14 - Studying Epigraphic Writing

Summary

This chapter outlines some of the difficulties of studying orthography in fragmentary languages from Ancient Italy in the first millennium BC. The authors advocate for a multilevel approach to get the most information from short, challenging and (sometimes) poorly understood texts. The chapter includes a number of case studies from Republican Latin, Oscan, Umbrian and Venetic, highlighting the problems posed by different kinds of texts. For Latin, some grammarians provide relevant information about the perceived ‘standard’ language, but their points of view may not always reflect the usage of their contemporaries. Oscan is written using three main alphabets, which allows a comparison of orthographies and of the execution of spelling rules across different regions. The Iguvine Tables, written in Umbrian, are a long and detailed religious document, written by different individuals in a small group of priests, in two main phases, and show a number of orthographic practices specific to these documents. Finally, Venetic furnishes an example of how punctuation can be as important as spelling to a community’s orthographic practices.