Roman tablets as linguistic corpora: evidence for phonological variation in 2nd c. Latin

Abstract

Abstract The Tabula Alimentaria Veleiana and the Tabula Ligures Baebiani are two 2nd century tablets which outline the regional implementation and execution of Trajan’s alimentary scheme. These tablets not only provide some of the longest Latin inscriptions from antiquity, but they also offer unique insight into regional linguistic patterns, as one tablet is from northern Italy and the other is from southern Italy. Given that each tablet demonstrates its own consistent patterns of orthographic peculiarities, it is possible that these communities had local epigraphic traditions. This, in turn, could suggest that consistent spelling anomalies reflect regional phonological patterns, such as intervocalic voicing and consonant degemination. This case study builds on recent literature studying sociolinguistic variation in Latin by using tablets from the same time period as regional corpora with which to study linguistic patterns.