Spoken Latin in Britain as Evidenced in the Inscriptions

Abstract

THE student of inscriptions is often confronted with variations and peculiarities of spelling. Sometimes these are simply the result of errors on the part of the stone-cutter. But in many cases these variations are of much greater significance, since they derive from the spoken language. It seems reasonable to attempt to distinguish the latter from mere errors in stone-cutting. This paper aims to facilitate this for students consulting British inscriptions. The Latin nowadays taught in schools and universities was of course the language of the literary world, differing from the language of everyday use. The latter did not suddenly develop at a late date; the divergence from the written word can be traced well back into the republican period.' Naturally little evidence for spoken forms survives in the literary tradition, but for the principate and the later empire an important source is in fact constituted by the sub-literary tradition of Roman inscriptions.2 The more casual and ephemeral the inscription, the more likely that it will illustrate spoken usage; hence the importance of graffiti.3 But it is by no means only in graffiti that the spoken language intervened. As will be seen from the lists which follow, even the most official inscriptions can show this influence. It appears in two main forms: