The Foundations of Latin

by Philip Baldi

This volume provides an up-to-date account of the linguistic evolution of Latin, from its origins in the Proto-Indo-European ancestral language until the end of the second century CE. As the first English-language treatment of the history of Latin and its speakers in four decades, this study fills a critical need in classical and linguistic scholarship.

Genres: Classics

561 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this ambitious, somewhat overlong book Philip Baldi attempts to give students of Latin an understanding of the wider field of comparative Indo-European linguistics. Latin can't merely be considered as an independent language, but rather as the descendent of the same common ancestor as Greek, Sanskrit, Old Church Slavonic, and numerous other languages.

The first chapter talks about the methodology of the field, comparative reconstruction and internal reconstruction. From then it briefly profiles Latin's relatives in the Indo-European language family and gives a very short summary of what is thought about the local of the IE homeland and the culture of its speakers. The second chapter is closely related and outlines the phonology and morphology of Proto-Indo-European. I felt that these first two chapters were somewhat unnecessary. There are already plenty of handbooks to comparative Indo-European linguistics in general, and Baldi could have simply referred readers to those. Had the book concentrated only on the relationship of Latin to the common view of the proto-language, without trying to repeat material readers will probably already have seen elsewhere, then it would have been much shorter and more manageable.

From the third chapter, Baldi limits his attention to the Italian peninsula and its languages. Theories of Etruscan origins are covered, and samples of the many other languages spoken in the area are provided. I found this quite fascinating, but also quite frustrating since so many of these are only fragmentarily attested and the interpretation of their texts are uncertain. In the fifth chapter Baldi lists materials for the study of Latin, both inscriptional and literary. Useful texts like the Senatus Consultum de Bacchanalibus are analysed in depth, and photographs abound. Finally, with all that came before serving as a basis, Baldi tracks the development of the Latin phonological and morphological systems from PIE.

The book was published in 1998 and is pretty up-to-date. The findings of Soviet typologists that Pre-Indo-European was an active language are reflected in the book, and Baldi realises that it's no longer wise to postulate an unvoiced aspirate series for the proto-language.

If Baldi had not needlessly included the entire view of the proto-language and search for the Urheimat, then I would feel rather more positive about FOUNDATIONS. Another problem is that Baldi does not treat syntax at all. He believes that there are too many competing models and the field in general is "treacherous". Still, the book is quite useful for those who want to see what came before Latin, and how we know about it.

[Keith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome book. Highly technical. It deals with the transformation of Proto-Indo-European into Italic into Latin through phonetic rules, phonological changes, and morphological changes. This is not a casual read, but is endlessly fascinating for people who want a more in-depth look at the PIE roots of Latin.