Why would you say that? U and J are not used in classical Latin, they’re mediaeval innovations, presumably this website deals with the Rome of classical times?
Back when Lutetia was called Lutetia, it was written with V.
Back when Lutetia was called Lutetia, it was written with V.
I think they either should accept the original Roman spelling of Lvtetia, or the various modernized forms Lutetia, Lutece and Lutecia. But accepting only "Lvteci" seems like an anachronism to me.
(edit: that said, when I search for "lugd" I do get search results for LVGDVNO, so maybe the search got improved?)
Lvtetia is not "the original Roman spelling".
The original Roman cursive spelling is: https://imageup.ru/img224/3989875/roman-coursive-example.png
The original Roman square capitals variant is like this: LV́TÉTIA (too lazy to make an image; I hope you have a serif typeface, it's closer enough)
The cursive eventually evolved into "lutetia"
The square capitals eventually into "LVTETIA"
Later, people decided to use both versions together, using letters like L, V, T, E in the beginning of sentences and names; and letters like l, u, t, e elsewhere.
What happened in mediaeval times is that people decided added lowercase v and uppercase U. So, Lvtetia is ahistorical: it should be Lutetia or LVTETIA or lutetia, since lowercase v is a later invention.
(Similar thing happened when Turkish people devised their Latin script: they divided I/i into I/ı and İ/i. Using Lvtetia is like using Lvtetıa, because Romans didn't put dots over their I's.)
> (edit: that said, when I search for "lugd" I do get search results for LVGDVNO, so maybe the search got improved?)
Yes, I think it has been improved. Thanks!
This I think indicates that you misunderstand what "spelling" means. Casing is unrelated to spelling. "Lvtetia" and "LVTETIA", and indeed "lUtETia" are using the same spelling.
> Later, people decided to use both versions together, using letters like L, V, T, E in the beginning of sentences and names; and letters like l, u, t, e elsewhere.
This only happened much later, and does not concern Classical Latin.
Looks like almost all Latin texts hurt your eyes, then.
Even with monumental inscriptions, you'd need to carefully filter them to make sure you only read old ones. The newer ones frequently include U, e.g. I like this little poem in a park in Coimbra: http://bloguinho.casa/img/2017/01/nemus-litterae-old.jpg (the park also includes more poems, which is pretty cool). Too bad we don't have such Latin poems in Porto, where I live now.
Btw “demetrius”, my other pet peeve is Latin endings on Greek words and names.
I’m actually going to Porto next month, good to know I will be safe from bastardized Latin!
You seem to choose pet peeves that are opposite to mine! I don't like Greek word declinations in Latin (why write Leopolin if you can write Leopolim?) and I like the i/j, v/u distinction in Latin.
> good to know I will be safe from bastardized Latin!
You should stay away from the house 1255 on rua de Constituição, then (it has this: https://imageup.ru/img91/3990079/porto.jpg — although it's the only text in Latin I've seen here so far)
Leopolim? As in the accusative form of Lvov?
Feel free to send me more tips to the email in my profile!
They were totally legit variants of V and I, especially in cursive. Cursive U/V was much closer to U than to V.
When cut in stone, V was easier to cut, and stone tends to be preserved better, so we see V more often. But at the same time, people would write U when writing.
What happened in mediaeval times is that people decided that U and V are two different letters. But both U and V existed long before that, they just were two forms of the same letter.
And since our lowercase letters are based on cursive forms, it makes much more sense to use u in the lowercase. Which is what modern sources that don't distinguish U and V do (e.g. Oxford Latin dictionary would not use "U" in uppercase and "v" in lowercase).
> Back when Lutetia was called Lutetia, it was written with V.
Well, it was also written with E and not e, and T and not t, but you seem to have no problem with that.
Lvtetia makes absolutely no sense. Lvᴛᴇᴛɪᴀ might be OK, it's at least consistent (albeit hard to type). But Lvtetia is a Frankenstein's monster: you freeze the evolution of V into u, but keep evolutions of other letters intact.
I sort of see what you mean here though:
"And since our lowercase letters are based on cursive forms, it makes much more sense to use u in the lowercase"
But I would conclude that the textbox should only use capital letters. When I wrote that it should say "Lvtetia", I obviously meant "LVTETIA". Minuscules are not different letters, they are variant forms, so by using modern capitalization I didn't mean to imply anything about how the program should do it, bicameral writing is a modern fad.
That would make sense, sure.
> Minuscules are not different letters, they are variant forms
Just like U and V, J and I in some varieties of Latin.
(The fact that Unicode encodes them differently doesn't mean anything: Unicode also encodes A and Ａ, fi and fi differently.)
One more improvement: instead of just drawing straight lines between the cities, they could follow the actual Roman roads, which are mostly known.
Definitely agree about the roads!