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Roman Perspectives on Linguistic Diversity: Guardians of a Changing Language

Online ISBN:
9780197612002
Print ISBN:
9780197611975
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

Roman Perspectives on Linguistic Diversity: Guardians of a Changing Language

Adam Gitner (ed.)
Adam Gitner
(ed.)
lexicographer, the Thesaurus linguae Latinae (Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities); docent in historical linguistics, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität
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Published online:
23 November 2023
Published in print:
26 October 2023
Online ISBN:
9780197612002
Print ISBN:
9780197611975
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

Thirty years ago Robert Kaster’s Guardians of Language: The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity (1988) investigated ancient Greco-Roman grammarians as social agents within their social and cultural context. This collection of twelve essays develops that line of inquiry by focusing on one dimension of their activity: how Roman grammarians—as well as scholars and intellectuals more broadly—described, made sense of, and resisted linguistic diversity within the Roman Republic and Empire. This includes social and diachronic variety within Latin as well as multilingual contact with Greek and other Mediterranean languages. The essays cover five centuries of Latin reflection on language, from Varro to the fifth or sixth century CE. The book concludes with an autobiographical Epilogue by Robert Kaster about the origins of Guardians of Language and updates to the prosopography of known ancient grammarians found in Guardians.

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