History of long mark on first-declension ablative endings?

[Callaina]

Hi -- this came up on a Latin group that I'm part of on Facebook. Does anyone know when people first started routinely marking first-declension ablative singular endings with long-vowel marks? I wrote that it was a medieval innovation developed as a sort of "crutch" for people whose first language was not Latin (i.e. everyone) -- which is true as far as I know, but I'd like to be sure that what I wrote is correct -- and anyway, "medieval" spans a vast length of time, and I'm curious when exactly they first appear.

 

[Pacifica]

I'm not sure when exactly macrons appeared.

The Romans themselves sometimes marked long vowels (I mean in general, not especially in the first-declension ablative singular ending) with apices (things that look like acute accents) but they weren't very consistent about it. They also occasionally wrote long vowels as double.

I don't think I've seen any macrons or apices or any other length-marking diacritics in medieval manuscripts. I haven't seen all medieval manuscripts, of course, so I can't swear they were never used, but if it had been a habitual thing I'd probably know about it.

In Renaissance or perhaps slightly later books, I've seen length indicated by a circumflex, not everywhere but mostly in forms that would otherwise be technically ambiguous like, indeed, the first-declension ablative singular.

 

[Callaina]

Ah, interesting -- I didn't know that about the Romans. So it's actually mostly a Renaissance innovation, then.

 

[Dantius]

I've seen an inscription with Maarcus to indicate that that's a long a, for instance.

 

[Glabrigausapes]

In Renaissance or perhaps slightly later books, I've seen length indicated by a circumflex, not everywhere but mostly in forms that would otherwise be technically ambiguous like, indeed, the first-declension ablative singular.

At my folks' house, I've got this old (17th century?) book that, if I remember, is some kind of commentary on V's Culex. At any rate, it used the circumflex, and occasionally the 'grave' accent (for a long mark). I have no idea why/what was the distinction. Maybe Italian knowledge had some bearing?

 

[Quasus]

The application of the circumflex to mark case endings is a relatively late phenomenon, surfacing only in the latter half of the sixteenth century.

Spinoza's Ethica from manuscript to print
https://books.google.pt/books?id=WpLyabFPAYkC&lpg=PA72&ots=DNx95uZLIA&pg=PA77#v=onepage&q&f=false

> a sort of "crutch" for people whose first language was not Latin

I’d say it’s an ingenious workaround for a deficiency of the Latin script.

 

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

That link tells me I've reached my limit of available pages, which seems a bit harsh, because I haven't seen any yet. At least I think that's what it's telling me, because it's in Portuguese.

 

[Pacifica]

Weirdly, it worked for me on second click.

 

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

So it does.

 

[meisenimverbis]

Hi -- this came up on a Latin group that I'm part of on Facebook. Does anyone know when people first started routinely marking first-declension ablative singular endings with long-vowel marks? I wrote that it was a medieval innovation developed as a sort of "crutch" for people whose first language was not Latin (i.e. everyone) -- which is true as far as I know, but I'd like to be sure that what I wrote is correct -- and anyway, "medieval" spans a vast length of time, and I'm curious when exactly they first appear.

It seems that the ablative a (and other vowels, in case of other declensions) is long because it's an elision of a primitive ending in -d. Differently, the nominative would be short because its ending would be none (∅) or -s, depending on the declension (or paradigm within the 3rd declension).

Romans though would (in some occasions/modalities of writing) mark the difference because it was different for them, I believe...

 

[Iáson]

No. I think the vowel was long even before the loss of -d.

This link shows some examples from the fifth and sixth centuries CE.

 

[Quasus]

> Does anyone know when people first started routinely marking first-declension ablative singular endings with long-vowel marks?

BTW, in Neo-Latin writing they were marked with the circumflex, not with the macron. The circumflex was never consistently used for vowel length.

 

[meisenimverbis]

BTW, in Neo-Latin writing they were marked with the circumflex, not with the macron. The circumflex was never consistently used for vowel length.

I still do it... (Mark long vowels with ^ and short ones with `.) But I do so because I --when I had a problem with my computer, and had to use an awful, awful!, 'netbook'-- went back to use txt notepad, and lingered on it, and it doesn't save with macron and breve marks, so it became a habit. Otherwise though (word, twitter) I use the macra and breves... But it's somewhat romantic the simplistic ^ and ` to mark them.

Does anyone else here do it too?

 

[Issacus Divus]

Hmm. I never have I think...I guess that'd be much easier. But I've always tried to get macrons.