Colloquial and Literary Latin

What is colloquial Latin? What can we learn about it from Roman literature, and how does an understanding of colloquial Latin enhance our appreciation of literature? This book sets out to answer such questions, beginning with examinations of how the term 'colloquial' has been used by linguists and by classicists (and how its Latin equivalents were used by the Romans) and continuing with exciting new research on colloquial language in a wide range of Latin authors. Each chapter is written by a leading expert in the relevant area, and the material presented includes new editions of several texts. The Introduction presents the first account in English of developments in the study of colloquial Latin over the last century, and throughout the book findings are presented in clear, lucid, and jargon-free language, making a major scholarly debate accessible to a broad range of students and non-specialists.

Provides ground-breaking new work by leading scholars on this fascinating topic
Offers insight into both Latin literature and Latin linguistics
Uses clear, lucid, jargon-free language so that students and non-specialists can understand the complex and difficult questions and their solutions

Reviews & endorsements

"If, in a postmodern academy, the old 'Vulgar Latin' project of trying to recover the ways the Roman really spoke now seems hopelessly passé, this collection is unsurpassed for its studies of how they represented their speech. Something at least in this book will be required reading for everyone researching both Latin literature and Latin linguistics."
Philip Burton, The Classical Review

"… this volume is worthy of the great scholar and expert on 'colloquial' Latin to whom it has been dedicated."
Gerd Haverling, Journal of Roman Studies

"… represents a clearly delineated and sustained enquiry into the nature of colloquial Latin that makes a substantial contribution to scholarship, with a series of incisive studies of Latin style that partly break down previous easy assumptions and misleading claims about the distinctions between 'colloquial' and 'literary' as different registers of the Latin language. … [The reader] comes away with a much sharper understanding of stylistic variations in Latin literature, and the collection should be of as much interest to literary critics (we need to sit up and take notice!) as to philologists."
Rebecca Langlands, Greece and Rome

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Product details

Published: September 2016
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9781107684416
Length: 534 pages
Dimensions: 230 × 154 × 28 mm
Weight: 0.77kg
Availability: Available

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Contents

Preface David Langslow
1. Introduction Eleanor Dickey
2. Colloquial language in linguistic studies James Clackson
3. Roman authors on colloquial language Rolando Ferri and Philomen Probert
4. Idiom(s) and literariness in classical literary criticism Anna Chahoud
5. Preliminary conclusions Eleanor Dickey
6. Possessive pronouns in Plautus Wolfgang David Cirilo de Melo
7. Greeting and farewell expressions as evidence for colloquial language: between literary and epigraphical texts Paolo Poccetti
8. Colloquial and literary language in early Roman tragedy Hilla Halla-aho and Peter Kruschwitz
9. The fragments of Cato's Origines John Briscoe
10. Hyperbaton and register in Cicero J. G. F. Powell
11. Notes on the language of Marcus Caelius Rufus Harm Pinkster
12. Syntactic colloquialism in Lucretius Tobias Reinhardt
13. Campaigning for utilitas: style, grammar and philosophy in C. Iulius Caesar Andreas Willi
14. The style of the Bellum Hispaniense and the evolution of Roman historiography Jan Felix Gaertner
15. Grist to the mill: the literary uses of the quotidian in Horace, Satire 1.5 Richard F. Thomas
16. Sermones deorum: divine discourse in Virgil's Aeneid Stephen Harrison
17. Petronius' linguistic resources Martti Leiwo
18. Parenthetical remarks in the Silvae Kathleen Coleman
19. Colloquial Latin in Martial's Epigrams Nigel Kay
20. Current and ancient colloquial in Gellius Leofranc Holford-Strevens
21. Forerunners of Romance -mente adverbs in Latin prose and poetry Brigitte Bauer
22. Late sparsa collegimus: the influence of sources on the language of Jordanes Giovanbattista Galdi
23. The tale of Frodebert's Tail Danuta Shanzer
24. Colloquial Latin in the insular Latin scholastic colloquia? Michael Lapidge
25. Conversations in Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Michael Winterbottom.

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About the authors

Contributors

David Langslow, Eleanor Dickey, James Clackson, Rolando Ferri, Philomen Probert, Anna Chahoud, Wolfgang David Cirilo de Melo, Paolo Poccetti, Hilla Halla-aho, Peter Kruschwitz, John Briscoe, J. G. F. Powell, Harm Pinkster, Tobias Reinhardt, Andreas Willi, Jan Felix Gaertner, Richard F. Thomas, Stephen Harrison, Martti Leiwo, Kathleen Coleman, Nigel Kay, Leofranc Holford-Strevens, Brigitte Bauer, Giovanbattista Galdi, Danuta Shanzer, Michael Lapidge, Michael Winterbottom

Editors

Eleanor Dickey , University of Reading
Eleanor Dickey is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Exeter. She is the author of numerous books and articles on the Greek and Latin languages and linguistics, including Ancient Greek Scholarship: A Guide to Finding, Reading, and Understanding Scholia, Commentaries, Lexica, and Grammatical Treatises, from their Beginnings to the Byzantine Period (2007); Latin Forms of Address: From Plautus to Apuleius (2002) and Greek Forms of Address: From Herodotus to Lucian (1996).
Anna Chahoud , Trinity College, Dublin
Anna Chahoud is Professor of Latin at Trinity College Dublin. She is a member of the editorial board of The Bryn Mawr Classical Review, and the author of Lucilii Reliquiarum Concordantiae (1998).

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