globular vases adjoined by three clay struts. It w ...

(c. 500 BC) * The Castor-Pollux dedication (c. 500 BC) * The

Garigliano Bowl The Garigliano bowl is a small impasto bowl with bucchero glaze likely to have been produced around 500 BC, with an early Latin inscript written in a form of the western Greek or Etruscan alphabet.Cf. page 200, BALDI (2002) It was found along the ...

(c. 500 BC) * The Lapis Satricanus (early 5th century BC) * The preserved fragments of the laws of the Twelve Tables (traditionally, 449 BC, attested much later) * The Tibur pedestal (c. 400 BC) * The Scipionum Elogia ** Epitaph of Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbatus (c. 280 BC) ** Epitaph of Lucius Cornelius Scipio (consul 259 BC) ** Epitaph of Publius Cornelius Scipio P.f. P.n. Africanus (died about 170 BC) * The

Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus The ''senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus'' ("senatorial decree concerning the Bacchanalia") is a notable Old Latin inscription dating to 186 BC. It was discovered in 1640 at Tiriolo, in Calabria, southern Italy. Published by the presiding praeto ...

(186 BC) * The Vase Inscription from Ardea * The Corcolle Altar fragments * The Carmen Arvale * Altar to the Unknown Divinity (92 BC)

Works of literature

Authors: * Lucius Livius Andronicus (c. 280/260 BC – c. 200 BC), translator, founder of Roman drama * Gnaeus Naevius (c. 264–201 BC), dramatist, epic poet * Titus Maccius

Plautus Titus Maccius Plautus (; c. 254 – 184 BC), commonly known as Plautus, was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the g ...

(c. 254–184 BC), dramatist, composer of comedies * Quintus

Ennius Quintus Ennius (; c. 239 – c. 169 BC) was a writer and poet who lived during the Roman Republic. He is often considered the father of Roman poetry. He was born in the small town of Rudiae, located near modern Lecce, Apulia, (Ancient Calabri ...

(239 – c. 169 BC), poet * Marcus

Pacuvius Marcus Pacuvius (; 220 – c. 130 BC) was an ancient Roman tragic poet. He is regarded as the greatest of their tragedians prior to Lucius Accius. Biography He was the nephew and pupil of Ennius, by whom Roman tragedy was first raised to a positi ...

(c. 220–130 BC), tragic dramatist, poet * Statius Caecilius (220 – 168/166 BC), comic dramatist *

Publius Terentius Afer Publius Terentius Afer (; – ), better known in English as Terence (), was a Roman African playwright during the Roman Republic. His comedies were performed for the first time around 166–160 BC. Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, brought ...

(195/185 – 159 BC), comic dramatist * Marcus Porcius Cato (234–149 BC), orator, historian, topical writer * Lucius Accius (170 – c. 86 BC), tragic dramatist, philologist * Gaius Lucilius (c. 160s – 103/102 BC), satirist * Quintus Lutatius Catulus (2nd century BC), public officer, epigrammatist * Aulus Furius Antias (2nd century BC), poet * Gaius Julius Caesar Strabo Vopiscus (130–87 BC), public officer, tragic dramatist *

Lucius Pomponius Lucius Pomponius (fl. c. 90 BC or earlier) was a Roman dramatist. Called ''Bononiensis'' (“native of Bononia” (i.e. Bologna), Pomponius was a writer of Atellanae Fabulae (Atellan Fables), and a near contemporary of Quintus Novius. Pomponius ...

Bononiensis (2nd century BC), comic dramatist, satirist * Lucius Cassius Hemina (2nd century BC), historian *

Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi may refer to: * Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi (consul 133 BC), Roman annalist and politician * Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus (38 – 15 January 69) was a Roman noblema ...

(2nd century BC), historian * Manius Manilius (2nd century BC), public officer, jurist * Lucius Coelius Antipater (2nd century BC), jurist, historian * Publius

Sempronius Asellio Sempronius Asellio (flourished BC c. 91BC) was an early Roman historian and one of the first writers of historiographic work in Latin. He was a military tribune of P. Scipio Aemilianus Africanus at the siege of Numantia in Hispania in 134BC. Later ...

(158 BC – after 91 BC), military officer, historian * Gaius Sempronius Tuditanus (2nd century BC), jurist * Lucius Afranius (2nd and 1st centuries BC), comic dramatist * Titus Albucius (2nd and 1st centuries BC), orator * Publius Rutilius Rufus (158 BC – after 78 BC), jurist * Lucius Aelius Stilo Praeconinus (154–74 BC), philologist * Quintus Claudius Quadrigarius (2nd and 1st centuries BC), historian * Valerius Antias (2nd and 1st centuries BC), historian *

Lucius Cornelius Sisenna Lucius Cornelius Sisenna (c. 120 – 67 BC) was a Roman soldier, historian, and annalist. Life Little is known of Sisenna's life or family. The first Cornelius Sisenna (perhaps Lucius' grandfather or great-grandfather) appears as urban prae ...

(121–67 BC), soldier, historian * Quintus Cornificius (2nd and 1st centuries BC), rhetorician

Script

Old Latin surviving in inscriptions is written in various forms of the

Etruscan alphabet The Etruscan alphabet was the alphabet used by the Etruscans, an ancient civilization of central and northern Italy, to write their language, from about 700 BC to sometime around 100 AD. The Etruscan alphabet derives from the Euboean alphab ...

as it evolved into the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the ...

. The writing conventions varied by time and place until classical conventions prevailed. Apart 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 (as were Etruscan and early Greek) or

boustrophedon Boustrophedon is a style of writing in which alternate lines of writing are reversed, with letters also written in reverse, mirror-style. This is in contrast to modern European languages, where lines always begin on the same side, usually the le ...

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 year, the Classical Latin stress system began to develop. It passed through at least one intermediate stage, found in

, in which the stress occurred on the fourth last syllable in four-syllable words with all short syllables.

Vowels and diphthongs

Most original PIE (

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo ...

) diphthongs were preserved in stressed syllables, including (later ''ae''); (later ''ī''); (later ''ū'', or sometimes ''oe''); (from PIE and ; later ''ū''). 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'' (e.g. perhaps vs. during the time when both sounds existed). 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'' (e.g. in the genitive singular ''-ī'', which is always spelled ''-i'' in the oldest inscriptions but later on can be spelled either ''-i'' or ''-ei''). In unstressed syllables, *oi and *ai had already merged into ''ei'' by historic times (except for one possible occurrence of ''poploe'' for ''populī'' "people" in a late manuscript of one of the early songs). 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

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 (e.g. earlier ''votō, voster, vorsus'' vs. later ''vetō, vester, versus''). Old Latin frequently preserves original PIE thematic case endings '' -os'' and '' -om'' (later ''-us'' and ''-um'').

Consonants

Intervocalic (pronounced ) was preserved up to 350 BC or so, at which point it changed into (

rhotacism Rhotacism () or rhotacization is a sound change that converts one consonant (usually a voiced alveolar consonant: , , , or ) to a rhotic consonant in a certain environment. The most common may be of to . When a dialect or member of a language ...

). This rhotacism had implications for declension: early classical Latin, ''honos'', ''honoris'' (from ''honos'', ''honoses''); later Classical (by analogy) ''honor'', ''honoris'' ("honor"). Some Old Latin texts preserve in this position, such as the Carmen Arvale's ''lases'' for '' lares''. Later instances of single between vowels are mostly due either to reduction of early after long vowels or diphthongs; borrowings; or late reconstructions. There are many unreduced clusters, e.g. ''iouxmentom'' (later ''iūmentum'', "beast of burden"); ''losna'' (later ''lūna'', "moon") < *''lousna'' < */leuksnā/; ''cosmis'' (> ''cōmis'', "courteous"); ''stlocum'', acc. (> ''locum'', "place"). Early ''du'' becomes ''b'': ''duenos'' > ''duonos'' > ''bonus'' "good"; ''duis'' > ''bis'' "twice"; ''duellom'' > ''bellum'' "war". Final occurred in ablatives, such as ''puellād'' "from the girl" or ''campōd'' "from the field", later ''puellā'' and ''campō''. In verb conjugation, the third-person ending -''d'' later became -''t'', e.g. Old Latin ''faced'' > Classical ''facit.''

Morphology

Nouns

Latin

noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, ...

s have

grammatical case A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers ( determiners, adjectives, participles, and numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In various languages, nomin ...

, with an ending, or suffix, showing its use in the sentence: subject, predicate, etc. A case for a given word is formed by suffixing a case ending to a part of the word common to all its cases called a stem. Stems are classified by their last letters as vowel or consonant. Vowel stems are formed by adding a suffix to a shorter and more ancient segment called a

root In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the su ...

. Consonant stems are the root (roots end in consonants). The combination of the last letter of the stem and the case ending often results in an ending also called a case ending or termination. For example, the stem ''puella-'' receives a case ending ''-m'' to form the accusative case ''puellam'' in which the termination ''-am'' is evident. In

textbooks the declensions are named from the letter ending the stem or First, Second, etc. to Fifth. A declension may be illustrated by a paradigm, or listing of all the cases of a typical word. This method is less often applied to Old Latin, and with less validity. In contrast to Classical Latin, Old Latin reflects the evolution of the language from an ancestor spoken in

. The endings are multiple. Their use depends on time and place. Any paradigm selected would be subject to these constraints and if applied to the language universally would give false constructs, hypothetical words not attested in the Old Latin corpus. Nevertheless, the endings are shown below by quasi-classical paradigms. Alternate endings from different stages of development are given, but they may not be attested for the word of the paradigm. For example, in the second declension, *''campoe'' "fields" is unattested, but ''poploe'' "peoples" is attested. The locative was a separate case in Old Latin but gradually became reduced in function, and the locative singular form eventually merged with the genitive singular by regular sound change. In the plural, the locative was captured by the ablative case in all Italic languages before Old Latin.

First declension (a)

The stems of

s of this

declension In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence, by way of some inflection. Declensions may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and ...

usually end in -ā and are typically feminine. A nominative case ending of -s in a few masculines indicates the nominative singular case ending may have been originally -s: ''paricidas'' for later ''parricida'', but the -s tended to get lost. In the nominative plural, -ī replaced original -s as in the genitive singular. In the genitive singular, the -s was replaced with -ī from the second declension, the resulting diphthong shortening to -ai subsequently becoming -ae. The original form is maintained in some formulas, e.g. ''pater familiās''. The genitive plural ending -āsōm (classical -ārum following

), borrowed from the pronouns, began to overtake original -om. In the dative singular the final i is either long or short. The ending becomes -ae, -a (Feronia) or -e (Fortune). In the accusative singular, Latin regularly shortens a vowel before final m. In the ablative singular, -d was regularly lost after a long vowel. In the dative and ablative plural, the -abos descending from Indo-European *-ābhos is used for feminines only (''deabus''). *-ais > -eis > -īs is adapted from -ois of the o-declension. The vocative singular had inherited short -a. This later merged with the nominative singular when -ā was shortened to -ă. The locative case would not apply to such a meaning as ''puella'', so Roma, which is singular, and Syracusae, which is plural, have been substituted. The locative plural has already merged with the -eis form of the ablative.

Second declension (o)

The stems of the nouns of the o-declension end in ŏ deriving from the o-grade of

Indo-European ablaut In linguistics, the Indo-European ablaut (, from German '' Ablaut'' ) is a system of apophony (regular vowel variations) in the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). An example of ablaut in English is the strong verb ''sing, sang, sung'' and its ...

. Classical Latin evidences the development ŏ > ŭ. Nouns of this declension are either masculine or neuter. Nominative singulars ending in -ros or -ris syncopate the ending: *agros > *agrs > *agers > *agerr > ''ager''. (The form ''terr'' "three times" for later ''ter'' < *tris appears in

.) Many alternative spellings occur: *As mentioned above, the sound change -ei > -ẹ̄ > -ī leads to many variations, including the reverse spelling ''ei'' for ''ī''. This spelling eventually appears in the genitive singular as well, though ''-ī'' is earliest and the true ending; cf. ''populi Romanei'', "of the Roman , with both spellings in the same inscription. *Likewise, the sound changes -os > -us and -ōm > -om > -um affect the nominative and accusative singular, and the genitive plural. *One very early text, the Lapis Satricanus, has genitive ''-osio'' (an ending found in several other archaic languages descended from

IE languages such as Vedic Sanskrit, Old Persian, and Homeric Greek) rather than ''-ī'' (an ending appearing only in Italo-Celtic).. This form also appears in the closely related

Faliscan language The Faliscan language is the extinct Italic language of the ancient Falisci, who lived in Southern Etruria. Together with Latin, it formed the Latino-Faliscan languages group of the Italic languages. It seems probable that the language persiste ...

. *In the genitive plural, ''-um'' (from PIE ''*-ōm'') survived in classical Latin "words for coins and measures"; otherwise it was eventually replaced by ''-ōrum'' by analogy with 1st declension . *The nominative/vocative plural masculine ''-ei'' comes from the PIE pronominal ending ''*-oi''. The original ending ''-oi'' appears in a late spelling in the word ''poploe'' (i.e. "poploi" = ''populī'' "people") in Sextus Pompeius Festus.Sihler (1995), ''A New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin''. *The dative/ablative/locative plural ''-eis'' comes from earlier ''-ois'', a merger of PIE instrumental plural ''*-ōis'' and locative plural ''*-oisu''. The form ''-ois'' appears in Sextus Pompeius Festus and a few early inscriptions. *The

Praeneste Fibula The Praeneste fibula (the "brooch of Palestrina") is a golden ''fibula'' or brooch, today housed in the Pigorini National Museum of Prehistory and Ethnography in Rome. The fibula bears an inscription in Old Latin, claiming craftsmanship by o ...

has dative singular ''Numasioi'', representing PIE *-ōi. *A number of "provincial texts" have nominative plural ''-eis'' (later ''-īs'' from 190 BC on), with an added ''s'', by some sort of analogy with other declensions. Sihler (1995) notes that this form appears in literature only in pronouns and suggests that inscriptional examples added to nouns may be artificial (i.e. not reflecting actual pronunciation). *In the vocative singular, some nouns lose the ''-e'' (i.e. have a zero ending) but not necessarily the same as in classical Latin. The ''-e'' alternates regularly with ''-us''.

Third declension (consonant/i)

This declension contains nouns that are masculine, feminine, and neuter. The stem ends in the root consonant, except in the special case where it ends in -i (i-stem declension). The i-stem, which is a vowel-stem, partly fused with the consonant-stem in the pre-Latin period and went further in Old Latin. I/y and u/w can be treated as either consonants or vowels; hence they are

semi-vowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are th ...

s. Mixed-stem declensions are partly like consonant-stem and partly like i-stem. Consonant-stem declensions vary slightly depending on which consonant is root-final: stop-, r-, n-, s-, etc. The paradigms below include a stop-stem (reg-) and an i-stem (igni-). For a consonant declension, in the nominative singular, the -s was affixed directly to the stem consonant, but the combination of the two consonants produced modified nominatives over the Old Latin period. The case appears in different stages of modification in different words diachronically. The Latin neuter form (not shown) is the Indo-European nominative without stem ending; for example, cor < *cord "heart." The genitive singular endings include ''-is < -es'' and ''-us < *-os''. In the genitive plural, some forms appear to affix the case ending to the genitive singular rather than the stem: In the dative singular, -ī succeeded -eī and -ē after 200 BC. In the accusative singular, -em < *-ṃ after a consonant. In the ablative singular, the -d was lost after 200 BC. In the dative and ablative plural, the early poets sometimes used -būs. In the locative singular, the earliest form is like the dative but over the period assimilated to the ablative.

Fourth declension (u)

The stems of the nouns of the u-declension end in ŭ and are masculine, feminine and neuter. In addition there is a ū-stem declension, which contains only a few "isolated" words, such as ''sūs'', "pig", and is not presented here.

Fifth declension (e)

The 'e-stem' declension's morphology matches the Classical language very nearly.

Personal pronouns

Personal pronouns are among the most common thing found in Old Latin inscriptions. In all three persons, the ablative singular ending is identical to the accusative singular.

Relative pronoun

In Old Latin, the relative pronoun is also another common concept, especially in inscriptions. The forms are quite inconsistent and leave much to be reconstructed by scholars.

Verbs

Old present and perfects

There is little evidence of the inflection of Old Latin verb forms and the few surviving inscriptions hold many inconsistencies between forms. Therefore, the forms below are ones that are both proved by scholars through Old Latin inscriptions, and recreated by scholars based on other early Indo-European languages such as Greek and Italic dialects such as

Oscan Oscan is an extinct Indo-European language of southern Italy. The language is in the Osco-Umbrian or Sabellic branch of the Italic languages. Oscan is therefore a close relative of Umbrian. Oscan was spoken by a number of tribes, including t ...

and

Umbrian Umbrian is an extinct Italic language formerly spoken by the Umbri in the ancient Italian region of Umbria. Within the Italic languages it is closely related to the Oscan group and is therefore associated with it in the group of Osco-Umbrian ...

, and which also may be compared to modern Spanish.

In popular fiction

The Italian director

Matteo Rovere Matteo Rovere (born 22 January 1982) is an Italian director, screenwriter and producer. He's the youngest Italian film-maker to have won the Nastro d'argento for best producer, with '' I Can Quit Whenever I Want''. Life and career Born in Rome ...

has shot the 2019 film '' The First King: Birth of an Empire'' and the 2020-2022 TV series '' Romulus'' with dialog in a reconstructed version of Old Latin. The linguists have had to make concessions for ease of filming and not going too much against the expectations of viewers. For example, the character of the Lady of the Wolves is (an allusion to Homer's ) since Latin did not have the desired nuances. Before

, Old Latin had lots of sibilants, so some had to be substituted to ease the actors' work.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * *

External links

*
glottothèque - Ancient Indo-European Grammars online
an online collection of introductory videos to Ancient Indo-European languages produced by the University of Göttingen {{Portal bar, Languages Languages attested from the 7th century BC Latin language in ancient Rome 1 Old Latial culture