Apart from after /u/, /w/ and /kw/, where the raising of /ɔ/ was retarded until the first century BC, which is discussed below (Chapter 8), there are few cases of <o> for <u> arising from these contexts in the corpora. Even where we do find <o>, a confounding factor in identifying old-fashioned spelling of /u/ of these types is the lowering of /u/ to [o] which eventually led in most Romance varieties to the merger of /u/ and /ɔː/. According to Adams (2013: 63–70), this can be dated to between the third and fifth centuries AD, and did not take place at all in Africa. This requires him to identify a number of forms which show <o> for /u/ as containing old-fashioned spelling (or having other explanations) in the Claudius Tiberianus letters (Adams 1977: 9–11, 52–3; 2013: 63–4).

The Latin alphabet inherited from its Etruscan model a superfluity of signs to represent the phoneme /k/: <c>, <k> and <q>. It also inherited, to some extent, the convention in early Etruscan inscriptions whereby <k> was used in front of <a>, <q> before, and <c> before <e> and, although consistent usage of this pattern is found rarely even in the oldest Latin inscriptions (Hartmann 2005: 424–5; Wallace 2011: 11; Sarullo 2021). Over time, <c> was preferred for /k/ in all positions, while the digraph <qu> was used to represent the phoneme /kw/. Nonetheless, both <k> before <a> and <q> before (with the value /k/) lived on as optional spellings into the imperial period.

Single *i̯ between vowels was lost very early in Latin (possibly at the Proto-Italic stage). Consequently, the sound represented by consonantal between vowels was actually geminate /jj/ from various sources (Weiss 2020: 67–8). I have not been able to find any epigraphical examples of <ii> prior to the first century BC, and Weiss’ (2020: 68 fn. 64) statement that ‘[g]eminate spelling … is frequently encountered on inscriptions’ seems exaggerated. A search for ‘cuiius’, one of his two examples, on the whole of the EDCS, finds 13 examples, as opposed to 793 for ‘cuius’. The other is maiiorem (CIL 2.1964.3.10): a search for ‘maiior’ finds 12 examples, including derived names, beside 948 for ‘maior’.

The reduplicated perfect of spondeō ‘I swear’ was originally spepondī, a spelling still used by Valerius Antias, Cicero and Caesar in the first century BC, according to the second century AD author Aulus Gellius (Noctes atticae 6.9.12–15), implying that spopondi was the standard spelling at the time. The inscriptional evidence outside the corpora is not very numerous; to some extent it supports this interpretation. There are only 4 instances of spepondi (AE 1987.198, AD 256; AE 1987.199, AD 254–256, both from Ostia; CIL 6.10241, around the age of Hadrian; CIL 6.18937). By comparison, there are 8 of spopondi, of which 2 are dated to the first century AD: CIL 2.5042 = 5406 (AE 2000.66), CIL 6.10239 (EDR177718).

The diphthong /ɔu/ became /oː/ and then /uː/ by the third century BC (see p. 000). On the use of <o> in place of in poplicos > pūblicus and words derived from it, see p. 000. It is possible that iodicauerunt (Kropp 11.1.1/26) in a curse tablet from Carthage, in the second century AD, for iūdicāuē̆runt < *i̯oudik- is an old-fashioned spelling representing the mid-point of the change (at any rate, no other explanation springs to mind). Since we have long /uː/ in the first syllable, this spelling cannot be explained by confusion of /ɔː/ and /u/. At least in legal texts, derivatives of iūs were particularly favoured for this (Decorte 2015: 160–2), although use of <o> for /uː/ rather than <ou> was never common, even in the archaic period.

apices ibi poni debent, ubi isdem litteris alia atque alia res designatur, ut uénit et uenit, áret et aret, légit et legit, ceteraque his similia. super i tamen litteram apex non ponitur: melius enim [i pila] in longum producetur. ceterae uocales, quae eodem ordine positae diuersa significant, apice distinguuntur, ne legens dubitatione impediatur, hoc est ne uno sono eaedem pronuntientur.