Claudian letters

Claudian letters

Claudian letters were developed by, and named after, the Roman Emperor Claudius (reigned 41–54). He introduced three new letters:

• a reversed C (antisigma) to replace BS and PS, much like X stood in for CS and GS, and inspired by the Greek Psi. The appearance of this letter is disputed, however, since no inscription bearing it has been found. It may have been represented by two C's back to back, or some other symbol.
• a turned F (digamma inversum) to represent consonantal U (W/V), possibly inspired by the Greek Digamma.
• a half H to represent the sound of Greek Upsilon, a vowel sound between U and I (y) in Latin words such as Olympicus), possibly inspired by an early form of the spiritus asper.

These letters were used to a small extent on public inscriptions dating from his reign but their use was abandoned after his death. Their forms were probably chosen to ease the transition, as they could be made from templates for existing letters. Claudius may have been inspired to introduce these changes by a comment his mother Antonia made to him in his youth, to the effect of that he would be as unlikely to become emperor as he would be able to change the alphabet. He may have been inspired by his ancestor Appius Claudius the Censor, who made earlier changes to the Latin alphabet. Claudius did indeed introduce his letters during his own term as censor, using arguments preserved in the historian Tacitus's account of his reign. In time, the letter Y was added to the Latin alphabet, filling the role of the broken "H" which Claudius had promulgated.

Novas etiam commentus est litteras tres ac numero veterum quasi maxime necessarias addidit; de quarum ratione cum privatus adhuc volumen edidisset, mox princeps non difficulter optinuit ut in usu quoque promiscuo essent. Exstat talis scriptura in plerisque libris ac diurnis titulisque operum.

Besides this he [Claudius] invented three new letters and added them to the alphabet, maintaining that they were greatly needed; he published a book on their theory when he was still in private life, and when he became emperor had no difficulty in bringing about their general use. These characters may still be seen in numerous books, in the daily gazette, and in inscriptions on public buildings.

— Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, xli.3

The reversed C is also used in Roman numerals.

These letters—along with lowercase counterparts—were proposed for addition to Unicode and subsequently accepted.

References

• Suetonius pass, Loeb Classical Library edition, 1913‑1914, English translation is by J. C. Rolfe. From LacusCurtius