A Festan Feast: Some linguistic notes on a lexical hodgepodge

Ben Fortson, Professor of Greek and Latin Language Literature, and Historical Linguistics, University of Michigan

In this talk, I discuss some philological and linguistic issues arising from the lexicon of Festus, a famously valuable storehouse of antiquarian lore of great significance to Classical linguists, specialists in Roman religion and law, and literary scholars. After an introduction to the nature and complicated history of the text as well as its broader lexicographical context, I will zero in on the consideration of some lemmata that have received recent attention in the linguistic literature. Above all, we will amuse ourselves with some very odd corners of Latin vocabulary and ancient scholarship."

This is event is co-sponsored by the Department of Linguistics and the John and Penelope Biggs Department of Classics.