apex (diacritic)

In written Latin, the apex (plural "apices") is a mark with roughly the shape of an acute accent () or apostrophe () that was sometimes placed over vowels to indicate that they were long.

The shape and length of the apex can vary, sometimes within a single inscription. While virtually all apices consist of a line sloping up to the right, the line can be more or less curved, and varies in length from less than half the height of a letter to more than the height of a letter. Sometimes, it is adorned at the top with a distinct hook, protruding to the left. Rather than being centered over the vowel it modifies, the apex is often considerably displaced to the right.

Identification with the sicilicus

The apex (used above vowels) is often contrasted with the sicilicus, a rarely-attested ancient Latin diacritic used above consonants to denote that they should be pronounced double. Revilo P. Oliver argues that they are one and the same sign, a mark of gemination which was used over any letter to indicate that the letter should be read twice. The distinction between a sicilicus that was used above consonants and an apex that was applied to vowels is then completely artificial: "There is ''no'' example of this mark he sicilicusthat can be distinguished from an apex by any criterion other than its presence above a letter that is not a long vowel," Oliver writes, and "No ancient source says ''explicitly'' that there were two different signs...".

If Oliver is right, the apex as a sign denoting vowel length would have its origin in the time when long vowels were written double. Then, when long vowels ceased to be regularly written twice, the usage of the sicilicus above vowels evidently remained, even after it fell out of use above consonants, and the apex, as it was now called, was redefined as a sign denoting the phonematic feature of vowel length, rather than as a purely orthographic shorthand. However, Oliver's view that the two marks were identical has been challenged.

Gallery

Inscription displaying apices (from the shrine of the Augustales at Herculaneum).jpg, Inscription displaying very thin apices and long i. Herculaneum, 1st century CE.
Scriptura con apices Nimes 1750.jpg, Epitaph displaying apices and long i. Nimes, 1st–2nd century CE.
I littera in manuscripto.jpg, Papyrus fragment written in Roman cursive showing apices.
''uobis · ujdetur · p · c · decernám(us · ut · etiam)
prólátis · rebus ijs · júdicibus · n(ecessitas · judicandi)
imponátur quj · jntrá rerum (· agendárum · dies)
jncoháta · judicia · non · per(egerint · nec)
defuturas · ignoro · fraudes · m(onstrósa · agentibus)
multas · aduersus · quas · exc(ogitáuimus)...''
Pilate_Inscription.JPG, The Pilate stone (1st century AD?), displaying a large apex mark.

See also

* Acute accent
* Latin spelling

References

{{Navbox diacritical marks

Latin-script diacritics
Inscriptions
Palaeography
Palaeographic letters