Editing Getica (section)

==The Late Latin of Jordanes==
The early [[Late Latin]] of Jordanes evidences a certain variability in the structure of the language which has been taken as an indication that the author no longer had a clear standard of correctness.<ref>{{citation| first = Brian |last = Croke | title = Cassiodorus and the Getica of Jordanes | journal = Classical Philology | volume= 82 | number = 2 |date = Apr 1987|pages= 117–134|doi = 10.1086/367034 |s2cid = 162232630 }}</ref> Jordanes tells us in ''Getica'' that he interrupted work on the ''[[Romana (Jordanes)|Romana]]'' to write ''Getica'', and then finished ''Romana''. Jordanes states in ''Romana'' that he wrote it in the 24th year of the emperor [[Justinian I|Justinian]], which began April 1, 551. In ''Getica'' he mentions a plague of nine years previous. This is probably the [[Plague of Justinian]], which began in Egypt in 541, reached Constantinople in 542 and Italy in 543. The time is too early to identify a direction of change toward any specific Romance language, as none had appeared yet. This variability, however, preceded the appearance of the first French, Italian, Spanish, Romanian, etc. After those languages developed, the scholastics gradually restored classical Latin as a means of scholarly communication.

Jordanes refers to himself as ''agrammaticus'' before his conversion. This obscure statement is sometimes taken to refer to his Latin. Variability, however, characterizes all Late Latin, and besides, the author was not writing just after his conversion (for the meaning of the latter, see under [[Jordanes]]), but a whole career later, after associating with many Latin speakers and having read many Latin books. According to him, he should have been grammaticus by that time. More likely, his style reflects the way Latin was under the Goths.

Some of the variabilities are as follows (Mierow):

'''[[Orthography]]'''. The spelling of many words differs from the classical standard, which Jordanes would certainly have known. For example, ''Grecia'' replaces ''Graecia''; ''Eoropam'' replaces ''Europam''; ''Atriatici'' replaces ''Adriatici''.

'''[[Inflection]]'''. [[Substantive]]s migrate between [[declension]]s, [[verb]]s between [[Grammatical conjugation|conjugations]]. Some common changes are fourth to second (''lacu'' to ''laco''), second declension adjective to third (''magnanimus'' to ''magnanimis''), ''i''-stems to non-''i''-stems (''mari'' to ''mare'' in the ablative). [[Gender]] may change. Verbs may change [[voice]].

One obvious change in a modern direction is the indeclinability of many formerly declined nouns, such as ''corpus''. Also, the ''-m'' accusative ending disappears, leaving the preceding vowel or replacing it with ''-o'' (Italian, Romanian), as in ''Danubio'' for ''Danubium''.

'''[[Syntax]]'''. Case variability and loss of agreement in prepositional phrases (''inter Danubium Margumque fluminibus''), change of participial tense (''egressi [...] et transeuntes''), loss of [[subjunctive]] in favor of [[indicative]], loss of distinction between principal and subordinate clauses, confusion of subordinating conjunctions.

'''[[Semantics]]'''. Different vocabulary appears: ''germanus'' for ''frater'', ''proprius'' for ''suus'', ''civitas'' for ''urbs'', ''pelagus'' for ''mare'', etc.