Talk:Latin phonology and orthography

Quality contrast between long and short vowels

If you read the article "On the Evolution of Short High Vowels of Latin into Romance" by Andrea Calabrese, you'll see that he contests Allen's Classical Latin vowel system as [iː ɪ eː ɛ ä(ː) ɔ oː ʊ uː]. According to Calabrese, Classical Latin had a vowel system with five different qualities, i.e. [i(ː) ɛ(ː) ä(ː) ɔ(ː) u(ː)], with no quality distinction between long and short vowels, at least until the 1st century AD. YanisBourgeois (talk) 00:14, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, this has been discussed before (see archives). Calabrese's view, unfortunately popularized by some youtuber, runs counter to the overwhelming scholarly majority in favour of Allen's. It is mentioned in footnote #4 already. Nicodene (talk) 13:17, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Yet I haven't seen a counterargument against Calabrese's vowel system other than the argument of majority. It has been discarded as a minority view, but not debunked (or maybe I'm wrong, please tell me if I am). Thanks for your response YanisBourgeois (talk) 08:39, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

The reason I'm saying that Calabrese hasn't been debunked is that nobody as far as I know has justified Allen's vowel system for Classical Latin while taking into account Calabrese's objection to Allen. All the sources that justify Allen's vowel system accept as a premise that Classical Latin is the most recent "common ancestor" to the Western Romance Languages (French, Spanish, Portuguese, etc.) which is incorrect. Those languages, used to justify Allen's system, are actually descended from Vulgar Latin. So Allen may very well have described Vulgar Latin while believing to describe Classical Latin. The Romance languages that actually descend from Classical Latin as opposed to Vulgar Latin (e.g. Sardinian) tend to indicate Calabrese's vowel system. YanisBourgeois (talk) 09:47, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

WP:NOTFORUM and WP:FRINGE. We can discuss this on my private talk page or yours, if you like, but such a discussion will have no impact on this article. Nicodene (talk) 11:26, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

I would recommend reading Vowel Length From Latin to Romance (Loporcaro 2015) for an up to date summary of various opinions on this topic. Loporcaro (an Italian man born in Rome) defends Vōx Latīna’s vowel system a lot better than Allen himself does with what he calls “overwhelming evidence in support of a differentiation in quality of long vs short vowels” (p.33). Furthermore, I'd recommend reading Principles of Linguistic Change Volume 1: Internal Factors (Labov 1994) which uses extensive data from historical sources and from recent recordings to model how different types of vowels change over time. The Latin short high vowels have undergone changes in early Romance that one would expect from non-peripheral vowels such as [ɪ ʊ]. As for Sardinian, while it is highly conservative in many ways and has a important place in Romance phylogenetics, it is clearly one of the most innovative Romance languages when it comes to stressed vowel inventories, having merged ten vowel phonemes into five rather than seven like most others. Jackpaulryan (talk) 02:31, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Section on Diacritics: Apex and Sicilicus

The apex is a well-attested feature of many Latin texts, and though the sicilicus is significatly less-well attested it is nevertheless notable enough to deserve a mention as part of Latin orthography. I therefore propose creating a small section on diacritics and including these two there (citations on those pages). Citation unneeded (talk) 10:40, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

To be clear, this would be different to the section found in 'Modern conventions'. Citation unneeded (talk) 10:42, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Compensatory lengthening before -m?

Allen said that in Vōx Latīna, but ancient grammarians stated that a long vowel before final -m is impossible: the syllable is long because it's closed. I understand that Wikipedia bases it's articles on sources (such as Vōx Latīna), but we can't write claims that clearly contrasts with the recommendation of ancient grammarians. Final -m, before consonants (except nasal or plosive because in this case it has the sound of /n/) nasalizes the previous vowel but it doesn't lenghten: it's simply assimilated by the following consonant (e.g.: cum lēctī is /ku‌lˈleːktiː/). A closed syllable, as recommended by ancient grammarians. CarloButi1902 (talk) 13:19, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm not enough of a philologist to have an informed view on the debate here, but the relevant guideline is WP:PRIMARY: ancient grammarians qualify as primary sources under our rules, so cannot be used to contradict secondary sources. However, presumably some modern linguist has noted the statements of ancient grammarians on this matter, and offered an opinion on the apparent contradiction here? UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 18:53, 26 November 2024 (UTC)