Old Latin (also called Early Latin or Archaic Latin) refers to the Latin language in the period before the age of Classical Latin; that is, all Latin before 75 BC. The term prisca Latinitas distinguishes it in New Latin and Contemporary Latin from vetus Latina, in which "old" has another meaning.
The use of "old", "early" and "archaic" has been standard in publications of the corpus of Old Latin writings since at least the 18th century. The defin...
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Old Latin (also called Early Latin or Archaic Latin) refers to the Latin language in the period before the age of Classical Latin; that is, all Latin before 75 BC. The term prisca Latinitas distinguishes it in New Latin and Contemporary Latin from vetus Latina, in which "old" has another meaning.
The use of "old", "early" and "archaic" has been standard in publications of the corpus of Old Latin writings since at least the 18th century. The definition is not arbitrary but these terms refer to writings that utilize some spelling conventions and word forms not generally in use in works written under the Roman Empire. This article presents some of the major differences.
The concept of Old Latin (Prisca Latinitas) is as old as the concept of Classical Latin, both dating to at least as early as the late Roman republic. In that time period Marcus Tullius Cicero, along with others, noted that the language he used every day, presumably the upper-class city Latin, included lexical items and...
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