Classical Latin alphabet(or Latin) is a writing system that was originally used to write in. The Latin alphabet arose from the Qom variant of the Greek alphabet, which have visual similarities. The Greek alphabet, including the Qom variant, originated from the Phoenician script, which in turn was based on Egyptian hieroglyphs. The Etruscans who ruled the early Roman Empire adopted and modified the Cumaean version of the Greek alphabet. The Etruscan alphabet was adopted and modified by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language.

In the Middle Ages, manuscript scribes adapted the Latin alphabet for a group of Romance languages, direct descendants of Latin, as well as Celtic, Germanic, Baltic and some Slavic languages. During the colonial and evangelical eras, the Latin alphabet spread far beyond Europe and began to be used to write the languages ​​of American, Australian, Austronesian, Austroasiatic and African aborigines. Recently, linguists have also begun to use the Latin alphabet for transcribing (the International Phonetic Alphabet) and creating written standards for non-European languages.

The term "Latin alphabet - Latin script" can refer to both the alphabet for the Latin language and other alphabets based on the Latin script, which is the basic set of letters common to many alphabets descended from classical Latin. These Latin alphabets may not use some letters or, conversely, add their own variants of letters. Letter shapes have changed over the centuries, including the creation of lowercase letters for Medieval Latin, which did not exist in the Classical version.

Original Latin alphabet

The original Latin alphabet looked like this:

The most ancient inscriptions in Latin did not distinguish between the sounds /ɡ/ and /k/, which were represented by the letters C, K and Q according to their place in the word. K was used before A; Q was used before O or V; C has been used elsewhere. This is explained by the fact that the Etruscan language did not make such distinctions. The letter C comes from the Greek letter Gamma (Γ) and Q from the Greek letter coppa (Ϙ). In late Latin, K remained only in some forms, like Kalendae; Q remained only before V (and represented the sound /kw/), and C was used in other places. Later, the letter G was invented to distinguish between the sounds /ɡ/ and /k/; it was originally shaped like the letter C with an additional diacritic.

Classical Latin period

Emperor Claudius's attempt to introduce three additional letters was short-lived, but after the conquest of Greece in the 1st century BC, the letters Y and Z were respectively re-adopted from the Greek alphabet and placed at the end of the alphabet. Since then, the new Latin alphabet has 23 letters

Listen to the classic Latin alphabet

There is some debate over the names of some letters of the Latin alphabet.

Middle Ages

Lowercase letters (minuscule) developed in the Middle Ages from New Roman Italic, first as an uncial script and then as a minuscule script (lowercase). Languages ​​that use the Latin alphabet typically use capital letters at the beginning of paragraphs and sentences, as well as for proper names. The rules for changing case have changed over time, and different languages ​​have changed their rules for changing case. In, for example, even proper names were rarely written with a capital letter; whereas modern 18th-century English often capitalized all nouns, in the same way as modern English.

Changing letters

• The use of the letters I and V as both consonants and vowels was inconvenient, because the Latin alphabet was adapted to the Germanic-Romance languages.
• W was originally rendered as double V (VV), which was used to represent the sound [w], which was first discovered in Old English in the early 7th century. It came into practical use in the 11th century, replacing the runic letter Wynn, which was used to convey the same sound.
• In the Romance languages ​​group, the lowercase form of the letter V was rounded to u; which evolved from the large capital U to convey a vowel sound in the 16th century, while the new, sharp lowercase form v comes from V to indicate a consonant.
• As for the letter I, j began to be used to denote a consonant sound. Such conventions have been inconsistent over the centuries. J was introduced as a consonant in the 17th century (rarely used as a vowel), but until the 19th century there was no clear understanding of its place in the alphabetical order.
• The names of the letters remained largely unchanged, with the exception of H. As the /h/ sound disappeared from the Romance languages, the original Latin name hā became difficult to distinguish from A. Emphatic forms such as and were used, and eventually evolved into acca, the direct ancestor of the English name for the letter H.

The Phoenicians are considered the creators of phonetic writing. Phoenician writing around the 9th century BC. e. borrowed by the Greeks, who added letters to the alphabet to represent vowel sounds. In different areas of Greece, writing was heterogeneous. So by the end of the 5th century BC. e. Two alphabetic systems are clearly distinguished: eastern (Milesian) and western (Chalcidian). Eastern alphabetic system in 403 BC was adopted as the common Greek alphabet. Latins presumably through the Etruscans around the 7th century BC. borrowed the Western Greek alphabet. In turn, the Latin alphabet was inherited by the Romance peoples, and during Christianity - by the Germans and Western Slavs. The original design of graphemes (letters) underwent a number of changes over time, and only by the 1st century BC. it acquired the form that still exists today under the name of the Latin alphabet.

The true Latin pronunciation is unknown to us. Classical Latin was preserved only in written monuments. Therefore, the concepts of “phonetics”, “pronunciation”, “sound”, “phoneme”, etc. can be applied to it only in a purely theoretical sense. The accepted Latin pronunciation, called traditional, has come to us thanks to the continuous study of the Latin language, which as an academic subject has not ceased to exist throughout time. This pronunciation reflects changes that occurred in the sound system of Classical Latin towards the end of the Late Western Roman Empire. In addition to the changes resulting from the historical development of the Latin language itself, traditional pronunciation was influenced for many centuries by phonetic processes that took place in the new Western European languages. Therefore, modern reading of Latin texts in different countries is subject to pronunciation norms in new languages.

At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. In the educational practice of many countries, the so-called “classical” pronunciation has become widespread, striving to reproduce the orthoepic norms of classical Latin. The differences between traditional and classical pronunciation boil down to the fact that traditional pronunciation preserves variants of a number of phonemes that arose in late Latin, while classical, if possible, eliminates them.

Below is the traditional reading of Latin letters adopted in the educational practice of our country.

Note. For a long time, the Latin alphabet consisted of 21 letters. All of the above letters were used except Uu, Yy, Zz.

At the end of the 1st century BC. e. letters were introduced to reproduce the corresponding sounds in borrowed Greek words Yy And Zz.

Letter Vv first used to denote consonant and vowel sounds (Russian [у], [в]). Therefore, to distinguish them in the 16th century. started using the new graphic sign Uu, which corresponds to the Russian sound [у].

Was not in the Latin alphabet and Jj. In classical Latin the letter i denoted both the vowel sound [i] and the consonant [j]. And only in the 16th century, the French humanist Petrus Ramus added to the Latin alphabet Jj to denote the sound corresponding to Russian [th]. But in publications by Roman authors and in many dictionaries it is not used. Instead of j still in use і .

Letter Gg also absent from the alphabet until the 3rd century BC. e. Its functions were performed by the letter Ss, as evidenced by the abbreviations of names: S. = Gaius, Cn. = Gnaeus.,

At first, the Romans used only capital letters (majusculi), and small letters (manusculi) arose later.

In Latin, proper names, names of months, peoples, geographical names, as well as adjectives and adverbs formed from them are written with a capital letter.

Let me remind you that the Latin language belongs to the Latin-Falian subgroup of Italic languages ​​(the languages ​​of the tribes that, from the beginning of the 1st millennium BC, lived on the territory of the Apennine Peninsula, except for the Etruscans, Ligurians, Celts and Greeks). The Italic languages, in turn, belong to the family of Indo-European languages. Initially, Latin was the language of a small tribe - the Latins, living in the center of the Apennine Peninsula. This information may be of interest when taking a closer look at the Latin alphabet.

Origins of the Latin alphabet

Influence of the Etruscan alphabet

The Etruscan culture was well known to the Latins. In the 9-8 centuries BC, the relatively small territory of Latium bordered on the north with the then significant territory of the Etruscan tribe (they are also Tusks or Tosks, now the Italian province of Tuscany). At a time when the culture of the Latins was just emerging, the culture of the Etruscans was already experiencing its heyday.

The Latins borrowed quite a lot from the Etruscans. The Etruscan writing had a right-to-left direction, so for convenience, the reverse (compared to the usual Latin) spelling of letters was used (naturally, this was the original spelling; we use the reverse version).

Influence of the Greek alphabet

The Greek alphabet also made a significant contribution to the formation of modern Latin. It is worth mentioning that the Etruscan alphabet was partially borrowed from Western Greek. But direct borrowing from Greek into Latin began later, when the Romans, in their characteristic style, began a thorough acquaintance with Greek culture. Greek names and names contained sounds that were not characteristic of Roman phonetics; there were no letters in the Latin language to write them, so Greek letters were also transferred to the Latin alphabet. This is the origin of the letters "x", "y", "z".

Ancient Greek inscriptions were also made not only from left to right, but also from right to left and boustrophedon (the Greeks gave the name to this type of writing), therefore in the ancient Greek language there were both direct and reverse variants of writing letters at the same time.

Influence of Phoenician consonantal writing

The Phoenicians are considered the creators of the first phonetic writing. The Phoenician alphabet was a syllabary alphabet in which one symbol denoted the combination of one consonant sound with any vowel (It is often said that the Phoenicians wrote down only consonants, but this assumption is formally incorrect). The Phoenicians traveled a lot, settled in more and more new places... and their writing traveled and took root with them. Gradually, spreading in different directions, the symbols of the Phoenician alphabet were transformed, on the one hand, into the letters of the Greek and then the Latin alphabet, and on the other, into the letters of Hebrew (and other northern Semitic dialects).

Comparative table of symbols of related languages ​​(Commentary see below in the text)

The conclusions drawn from the results of comparing all these languages ​​are different. The issue of continuity has not been completely resolved, however, the similarity of independent ancient languages ​​suggests that there may have been one progenitor language. Many researchers tend to look for it in Canaan, a semi-mythical state that the Phoenicians considered their homeland.

History of the Latin alphabet

The first Latin inscriptions available to modern researchers date back to the 7th century BC. Since that time, it has been customary to talk about archaic Latin. The archaic alphabet consists of 21 letters. The Greek letters theta, phi and psi were used to write the numbers 100, 1000, 50.

Having become a censor in 312 BC, Appius Claudius Caecus introduced differences in the writing of the letters “r” and “s” and abolished the letter “z”, and the sound denoted by this letter was replaced by [p]. Closely related to this event is one of the basic laws of phonetics of the Latin language - the law of rhotacism.

After the abolition of the letter "z", the Latin alphabet of the classical period contains 20 letters.

In the 1st century BC, the letter "z" was borrowed again, and with it the letter "y". In addition, the letter “g” was finally recognized (before this, both sounds: voiced - [g] and voiceless - [k] were designated by one letter - “c”). Of course, there were some disputes, but it is generally accepted that Spurius Carvilius Ruga was the first to use it in 235 BC, however, at that time it was not included in the alphabet.

The alphabet began to consist of 23 letters.

Another important event in the history of the Latin alphabet occurs in the 1st century AD. Using the practice of replacing the most common combinations of letters with one symbol, which was widespread in Greece, the future emperor Claudius (since 41 AD, being a censor) introduced three new letters, later called “Claudian”: reverse digamma, antisigma and half ha.

The reverse digamma was to be used to indicate the sound [in:].

Antisigma - to denote combinations of bs and ps, similar to the Greek letter psi.

Half ha - to indicate the sound between [i] and [u].

They never made it into the alphabet.

Nevertheless:

1. The codes for these characters are included in Unicode: u+2132, u+214e - reverse digamma, u+2183, u+2184 - antisigma, u+2c75, u+2c76 - half ha.
2. The letters “y” and “v”, which were completely defined in the alphabet somewhat later, became analogues of two of the three Claudian letters, which indicates the validity of the proposal of the future emperor.

Much later, the issue with pairs of letters “i” - “j”, “v” - “u” was resolved. Both pairs were used in writing before, and denoted two pairs of sounds ([i] - [th], [v] - [y]), but it was not clearly defined which spelling denotes which sound. The separation of the first couple supposedly occurred in the 16th century AD, and the second in the 18th century (although some researchers suggest that this happened simultaneously for both couples).

The modern version of the Latin alphabet, consisting of 25 letters, was formalized during the Renaissance (hence the assumption of the separation of "v" and "u" in the 16th century, since they are both contained in this variant). This event is closely connected with the name of Petrus Ramus.

The digraph "vv", especially common in Northern Europe, became the letter "w". The sound denoted by this letter came from the Germanic languages ​​after the fall of the Roman Empire, so many experts do not include the letter “w” in the Latin alphabet or include it conditionally.

The Latin alphabet, or Latin alphabet, is a special alphabetic writing system that first appeared in the 2-3 centuries BC, and after which it spread throughout the world. Today it is the basis for most languages ​​and has 26 characters that have different pronunciations, names and additional elements.

Peculiarities

One of the most common writing options is the Latin alphabet. The alphabet originates in Greece, but was fully formed in the Indo-European family. Today, this writing system is used by most peoples of the world, including all of America and Australia, most of Europe, and half of Africa. Translation into Latin is becoming increasingly popular, and at the moment it is strongly replacing the Cyrillic alphabet. This alphabet is rightfully considered a universal and universal option, and is becoming more and more popular every year.

The English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German and Italian Latin alphabet are especially common. States often use it along with other types of writing, particularly in India, Japan, China and other countries.

Story

It is believed that the Greeks, in particular the Estrus, are the original authors of writing, which later became known as the Latin alphabet. The alphabet has undeniable similarities with the Etruscan script, but this hypothesis has many controversial points. In particular, it is unknown how exactly this culture was able to get to Rome.

Words in Latin began to appear in the 3rd-4th century BC, and already in the 2nd century BC. writing was formed and consisted of 21 characters. Over the course of history, some letters changed, others disappeared and appeared again centuries later, and still others were divided into two. As a result, in the 16th century the Latin alphabet became what it is today. Despite this, different languages ​​have their own distinctive features and additional national versions, which, however, are only a certain modification of existing letters. For example, Ń, Ä, etc.

Difference from Greek writing

Latin is a writing system that originates from the Western Greeks, but it also has its own unique features. Initially, this alphabet was quite limited and truncated. Over time, the signs were optimized, and the rule was developed that the letter should go strictly from left to right.

As for the differences, the Latin alphabet is more rounded than the Greek, and also uses several graphemes to convey the sound [k]. The difference lies in the fact that the letters K and C began to perform almost identical functions, and the sign K, in general, went out of use for some time. This is evidenced by historical evidence, as well as the fact that the modern Irish and Spanish alphabets still do not use this grapheme. The letter also has other differences, including the modification of the sign C into G and the appearance of the symbol V from the Greek Y.

Features of letters

The modern Latin alphabet has two basic forms: majuscule (uppercase letters) and minuscule (lowercase characters). The first option is more ancient, since it began to be used in the form of artistic graphics back in the 1st century BC. Majusculus dominated the scriptoriums of Europe almost until the beginning of the 12th century. The only exceptions were Ireland and Southern Italy, where the national version of writing was used for a long time.

By the 15th century, minuscule was also fully developed. Such famous personalities as Francesco Petrarca, Leonardo da Vinci, as well as other personalities of the Renaissance, did a lot to introduce writing in Latin. On the basis of this alphabet, national types of writing gradually developed. German, French, Spanish and other variants had their own changes and additional characters.

Latin alphabet as an international alphabet

This type of writing is familiar to almost every person on Earth who can read. This is due to the fact that this alphabet is either native to a person, or he gets acquainted with it in foreign language, mathematics and other lessons. This allows us to assert that the Latin alphabet is a written language of international level.

Also, many countries that do not use this alphabet simultaneously use its standard version. This applies, for example, to countries such as Japan and China. Almost all artificial languages ​​are based on the Latin alphabet. Among them are Esperanto, Ido, etc. Quite often you can also find transliteration, since sometimes there is no generally accepted name for a specific term, which makes translation into a generally accepted sign system necessary. Thus, any word can be written in Latin.

Romanization of other alphabets

The Latin alphabet is used all over the world to modify languages ​​that use a different type of writing. This phenomenon is known under the term “transliteration” (as translation into Latin is sometimes called). It is used to simplify the process of communication between representatives of different nationalities.

Almost all languages ​​that use a non-Latin script have official transliteration rules. Most often, such procedures are called romanization, since they have a Romanesque, i.e. Latin origin. Each language has certain tables, for example, Arabic, Persian, Russian, Japanese, etc., which allow you to transliterate almost any national word.

Latin is the most common alphabetic script in the world, which originates from the Greek alphabet. It is used by most languages ​​as a basis, and is also known to almost every person on Earth. Its popularity is growing every year, which allows us to consider this alphabet generally accepted and international. For languages ​​that use other types of writing, special tables with national transliterations are offered, allowing you to romanize almost any word. This makes the process of communication between different countries and peoples simple and easy.

§ 1. Latin alphabet

The Phoenicians are considered the creators of phonetic writing. Phoenician writing around the 9th century BC. e. borrowed by the Greeks, who added letters to the alphabet to represent vowel sounds. In different areas of Greece, writing was heterogeneous. So by the end of the 5th century BC. e. Two alphabetic systems are clearly distinguished: eastern (Milesian) and western (Chalcidian). Eastern alphabetic system in 403 BC was adopted as the common Greek alphabet. Latins presumably through the Etruscans around the 7th century BC. borrowed the Western Greek alphabet. In turn, the Latin alphabet was inherited by the Romance peoples, and during Christianity - by the Germans and Western Slavs. The original design of graphemes (letters) underwent a number of changes over time, and only by the 1st century BC. it acquired the form that still exists today under the name of the Latin alphabet.

The true Latin pronunciation is unknown to us. Classical Latin was preserved only in written monuments. Therefore, the concepts of “phonetics”, “pronunciation”, “sound”, “phoneme”, etc. can be applied to it only in a purely theoretical sense. The accepted Latin pronunciation, called traditional, has come to us thanks to the continuous study of the Latin language, which as an academic subject has not ceased to exist throughout time. This pronunciation reflects changes that occurred in the sound system of Classical Latin towards the end of the Late Western Roman Empire. In addition to the changes resulting from the historical development of the Latin language itself, traditional pronunciation was influenced for many centuries by phonetic processes that took place in the new Western European languages. Therefore, modern reading of Latin texts in different countries is subject to pronunciation norms in new languages.

At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. In the educational practice of many countries, the so-called “classical” pronunciation has become widespread, striving to reproduce the orthoepic norms of classical Latin. The differences between traditional and classical pronunciation boil down to the fact that traditional pronunciation preserves variants of a number of phonemes that arose in late Latin, while classical, if possible, eliminates them.

Below is the traditional reading of Latin letters, adopted in the educational practice of our country.

Note. For a long time, the Latin alphabet consisted of 21 letters. All of the above letters were used except Uu, Yy, Zz.

At the end of the 1st century BC. e. letters were introduced to reproduce the corresponding sounds in borrowed Greek words Yy And Zz.

Letter Vv first used to denote consonant and vowel sounds (Russian [у], [в]). Therefore, to distinguish them in the 16th century. started using the new graphic sign Uu, which corresponds to the Russian sound [у].

Was not in the Latin alphabet and Jj. In classical Latin the letter i denoted both the vowel sound [i] and the consonant [j]. And only in the 16th century, the French humanist Petrus Ramus added to the Latin alphabet Jj to denote the sound corresponding to Russian [th]. But in publications by Roman authors and in many dictionaries it is not used. Instead of j still in use і .

Letter Gg also absent from the alphabet until the 3rd century BC. e. Its functions were performed by the letter Ss, as evidenced by the abbreviations of names: S. = Gaius, Cn. = Gnaeus.,

At first, the Romans used only capital letters (majusculi), and small letters (manusculi) arose later.

In Latin, proper names, names of months, peoples, geographical names, as well as adjectives and adverbs formed from them are written with a capital letter.

So, you registered on Aliexpress or any other foreign online store, spent a lot of time figuring out how to shop correctly, choose a product and a reliable seller. And now, the time has come for the first order, but to complete the registration process you need to write the delivery address in Latin letters.

But how to do it right? You are used to writing the address only in Russian, but here you need to somehow write it in English. Believe me, there is nothing difficult about filling out the address. Everything is very simple. The most important thing is to write the index correctly. It is at the specified postal code that the parcel will arrive at your post office, and there the postal employees will need your address in order to send you a notification about the parcel. Therefore, the address must be written in such a way that the post office can understand it.

If you write the postal code incorrectly, your package will make a short journey. First, it will arrive at another post office using the wrong postal code, and there the postal workers will read your address, understand that you made a mistake, edit the postal code and send your parcel to the correct post office.

If you made a mistake in writing the address, but the zip code was indicated correctly, then you just need to track your parcel from Aliexpress using the tracking number. As soon as it arrives at your post office, immediately take your passport with you (to confirm your identity and that the package is intended for you) and go receive it before it goes back to the sender due to an incorrect address.

Instructions on how to write an address in Latin (English) letters

1)County– we write the country here. The country needs to be translated into English
State/Province/Region– region.
City- City.
Google Translate will help you translate the country and city https://translate.google.com/?hl=en
2) The following address is written for the employee on your mail, so you need to write it in such a way that it is clear to him.
The address is written using the Latin alphabet. There is no need to translate words. Otherwise your postman won't understand anything.
Street Address – here we write down the street, house number, building, apartment

Zip/Postal Code – index (post office number). The index will help you be found, even if you have errors in your address. The index can be checked on the Russian Post website.

Write the address in Russian letters to convert them to Latin writing
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We also write abbreviations in Latin letters:
boulevard
village - der.
house - d. or dom
name - im.
quarter - kvartal
apartment - kv
region - obl.
lane - per.
village – pos.
highway - highway

Example address:
292397 Russian Federation, St. Petersburg, st. Esenina, house 8-2, kv 14

Don't forget to include phone numbers:
Tel - city phone number. You only need to write numbers (no brackets or dashes). We start with the country code. (7 - Russian code). Then the area code and then your number.
Mobile - your mobile phone. We also write with the country code. (7 - for Russia) then the operator code and your number.
Phone numbers are needed so that postal workers can contact you in case of any problems.

Rules for pronunciation of Latin words

Alphabet

Latin is a dead language, i.e. Currently, there are no people for whom this language is their native language. The living pronunciation of the classical period of the development of Latin 1 has not reached us. It is hardly possible to restore the exact Latin pronunciation; therefore, every people who uses the Latin language (in particular, using it in jurisprudence), when pronouncing Latin words, is guided by the pronunciation of their native language (the English read the Latin word with English pronunciation, the Russians - with Russian, etc.). Therefore, the letters indicated in the table should be read “as in Russian” (unless their reading is specifically stated) [Period 1st century. BC. Cicero, Caesar and other prominent writers worked in this era; their language is considered a model of Latin. When studying the Latin language, this pattern is not used as a guide.]

Features of reading Latin vowels

Letter Ee reads as [e] 2 (not [ye] !): ego [e "go] I.

Letter II read [and] except when it comes before a vowel at the beginning of a syllable or word. Then it reads like [th]: ira [i"ra] anger, but ius [yus] right, adiuvo [adyu"vo] I help.

In a number of publications, the letter i, which was included in the Latin alphabet in the 16th century, is used to denote the sound [th]. It is also used in our manual. So ius = jus etc.

The letter Yy appears in words of Greek origin. It reads like [and] or, more precisely, like the German b: lyra [l "ira], [l "ira].

There are 2 diphthongs in Latin: au and eu. They consist of two elements that are pronounced together, “in one sound,” with the emphasis on the first element (cf. diphthongs in English).

aurum [arum] [The sign of square brackets indicates that they contain a sound and not a letter (i.e., that we have a transcription). All transcription signs in our manual are Russian (unless they are specifically noted).] gold

Europa[eropa] Europe

Letter combination ae reads like [e]: aes[es] copper; letter combination oe- like the German ts [A similar sound will be made if you pronounce the sound [e] and lower the corners of your mouth to the bottom.]: poena[ptsna] punishment.

If in these two combinations the vowels are pronounced separately, then an e is placed above the letter - or .. (i.e. _, ё): a_r / aёr[a"er] air, po_ta / poeta poet[poe"ta].

Vowel Uu, as a rule, denotes the sound [y]. However, in words Suavis[sva"vis] sweet, nice; suadeo[sva"deo] I advice ; suesco[sve"sko] I am getting used to and their derivatives - combination su reads like [sv].

Group ngu reads [ngv]: lingua[l "ingva] language .

Features of reading Latin consonants

Letter Cs before e, ae, oe(i.e. before the sounds [e] and [o]) and i, y(i.e. before the sounds [u] and [b]) is read as [ts]: Cicero[pica] Cicero. In other cases With reads like [k]: credo[kre "do] I believe .

Letter Hh gives a sound similar to "Ukrainian" G"; it is obtained if you pronounce [x] with a voice, and is denoted by the Greek letter i (this sound is present in the words yeah! And God![io"spod"i]).

In words, usually borrowed from Greek, the following combinations of consonants with the letter are found: h :

ph[f] philosophus[philo"sophus] philosopher

ch[X] charta[ha"rta] paper

th[T] theater[tea "trum] theater

rh[R] arrha[a"rra] deposit

Letter Kk used very rarely: in the word Kalendae and its abbreviation K. (it is also possible to write using With), as well as in the name Kaeso[ke "so] Quezon .

Latin Ll pronounced softly: lex[l "ex] law .

Letter Qq used only in combination with the letter u ( qu). This combination reads [kv]: quaestio[kve "stio] question .

Letter Ss reads like [s]: saepe[s "epe] often. In the position between vowels it is read as [z]: case[ka"zus] case, case(in grammar), except for Greek words: philosophus[philo"sophus] philosopher .

Letter Tt read [t]. Collocation ti read as [qi] if followed by a vowel: etiam[etsiam] even .

Combination ti reads like [ti]:

a) if it’s a vowel i in this combination it is long (for the length of vowels, see below): totius[totius] - R. p., units. hours from totus whole, whole ;

b) if before ti costs s, t or x(i.e. in combinations sti, tti, xti): bestia[bestia] beast ;Attis[a"ttius] Attius(Name); mixtio[mixtio] mixing .

c) in Greek words: Miltiades[mil"ti"ades] Miltiades .

Long and short vowels

Vowel sounds in the Latin language differ in the duration of their pronunciation. There were long and short vowels: a long vowel was pronounced twice as long as a short one.

The longitude of a sound is indicated by the sign - above the corresponding letter, shortened by the sign Ш:

+ ("and long") - - ("and short")

_ ("e long") - _ (“e short”), etc.

When reading Latin texts, we pronounce long and short vowels with the same duration, without distinguishing between them. However, the rules determining the length/shortness of vowels need to be known, because :

· there are pairs of words that have different meanings, but completely coincide in spelling and pronunciation (homonyms) and differ only in the length and shortness of the vowel: m_lum evil - m_lum apple ;

· the length or shortness of a vowel significantly affects the placement of stress in a word.

Placing stress in a word

The last syllable of a word is not stressed in Latin.

In two-syllable words, the stress falls on the 2nd syllable from the end of the word: sci"-o I know, cu"l-pa wine .

In polysyllabic words, stress is determined by the length (shortness) of the 2nd syllable from the end of the word. It falls:

on the 2nd syllable from the end of the word, if it is long;

to the 3rd syllable from the end of the word, if the 2nd syllable is short.

Long and short syllables

Long syllables are syllables that contain a long vowel, short syllables are those that contain a short vowel.

In Latin, as in Russian, syllables are formed using vowels, around which consonants are “grouped.”

NB - a diphthong represents one sound and therefore forms only one syllable: ca"u-sa reason, guilt. (NB - Nota bene! Remember well! - Latin designation for notes.)

Long vowels include:

Diphthongs and combinations ae And oe: cen-tau-rus centaur ;

vowel before a group of consonants (except for vowels before the group muta cum liquida (see below): in-stru-m_n-tum tool .

This is the so-called longitude by position.

o a vowel can be long in nature, i.e. its length is not determined by any reasons, but is a linguistic fact. Longitude by position is recorded in dictionaries: for-tk"-na fortune.

Short vowels include:

o vowels that come before another vowel (so in all words ending in io, ia, ium, uo etc., stress falls on the 3rd syllable from the end): sci-e"n-tia knowledge ;

o before h: tra-ho I'm dragging.

This is the so-called brevity by position:

o vowels coming before a combination of one of the consonants: b, p, d, t, c[k], g(the so-called “mute” - muta) - with one of the consonants: r, l(so-called “liquid” - liquida), i.e. before combinations br, pr, dl and so on. ("mute with smooth" - muta cum liquida): te"-n_-brae darkness, darkness ;

o the vowel may be short in nature, i.e. its brevity is not determined by external reasons, but is a fact of language. The brevity of the position is recorded in dictionaries: fe"-m--na woman .

References

Miroshenkova V.I., Fedorov N.A. Textbook of the Latin language. 2nd ed. M., 1985.

Nikiforov V.N. Latin legal phraseology. M., 1979.

Kozarzhevsky A.I. Textbook of the Latin language. M., 1948.

Sobolevsky S.I. Latin grammar. M., 1981.

Rosenthal I.S., Sokolov V.S. Textbook of the Latin language. M., 1956.

It is a widely held opinion, shared even by some scholars, that the Latin alphabet is derived from the Greek in the form used by Greek colonists in Italy, probably from the Chalcidian version of the Greek alphabet used in Cumae Campania. This theory attempts to prove that the Latin alphabet, with the exception of the letters g and p, is exactly the same as the Chalcidian alphabet. Recently, however, it has been proven that this theory is generally incorrect and that the Etruscan alphabet was a link between the Greek and Latin alphabets.

We have already mentioned that on the Praenestine fibula the sound f is conveyed, as in early Etruscan inscriptions, by the combination wh. Later, for example in the Duenos Inscription, the h was omitted - also under Etruscan influence. Thus, the Greek ϝ (digamma), that is, w, came to denote the Latin sound f, although Latin also had the sound w, and if the Romans had taken the alphabet directly from the Greeks, they would have had to use the Greek digamma to convey this sound, in at the same time, both for the sound w and for and in Latin the Greek letter υ (upsilon) was used,

The third letter of the Greek alphabet, gamma, received the form in the Etruscan alphabet ϶ (or WITH) and sound value k ; it retained this sound meaning in the Latin alphabet, where it served to express the sounds k and g (as stated above, the Etruscans did not distinguish between the sounds k and g); WITH and subsequently retained the meaning of the sound g in constant abbreviations of proper names WITH(instead of Gaius) and CN(instead of Gnaeus). At the same time, Greek had two other signs for the sound k - TO And Q, therefore we find in the South Etruscan alphabet the sign C(with k value) just before e and i, K before a and Q only before u (the Etruscan language, as we have seen, did not know the sound o). The Latin alphabet adopted all three of these letters with the same phonetic values, but over time lost the letter K, which, however, continued to be used as the initial letter in frequently used words or official terms, for example Kalendae or Kaeso, and began to use the letter C as for the sound g and for k. However, the letter Q retained the meaning of the sound k before u. Later, in the 3rd century. BC, the voiced sound g was given a special designation by adding a stroke to the lower end of the letter WITH, which thus turned into G.

The absence in the early Latin alphabet of a special sign for the combination x (ks), which existed in the Greek alphabet, including in its Chalcidian version, but which was not in the Etruscan one, serves as further evidence that the Latin alphabet originates from the Etruscan one.

A significant part of the Latin letter names inherited by the English and most modern alphabets are also borrowed from the Etruscans, and only a few names were invented by the Romans. , borrowed by the Greeks, were completely different. The Etruscan origin of the letter names is best evidenced by the names ce, ka and qu (explained by the above-mentioned use of these three letters). Another fact speaks to this: in Etruscan there were sonants, or syllable-forming smooth (ḷ, ṛ), and nasal (ṃ, ṇ), therefore the modern names of the letters l, m, n, r are vocalized as closed syllables (el, em, en, er), and the names of the remaining consonants are open syllables (be, de, etc.).

The creation of the Latin alphabet can be dated back to the 7th century. BC.

Evolution of the Latin alphabet

The original Etruscan alphabet consisted of 26 letters; the Romans borrowed only twenty-one of them. They abandoned the three Greek aspirates: theta, phi and hee, since in the Latin language there were no sounds corresponding to these letters, but they retained these signs to denote numbers. ☉, Ͼ, C came to mean 100, and later this sign was identified with the initial letter of the word centum “one hundred”; ⏀, ⊂|⊃, Ϻ came to stand for 1000, and this sign was identified with the initial letter of the word mille "thousand", D, half of the sign ⊂|⊃, became the symbol for 500; φ - ↓ - ┴ - └ began to mean 50.

Of the three Etruscan letters that conveyed the sound s, the Romans retained the Greek sigma. The presence in the Latin alphabet of the letters d and o, which were not used in the Etruscan language, is explained by the already mentioned circumstance that the Latin alphabet was created even before the Etruscans abandoned these letters. Use of letters S, K, Q And F already explained. The sign, which, as in the Etruscan alphabet, denoted aspiration, later received the form N. The sign I served for both the vowel and the consonant i. Sign X was added later to convey the combination of ks sounds and was placed at the end of the Latin alphabet.

Thus, the Latin alphabet looked like this: A, B, C(with sound value k), D, E, F, Z(Greek zeta), H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, P(this was the original form R), S, T, V, X. Roughly speaking, it was a Semitic-Greek-Etruscan alphabet; the shape of some letters has undergone minor changes; Semitic Greek Δ became D; Greek Σ became S; R is a variant of the sign P, modified by adding a dash under the semicircle; the remaining letters remained unchanged. Later the seventh letter, that is, the Greek zeta (Ζ) , was omitted because the Latin language did not need it, and the new letter G took her place.

After the conquest of Greece in the era of Cicero (1st century BC), the Latin language began to widely borrow Greek words; signs were adopted from the Greek alphabet of that time Y And Z respectively for the sounds y and z (but only for transliteration of Greek words); these signs were placed at the end of the alphabet. Thus, the Latin alphabet began to have twenty-three characters; the signs themselves became more regular, slender, proportionate and graceful.

Although even in Roman times, attempts were made to add new letters - for example, a variant of the letter M, introduced by Verrius Flaccus in the era of Augustus, and in particular the signs introduced by the emperor Claudius (10 BC - 54 AD), digamma inversum for the sound w/υ, to distinguish it in writing from u; antisigma, which is an inverted WITH(Ͽ), for the combination ps; half sign N(┠) for a sound intermediate between u and i - in general it can be said that the alphabet of 23 letters described above was used without changes with the same order of letters not only in the monumental writing of the Roman period, but also in medieval writing (as capital letters letters), and then in book printing up to the present day.

The only stable additions of the Middle Ages were signs U, W And J; more precisely, these were not additions, but variants of existing letters; sign U(for the vowel and, to distinguish it from the consonant υ) and consonant W were minor modifications V, a J(consonant i) - the result of a slight change in sign I. In the early Middle Ages, two of these letters, U And J(but not W, which appeared only in the 11th century) were used undifferentiated for both consonant and vowel sounds.

The most significant facts of the subsequent history of the Latin alphabet are as follows: 1) the adaptation of the Latin alphabet to various languages, and 2) the external change of individual letters in a “cursive” or “fluent” style.