Re: Latina Albana

Peter wrote:
> Of course that's just classical Latin in Alban orthography. Anybody know of
> any Kingdom of Rome era texts that it would be useful to play with?
The most salient differences between Old Latin (which is taken to
be spoken before 75 BC) and that of the Classical period are such
as the following:

-- no rhotacism of /s/ --> /r/:  honos/honosis, not
   Cl. honos/honoris
-- inflectional endings -os, -om, not Cl. -us, -um
-- in some very ancient texts, genitive singular in
   -oio, not -i:
-- also in some very ancient texts, dative singular
  -oi becomes Cl. Latin -o:
-- diphthongs /oi/, /ei/ not yet monopthongized to
  /u:/, /i:/:  *poinikos --> pu:nikus 'Punic' (cf.
  Greek _Phoinikia_)

Here's a sample text, from the Praeneste Fibula:

  MANIOS MED FHEFHAKED NVMASIOI
  (= Cl. Latin MANIVS ME FECIT NVMERIO
   "Manius made me for Numerius")

And from the Lapis Satricanus:

  IEI STETERAI POPLIOSIO VALESIOSIO SVODALES MAMARTEI
  "The (?) dedicated this, as companions of Publius Valerius,
  to Mars."

This was dedicated by Publius Valerius Publicola, the Consular
colleague of the more famous Lucius Junius Brutus, founder of the
Republic.  (The Federalist Papers' three authors used his name
as their pseudonym.)  You can see the -oio genitive singular here
as well.

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