Some remarks on the Latin of the Didymoi ostraca

Abstract

This paper aims to discuss the linguistic data provided by over 400 ostraca from the praesidium of Didymoi in the Eastern Desert, with a focus on Latin texts and phenomena of interference with Greek. After providing an overview of the socio-historical context of Eastern Egypt, this research conducts a general quantitative analysis of the linguistic features of the Latin ostraca and compares them to other corpora which are similar in terms of chronology and geographic provenance. Our analysis reveals peculiarities of the Latin ostraca from Didymoi, which are further investigated through a qualitative analysis to identify potential levels of variation.The results of the analysis aim to demonstrate two main points. Firstly, it is not to be ruled out that the Latin language had a greater presence in Roman Egypt than commonly believed, extending beyond the coram imperio public sphere. Secondly, the Latin language emerging from these ostraca is to be considered as a bundle of varieties reflecting in most cases interlanguage stages among learners who have Substandard Latin, variously tending toward Neo-Standard, as their target language.