Labienus dixit:
Bitmap, I never abbreviate in anything that is even
slightly officious in life, so forgive me when I don't give particular weight to your analogy comparing Caesar's meticulously constructed work to my forum colloquialisms
So not really 'just like' me
no, you don't quite understand what I mean:
When I write professionally or in the least bit consciously about the style of my writing, I make sure never to abbreviate.
I'm aware that you don't do that, but you spell out phrases like "I am" or "I would" being fully aware that it would regularly be contracted to "I'm" and "I'd" in spoken English. You have to be
conscious when writing professionally, as you yourself said.
That's why I don't doubt that Caesar was conscious of his words' oral nature.
I am still of the belief that 'est' was considered to be a separate word when written in Latin. Otherwise, I would question its usefulness for one thing.
Well ... it was ... when it was not elided
Why would you question its usefulness?
I don't think we should make the mistake to judge Ancient texts, which were composed in a primarily oral culture and designed to be read out aloud, from our modern perspective, which is highly influenced by a written culture in which silent reading is an everyday activity. To you, silent reading (and the idea of being able to read more of a text and read it faster than the time it takes to read it out fully and pronounce all of it) is so natural that you may underestimate how difficult it was in an age when the evolution of reading and writing was still at an early stage. In a way, that evolution is comparable to the learning process of children, who also have to learn to read aloud and at a natural pace first while reading a text silently and quickly is something they will learn only later.
I'm not only talking about this sentence in particular here, but about Ancient literature in general. In order to fully appreciate a Latin text you actually do have to read it out loud.
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Again, on the elision of est after vowels (and vowels + m which are essentially nasalised vowels, too):
I'm not even arguing whether there should be an elision in
divisa in or not as you may argue if and how it should be done ... but the elision
est to 'st after vowels can be grasped quite well from various sources. I think this topic was also touched upon in another
thread.
In some sentence the elision of est becomes apparent because of the rhythmic composition of the sentence; just 3 examples from
De Officiis:
Cic. de off. I dixit:
(36) Ac belli quidem aequitas sanctissime fetiali populi Romani iúre pèrscrípta est.
(41) Ac de bellicis quidem officiís satìs díctum est.
(47) nullum enim officium referenda gratia magís necèssáriùm est.
the clausulae in the sentences from 36 and 41 are catalectic double cretics
- u - - x
iūrĕ perscripta'st
-īs sătis dīctum'st
the sentence from 47 ends in a regular double cretic
- u - - u x
-is nĕcessārĭum'st