38
votes
Accepted
What punctuation was used in Classical Latin?
We should first recognize that there was not one system of punctuation in use during Classical times. However, all of modern punctuation, including commas, periods, colons, semicolons, etc. are more ...
cmw♦
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34
votes
Accepted
Why did Roman authors never feel a need for word spacing?
Why did Roman authors never feel a need for word spacing?
An interesting question because the Romans certainly accepted the notion of word division, at least until about 100 AD, at which point Romans ...
- 8,711
26
votes
What punctuation was used in Classical Latin?
(The following is based on Wallace 2011, The Latin alphabet and orthography and Edmondson 2015, Inscribing Roman Texts: Officinae, Layout, and Carving Techniques)
Wallace observes that
Most Latin ...
- 11.7k
16
votes
What punctuation was used in Classical Latin?
After the great answers here, I would like to share the contents of a paper I found on this topic
Hodgman, A.W., "Latin equivalents of punctuation marks", The Classical Journal, 19 (7), 403–...
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13
votes
What is the name of the separator dots between the words?
It is called the interpunct.
Empty space to separate words as we do now is not a universal phenomenon.
Just as well the Romans might ask why we leave space between words instead of putting a dot in ...
- 114k
12
votes
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Ancient guides or descriptions of punctuation
The first thing to note when looking at passages and remarks by Romans about “punctuation” is that it is not always clear at first glance whether they are discussing elements of oral delivery or ...
- 8,711
12
votes
Accepted
Did the Romans have a "question mark"?
According to scholars, the earliest written sign ever argued to play the role of an interrogation mark comes from a VI century Syriac manuscript, and passed later into Latin.
My intuition is that, in ...
- 11.4k
9
votes
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When did scriptio continua and interpuncts give way to spaces between words in Latin?
Roland Hinterhölzl (2009) Information Structure and Language Change p. 177 (via Google Books):
Roman scribes would usually operate by "copying texts in scriptio continua – that is, without ...
- 1,223
9
votes
Do different truncation signs have different connotations?
Cappelli is the most reliable source in the field of Latin palaeography. What he says in the description of the signs of truncation also matches my experience. So there are hardly any different ...
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9
votes
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What did Ancient Greek plays look like?
There are two punctuation marks, the paragraphos and the dicolon, which are sometimes used to indicate change of speaker in both papyri and manuscripts. But they aren't always used, and when they are ...
- 31.3k
8
votes
Is there such a thing as "word-[space-comma-space]-word" punctuation in Latin?
As we all know, the Romans did not have punctuation. Modern (and not so modern) editions of Latin books generally follow the typographic norms of the country where they are printed. For example, Latin ...
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7
votes
What are New Latin's comma rules?
While I don't know about the history of proponents and critics of this punctuation style who have explicitly discussed it, like you and others here I've also noticed it has been very common to use ...
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5
votes
Were comma splices avoided in Modern Latin?
This doesn't quite make the 1900 cutoff, but:
Arcadius Avellanus, born Mogyoróssy Arkád in 1851 Hungary, is said to have been the last native speaker of Latin. In 1878 he emigrated to the US, where ...
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5
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Accepted
Pyramus et Thisbe: did their parents forbid what they could not? Ovid, Metamorphoses IV.61
Hmm. I find your analysis elegant and alluring, but I wonder whether it's simpler than that—could it be working from two slightly different senses of vetāre? You're far more versed in the lexicon here ...
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4
votes
Pyramus et Thisbe: did their parents forbid what they could not? Ovid, Metamorphoses IV.61
Prosody suggests punctuation before the quod. The line scanned looks like this:
sēd vĕtŭ|ērĕ pă|trēs quōd | nōn pǒtŭ|ērĕ vĕ|tārē
Clearly the principal caesura is between patres and quod, and that ...
cmw♦
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4
votes
Is there such a thing as "word-[space-comma-space]-word" punctuation in Latin?
The typesetter just used extra space before some of the commas to help get the text block properly justified on the right edge. So [space],[space] is completely equivalent to [no space],[space]. You ...
- 20.1k
4
votes
Accepted
Cicero about paragraph marks
While this was answered on Philosophy.SE, that answer doesn't provide an English translation. So let's add one here.
This comes from Cicero's Orator (note: not his more famous De Oratore), section 228:...
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3
votes
Which quotation marks should I use when writing Latin?
Hic inveniri possunt explicationes illorum "" vel «» in operibus Latine editis usque ad tempora recentiora: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3288661
3
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Pyramus et Thisbe: did their parents forbid what they could not? Ovid, Metamorphoses IV.61
It seems to me that there's a strong reason to take quod non potuere vetare with the following line, namely, that their parents could and did forbid it! The whole point of the story is that their ...
- 31.3k
2
votes
What punctuation was used in Classical Latin?
It is probable that most written text were not punctuated at all.
The main punctuation used in inscriptions (on monuments, sculptures, etc.) was a central point · or interpunct, by opposition ...
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1
vote
Pyramus et Thisbe: did their parents forbid what they could not? Ovid, Metamorphoses IV.61
The problem, here, may be one of flow. The separation of the "sed" & "quod" clauses works: hard truth: (another) hard truth; it's punchy, driving the story forward; consequently, the "quod" clause ...
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