# Literatus or litteratus



## Ben Jamin

Hello,
I would like to know which of the spellings is correct: _literatus _or _litteratus_?


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## Agró

Litteratus.


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## Ben Jamin

Thanks!


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## Scholiast

salvete!

I am not convinced. L&S declare "*littĕra* (less correctly *lītĕra* ), ae, f. lino, q. v.", and certainly the doubled -tt- seems to have become standard in later Latin, and modern academic, Latin. But if the original root for it is, as they declare, _lino_, we meet a supine stem _lit-_ with a single "t". Moreover, in the time of Cicero and Caesar, there was still no standard grammar of Latin (that had yet to come with Remmius Palaemon in the reign of Tiberius), and no agreement, even among educated men, of the "correct" principles of orthography - indeed, some controversy, between "Atticist" and "Asianist" practitioners of rhetoric.



Σ


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## fdb

The currently favoured view is that the derivation of lītera from lino is “morphologically completely unconvincing” (thus de Vaan). Littera is certainly the spelling that you will find in virtually all inscriptions and manuscripts, and similarly (with tt) for its derivatives.


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## Scholiast

Cheers fdb

But not at the University of Oxford: "Faculty of Literae Humaniores"!

Σ


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## fdb

Scholiast said:


> But not at the University of Oxford: "Faculty of Literae Humaniores"!



Dubious Latinism is not the exclusive privilege of Oxford University. The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (of which I have the questionable honour of being a former vice-president) has an official seal calling itself Soc. Reg. As. Britt. (sic, with tt).


Royal Asiatic Society – A forum for those who are interested in the history, languages, cultures and regions of Asia


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## Scholiast

salvete iterum!



fdb said:


> Soc. Reg. As. Britt. (sic, with tt).



This duplication probably signifies that the abbreviation stands for a plural.

Σ


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