Pistas sobre a pronúncia do latim nos capítulos gramaticais da Institutio Oratoria, de Quintiliano
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12957/soletras.2025.90029Abstract
This article aims to find clues about the real pronunciation of spoken Latin, as the living language of the Roman Empire, in the so-called grammatical chapters of the Institutio Oratoria, by Quintilian (35-96 AD). Although this extensive treatise on Rhetoric has as its main objective the intellectual and moral formation of orators, the author dedicates chapters IV to IX of book I to relevant reflections on Grammar, which he considers a propaedeutic discipline. The topics covered in them are diverse: orthography, orthoepy, parts of speech, barbarisms, solecisms, etc. The research itself consisted of the selection and analysis of several excerpts from the work concerning orthography and orthoepy, which were then compared with other reliable sources in the field of Historical Linguistics, specially Faria (1957), in order to verify Quintilian's assertions or to elucidate them if they were not entirely comprehensible. The results obtained here confirm, more often than not, the already known characteristics of the reconstructed pronunciation of Latin in the classical period, but, at the same time, they bring to light some discrepancies between writing and speech that are generally hidden under an illusory idea of orthographic uniformity.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
The approval of the article implies the immediate and free transfer of the publication rights in this journal. The author (s) authorize the Postgraduate Program in Literature and Linguistics (PPLIN) to reproduce it and publish it in Revista SOLETRAS, understanding the terms "reproduction" and "publication" in accordance with Definition of article 5 of Law 9610/98. The author (s) will continue to own the copyright for subsequent publications. The article can be accessed by the world wide web (http://www.e-publicacoes.uerj.br/index.php/soletras), being allowed, free of charge, the consultation and the reproduction of copy of the article for own use. Cases of plagiarism or any illegalities in the submitted texts are the sole responsibility of their authors.