Talk:Claudian letters

Skip to table of contents

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Claudian letters article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Classical Greece and Rome Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome, a group of contributors interested in Wikipedia's articles on classics. If you would like to join the WikiProject or learn how to contribute, please see our project page. If you need assistance from a classicist, please see our talk page.Classical Greece and RomeWikipedia:WikiProject Classical Greece and RomeTemplate:WikiProject Classical Greece and RomeClassical Greece and Rome articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Writing systems Low‑importance

	Writing portal This article falls within the scope of WikiProject Writing systems, a WikiProject interested in improving the encyclopaedic coverage and content of articles relating to writing systems on Wikipedia. If you would like to help out, you are welcome to drop by the project page and/or leave a query at the project’s talk page.Writing systemsWikipedia:WikiProject Writing systemsTemplate:WikiProject Writing systemsWriting system articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

old talk[edit]

it would make more sense to present the letters without serifs. dab (ᛏ) 17:16, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure why it wold make more sense. Surely Roman inscriptions at the Claudian period normally had serifs? --rossb 20:00, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just removed this:

His first innovation, however, would not catch on for about 600 years, when W was derived from a ligature of two Vs.

I can't find anything at W to suggest that it had anything to do with the Claudian letters, or see any apparent connection... Am I missing something that is not clear? ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 22:39, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the 'innovation' was meant to be 'the use of a separate letter for consonantal V than vocalic V', not the use of any particular letter shape to do so. —Muke Tever talk 22:55, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

none of his innovations 'caught on'; no letter for /ps/ or /ɪ/ [except for Eihwaz?] were ever introduced, and Ƿ, w < uu was an independent Germanic idea. dab (ᛏ) 12:31, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not [ɪ], [y] or [ʏ] in Classical Greek. David Marjanović 21:47, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Daily gazette[edit]

What is this Roman daily gazette mentioned by Suetonius? Do we have an article on it? --84.20.17.84 12:33, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Probably inventor of "Roman daily gazette" was google translator :-) There wasn't such thing, Suetonius wrote about [state] registers... I fixed it. 95.51.201.218 (talk) 15:33, 8 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Half H[edit]

The text by Suetonius cited as reference clearly state that the half H was created to repredent the so-called sonus medius and not the Greek upsilon which had been transcribed with Y since the I century BC.--Carnby (talk) 21:31, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, the text by Suetonius says "three new letters", and refers to Claudii lost (?) "instruction manual" for them, without further specifying their form or usage. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 10:32, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I believe you're out for Quintilian who has an extensive treaty on letters and pronunciations, including descriptions on the Claudian letters. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 10:35, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sonus medius[edit]

Does this represent a schwa sound perhaps? Or is it unknown? Ben Finn (talk) 14:50, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is generally assumed that it referred to a vowel like [y] or [ʏ], since it must have been (judging from the vacillating spelling) a sound in between [i] and [u]. However, it would presumably continue an earlier schwa vowel which became an [y]-like vowel (as opposed to the default outcome [i]) in the vicinity of a labial consonant, hence: Early Latin *optemos > *optəmos > Old Latin optymus.

Apparently, any full vowel /a e i o u/ in an Early Latin non-initial open syllable became neutralised to a schwa by ca. 500 BC, and later this schwa was either dropped entirely or was phonemicised as /i/ (the default outcome), /e/ (preceding /r/, and apparently word-finally), /y/ (before labial consonants), or /u/ (before /l/), and the marginal vowel [y] (perhaps really only an allophone of /i/?) was later (in the classical period) re-phonemicised as either /i/ or /u/, restoring the original system of five short vowels. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:38, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

January 2013[edit]

«Ⱶ, a half H to represent the so-called sonus medius, a short vowel sound between U and I before labial consonants in Latin words such as optumus/optimus»

optumus/optimus? Come on. You know better examples than ones with U and I in reverse order. -- 03:09, 6 January 2013‎ 88.90.229.203

Huh? Q·L·1968 ☿ 01:36, 3 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Dokfmentun" listed at Redirects for discussion[edit]

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Dokfmentun. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. _signed,Rosguill ^talk 19:17, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Antisigma[edit]

What shape did it have? -- 13:26, 14 August 2021 83.142.57.33

As implemented in Unicode, a reversed "c" (i.e. opposite to a lunate sigma). As originally intended by the Emperor Claudius, no one knows for sure... AnonMoos (talk) 22:16, 14 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's more of a Ƨ shape --83.142.57.33 (talk) 17:48, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]