this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2025
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Latin Language

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Ø is 100% real, our Lord and savior, Hans Ørberg, even has it in his name! Must be real then.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Looks like there was a moment between Archaic Latin and Roman when a lot of letters got turned around

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Yep, because Phoenician was a RTL language, but its descents are LTR. Later on, they flipped letters to match the direction, since it was uncomfortable to write letters from a right to left language as left to right.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I like how modern is just sans serif Roman (+a few letters).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

i don't understand your comment.

how modern is modern latin?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

The Roman font is serif, the Modern Latin font is sans serif


it was just a silly observation about font choices.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Besides the sans serif modern (i guess to imply modernity) it's an accurate image. I honestly don't know why they did that, pretty much the same thing.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

Oh, my family’s not dyslexic! They’re archaic!!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

how did the I becone the Z and the Z became the I? why are half the letters mirrored frim archaic latin to roman?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

i wasn't an i. It was a different sound represented by a sign that resembled i.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Huh? This hasn't got anything to do with sounds, funny enough.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

For the I to Z, I'm not entirely sure, but it doesn't seem too ridiculous.

As for why it was flipped, it's because Phoenician was right to left, and Greek/latin are descended from it, but they are left to right instead. I guess the ancient Greeks/Latin tribes didn't bother just fixing the letters. They eventually catched up and flipped it later on, though.

Language evolution is wacky, but beautiful :)