African Latin: The problem of labdacism

Abstract

In late antiquity, there has been a public opinion that African Latin is specific and different from the Latin spoken in other regions of the Roman Empire. Several grammarians also mention – in comparison with the so-called classical Latin – incorrect (linguistic) phenomena, which are associated with the Latin speakers of the African provinces. In my paper, I will examine one of these (perceived?) Africanisms, the wrong use of the l sound/letter (labdacism) through a selection of texts available in the grammatical tradition, and finally, with the inclusion of African epigraphical material, I will discuss the phenomenon of wrong gemination and degemination in African provinces, which might closely be related to the phenomenon called labdacism by grammarians.