A B C Et Cetera: The Life & Times of the Roman AlphabetDavid R. Godine Publisher, 1985 - 274 Seiten This is a book about the Roman alphabet and the people who used it as a medium for the transmission of their civilization. Primarily, this means the Romans and their Italic subjects, speakers of Latin who disseminated the language, and the culture of which it was an expression, throughout Europe and the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. As speakers, readers, and writers of English, we are greatly indebted to the long line of purveyors of Latin in its various forms. When words are borrowed, concepts come with them. So, if we have borrowed a wide variety of Latin words, it follows that we have also borrowed a great deal of the cultural stuff that they encase. This book takes a look at what the authors consider to be some of the more intriguing cultural/linguistic goodies that have crept willy-nilly into the English language over the ages from the Latin cornucopia. - Preamble. |
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A B C Et Cetera: The Life & Times of the Roman Alphabet Alexander Humez,Nicholas Humez Keine Leseprobe verfügbar - 1987 |
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abbreviation alphabet appears army Augustus borrowed brother Caesar called Capitoline Hill Carthage Carthaginians cavalry century B.C. Christian classical cognate coin comes from Latin cousin derived early emperor empire Etruscan feast festival Gaul gens German glish Greek hand Hannibal Hannibal's head horns Indo Indo-European Indo-European root Italian Italic king kinship Late Latin later Latin word least letter linguistic Linnaeus literally lowercase mark meaning medieval military modern month native Odoacer official Old English Old French one's originally meant patricians perhaps Phoenician Pliny Pliny the Younger plural pound practice probably punctuation Punic refer rhotacism Roman Roman alphabet Roman numeral Romance languages Rome Saint Satyricon Scipio second Punic War seems sense Sicily slave sort Spanish speakers Suetonius suggested term things tion trans troops Twelve Tables uncial uncle underlies unicorn verb vowel whence English women writing York City