Abbreviations in Latin Inscriptions

Conceived and compiled by Tom Elliott (tom_elliott@unc.edu) for the ASGLE web site

Copyright 1998 by Tom Elliott

These lists may be used, reproduced and distributed for any academic purpose that does not generate profit so long as the title and authorship information, and the copyright notice, remain attached.

This page provides access to a series of lists containing abbreviations found in Latin inscriptions. The series represents a new compilation of such abbreviations, assembled from digital texts of all Latin inscriptions published in L’Année Épigraphique between 1888 and 1993. For a description of the methods used to compile these lists (and the limitations resulting therefrom) please see the Methods and Limitations section, below.

There are two sets of lists, one containing common abbreviations (those occurring more than 10 times in the inscriptions sampled), and another containing all the abbreviations that occur in the inscriptions sampled. Please note the file sizes listed next to each link; the complete listings in particular are quite large and may take a significant amount of time to download and format for viewing.

 

Common Abbreviations in Latin Inscriptions Published in AE 1888-1993

Click on the letter to view the list:

Initial letter of abbreviation Number of abbreviations File size (in KB)
A 25 9
B 5 3
C 26 12
D 14 7
E 3 2
F 16 7
G 4 2
H 3 2
I 8 3
K 2 2
L 12 5
M 22 10
N 8 3
O 2 2
P 38 16
Q 5 3
R 3 2
S 21 9
T 8 4
U 2 1
V 16 6
X (no list) 0
Z (no list) 0

 

All Abbreviations in Latin Inscriptions Published in AE 1888-1993

Click on the letter to view the list:

Initial letter of abbreviation Number of abbreviations File size (in KB)
A 3304 304
B 704 62
C 3715 322
D 2139 196
E 683 55
F 1744 157
G 548 47
H 804 73
I 1739 157
K 478 43
L 1555 139
M 2139 187
N 811 69
O 483 39
P 3479 320
Q 652 59
R 549 46
S 2368 201
T 1388 118
U 274 22
V 1583 146
X 56 6
Z 19 2

 

Method and Limitations

Definition of ‘abbreviation’

Two types of abbreviations are represented in the lists above. First, there are those Latin words that were abbreviated in epigraphical texts by the omission of one or more letters, often at the end, although sometimes in the middle or in several places in the word. Second, there are those phrases that, in the engraving, consist of a series of words that are each abbreviated in the manner just described. Both these meta-abbreviations and the individual abbreviated words they contain are recorded in the lists. For example, if the meta-abbreviation VSLM = v(otum) s(olvit) l(ibens) m(erito) was encountered in a text, the meta-abbreviation VSLM will have an entry in the “V” list and each word will have its own entry in the appropriate list (i.e., V = v(otum) in the “V” list, S = s(olvit) in the “S” list, and so on). See the Limitations section below for some exceptions to (and consequences of ) these rules.

Data source

The abbreviations contained in these lists were identified using the digital texts of all Latin inscriptions published in AE 1888-1993 available from Dr. Manfred Clauss and the Ancient History Seminar at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt am Main, Germany ( http://www.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/~clauss/ ).

Identification and classification

Abbreviations were identified in the data set using software written expressly for the purpose. The following algorithm was used:

Limitations

Several consequences of the identification and classification approach outlined above can be observed in the data: