Acadēmīa:Latin conventions

Guidelines

This page explains the conventions for texts written in Latin. In general, the Acadēmīa follows a spelling convention based on current usage. Cases of doubt and deviations are documented and clarified here.

Letters

v and j

The letters v,j should be used to distinguish them from u and i. Deviating from this:

the compounds "su", "gu", and "qu" should not be written as "sv", "gv", and "qv".
j should not be doubled, if it is between two vowels (e.g. cujus not cujjus)
In poetic texts or texts with metrical clauses, words should be written as the meter suggests (e.g., "Italjam" instead of "Italiam" in Virgil, Aeneid v. 2).

Macrons

To avoid homographs (e.g., "nōvī" vs. "novī"), macrons should be used consistently. Breve, however, which can be found in some older dictionaries, is not preferred. The following points should be noted:

Macrons should be set as they most commonly appear. Iambic shortenings should not appear in the lemma, but can appear in written text.

Sonus medius

The sonus medius is usually rendered as i, but can also be written as u. (documentum vs. docimentum). There are no fixed rules.

Word spelling

In general, attested and/or more commonly used forms should be preferred.

Archaic words

Archaizing forms may appear in the text, but generally should not be used as headings or lemmas.

cum/quum/quom

We recommend writing "cum" if it is used as a preposition, and "quum" if it is used as a conjunction. This also makes the etymological proximity to forms like "quondam" etc. more visible. The archaizing use of "quom" is also permitted.

Compound spelling

Words (or morphemes) should always be written together as the Latin word accent suggests. In unclear cases or cases with multiple spellings, all spellings are acceptable.

Elisions

Elisions are usually not represented (e.g. tē amō not t'amō). We therefore recommend e.g. magnō opere instead of magnōpere.

Enclitics

Enclitics are always connected with the word to which they are attached.

Compositions

Phonetic changes that happen in composites should be made visible in the writing (e.g. conlegere not cumlegere). This does not apply to words in which both forms are common or in usage (e.g. inlustris vs. illustris).

Capitalization

General rule

The following convention has emerged through internal discussion and by comparison with existing Romance languages.

All words are to be written in lower case, except one of these points applies:

Sentence beginnings should be always capitalized.
Nouns or nominal phrases that denote or refer to exactly one entity (e.g. Rēgnum Foederātum) are to be capitalized, with the exception of pronouns, prepositions and conjunctions. The same applies to adjectives who are perceived as part of the name.
The previous rule does not apply if:
- the term is merely a nomenclature in the form nomenclature term + adjective/Genitiv (e.g. bellum Pūnicum; via Appia).
- The word describes an abstract, non-sensory and impersonal concept. (e.g. amor).
- The word describes only one entity because it has been augmented by a deictic expression. (e.g. hic ōrātor is written in lower case even though it refers to exactly one person).
Adjectives derived from ethnic groups should be capitalized when they refer to the individuals of the ethnic group.

Examples

Since these rules seem a bit abstract, here are some examples. Keep in mind that in some cases there is more than one option. This was left deliberately to allow the writer greater freedom, or because it is simply impossible to establish a clear rule.

Dates and time

diēs, mēns and annus are not capitalized, since they are nomenclature term (they denote temporal units). However, the names of the days and months are capitalized. Seasons are seen as abstract concepts and are written in lower case.

States

"The Roman empire" is written as Imperium Rōmānum. imperium Rōmānum, on the other hand, refers only to "the one Roman sphere of power." Since the semantic difference is only slight (or non-existent?), both expressions can be used synonymously. In the expression "prīscum Imperium Rōmānum," however, prīscus is written in lower case because it is not part of the name.

Regions

Hibernia Septentriōnālis is capitalized because it refers to a specific region, Northern Ireland. In contrast, the adjective is lowercased in Eurōpa septentriōnālis because it does not denote a firmly enclosed area is thus not a part of the proper name.

Personification

amor is written in lower case, if it merely describes the concept of love. However, Amor denotes the god of love or the concept of love as an agent of an action. Again, the semantic differences are minor.

Adjectives derived from ethnic groups

Rōmānī denotes the Romans. "mundus rōmānus," on the other hand, denotes "a Roman world."

Punctuation

Main clauses

Main clauses are separated by a period, exclamation mark or question mark. If two main clauses are closely related, a semicolon can also be set. For better readability, we advise against the use of commata.

Subordinate clauses

Subordinate clauses are separated with commata. Since non-finite clauses (e.g. AcI, PC) are not true subordinate clauses, they should not be separated by commata.

Appositions

Simple appositions are either not set or separated by an comma. If the apposition consists of a sentence or the apposition becomes too long, it is better to use long dashes.