Ancient spelling of "audaces fortuna iuvat"

A

Anonymous

Guest

I was looking around at famous quotes (Roman), and I came across 2 that I really like but have seen 2 different spellings. At some point in history there was no letter J or U in the latin language. (J=I, U=V
)

If the following 2 quotes were dated B.C., which is the correct version?

"Fortune Favors the Bold"
AVDACES FORTVNA IVVAT -or-
AUDACES FORTUNA IUVAT

AND

"I will either find a way or make one"
Avt viam inveniam avt faciam -or-
Aut viam inveniam aut faciam
 

Iynx

Consularis

  • Consularis

Location:
T2R6WELS, Maine, USA
In my opinion either way is correct, for both quotes.


Broadly speaking I is interchangeable with J, and U with V-- there are four forms, but really only two letters. Larissa Bonafante tells us (The Scripts of Italy in The World's Writing Systems (Daniels and Bright, eds., Oxford, 1996) that

"Not until the Renaissance was U distinguished from V and...J from
I...and not until Noah Webster's 1806 Compendious Dictionary of
the English Language
were they separated in alphabetical lists".

I and V are the forms found very anciently.

In modern Latin, and especially in ecclesiastical Latin, J is mostly used when the letter is a consonant, and I when it is a vowel. V, similarly, is used when the letter is a consonant, and U when it's a vowel. But in monumental inscriptions the V form is amost always used, I suppose because a U is relatively hard to carve.

V, not U, is almost always used in numbers. And one of the earliest uses of J was to distinguish the last in a row of I's in a number.

Classical purists (especially in recent decades) have sometimes entirely eschewed the use of J and V-- as for example in Glare's large dictionary.

I hope I will not further confuse you by pointing out that very early on, V /U sometimes looked like our Y.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest

y?

Are you saying that the following spelling "AVDACES FORTVNA IVVAT" may be more along the lines of "AVDACES FORTVNA IYVAT" to account for the double VV? I'm just struggling to see how the two different spellings would have the same pronunciation if U was V.

For the first quote (audaces fortuna iuvat) I'm thinking it would be something like: ow-DEN-tehs for-TOO-na YOO-vat

And I'm completely lost with how to pronounce "Aut viam inveniam aut faciam", any help on that would would be great too.
 

Iynx

Consularis

  • Consularis

Location:
T2R6WELS, Maine, USA
I'm sorry, I did further confuse matters by mentioning the Y-form.
Forget about it for now, and let me try again.

U and V are just two forms of the same letter . This is no stranger than "A" and "a" in English, is it?

This letter is pronounced in several different ways. As a vowel it may be short or long. As a consonant it is pronounced usually either as an English "v" (by "ecclesiastical" speakers) or as a English "w" (by "classical" speakers).

I and J likewise are just two graphic representations of the same letter. Writers who use J at all usually use it if and only if the letter is a consonant.

Conventional modern ecclesiastical spelling of your sayings would be:

Audaces fortuna juvat
Aut viam inveniam aut faciam.

A classical purist todat would probably write on paper:

Audaces fortuna iuuat.
Aut uiam inueniam aut faciam.

But carve in stone:

AVDACES FORTVNA IVVAT
AVT VIAM INVENIAM AVT FACIAM

The ecclesiatic would probably say

ow-DAH-chaise for-TOO-nah YOU-vaht.
OUT VEE-ahm in-VAY-nee-ahm OUT FAH-chee-ahm

And the classicist

ow-DAH-kays for-TOO-nah YOU-waht.
OUT WEE-ahm in-WAY-nee-ahm OUT FAH-key-ahm

English too has its dialects. An Englisman writes "colour" where an American has "color", and an Englishman or Canadian will usually say SHED-yule for what an American calls a SKED-yule. But the languages are more or less mutually intelligible. The same is true of "ecclesiastical" and "classical" Latin.
 

Iynx

Consularis

  • Consularis

Location:
T2R6WELS, Maine, USA
I'm sorry, I did further confuse matters by mentioning the Y-form.
Forget about it for now, and let me try again.

U and V are just two forms of the same letter . This is no stranger than "A" and "a" in English, is it?

This letter is pronounced in several different ways. As a vowel it may be short or long. As a consonant it is pronounced usually either as an English "v" (by "ecclesiastical" speakers) or as a English "w" (by "classical" speakers).

I and J likewise are just two graphic representations of the same letter. Writers who use J at all usually use it if and only if the letter is a consonant.

Conventional modern ecclesiastical spelling of your sayings would be:

Audaces fortuna juvat
Aut viam inveniam aut faciam.

A classical purist todat would probably write on paper:

Audaces fortuna iuuat.
Aut uiam inueniam aut faciam.

But carve in stone:

AVDACES FORTVNA IVVAT
AVT VIAM INVENIAM AVT FACIAM

The ecclesiatic would probably say

ow-DAH-chaise for-TOO-nah YOU-vaht.
OUT VEE-ahm in-VAY-nee-ahm OUT FAH-chee-ahm

And the classicist

ow-DAH-kays for-TOO-nah YOU-waht.
OUT WEE-ahm in-WAY-nee-ahm OUT FAH-key-ahm

English too has its dialects. An Englisman writes "colour" where an American has "color", and an Englishman or Canadian will usually say SHED-yule for what an American calls a SKED-yule. But the languages are more or less mutually intelligible. The same is true of "ecclesiastical" and "classical" Latin.
 
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