Social Variation and the Latin Language

Languages show variations according to the social class of speakers and Latin was no exception, as readers of Petronius are aware. The Romance languages have traditionally been regarded as developing out of a 'language of the common people' (Vulgar Latin), but studies of modern languages demonstrate that linguistic change does not merely come, in the social sense, 'from below'. There is change from above, as prestige usages work their way down the social scale, and change may also occur across the social classes. This book is a history of many of the developments undergone by the Latin language as it changed into Romance, demonstrating the varying social levels at which change was initiated. About thirty topics are dealt with, many of them more systematically than ever before. Discussions often start in the early Republic with Plautus, and the book is as much about the literary language as about informal varieties.

Author: J. N. Adams
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 08/31/2013
Pages: 956
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 3.32lbs
Size: 9.29h x 6.08w x 2.16d
ISBN: 9780521886147
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About the Author
Adams, J. N.: - J. N. Adams is an Emeritus Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford and a Fellow of the British Academy. He was previously a Professor of Latin at the Universities of Manchester and Reading. He is the author of many books on the Latin language, including most recently The Regional Diversification of Latin, 200 BC-AD 600 (Cambridge, 2007) and Bilingualism and the Latin Language (Cambridge, 2003).