THE ALPHABET
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The Latin alphabet is almost identical to ours: i and v served both as consonants (English ‘j’ and ‘v’), and vowels (‘i’ and ‘u’); there was no written ‘w’ in Latin – but its sound was made by the consonantal v. The practice until relatively recently was to write the consonantal i as a ‘j’, although the current convention is to write both the consonant and vowel as i. In some texts you will find a ‘v’ for the consonantal v and a ‘u’ for the vowel (e.g. viderunt); in others the letter ‘u’ is used for both (e.g. uiderunt). Romans themselves wrote everything in upper-case: IVLIVS (Iulius, or Julius) VETVRIA (Veturia) Many editors now prefer to use the lower-case (except for proper names), even to begin a sentence. |