On the Latin Language, Vol. I

INTRODUCTION

interpretations of rare words found in the comedies of Plautus.
De Similitudine Verborum On the Similarity of Words, in three books, on regularity in forms and words.
De Utilitate Sermonis On the Usefulness of Speech, in at least four books, in which he dealt with the principle of anomaly or irregularity.
De Sermone Latino On the Latin Language/Speech, in five books or more, addressed to Marcellus, which treats of orthography and the metres of poetry.
Disciplinae Disciplines/Studies, an encyclopaedia on the liberal arts, in nine books, of which the first dealt with Grammatica Grammar.

The extant fragments of these works, apart from those of the De Lingua Latina, may be found in the Goetz and Schoell edition of the De Lingua Latina, pages 199-242; in the collection of Wilmanns, pages 170-223; and in that of Funaioli, pages 179-371 (see the Bibliography).

VARRO’S DE LINGUA LATINA

Varro’s treatise On the Latin Language was a work in twenty-five books, composed in 47 to 45 B.C., and published before the death of Cicero in 43.
The first book was an introduction, containing at the outset a dedication of the entire work to Cicero. The remainder seems to have been divided into four sections of six books each, each section being by its subject matter further divisible into two halves of three books each.
Books II.-VII. dealt with the impositio vocabulorum the imposition/application of names, or how words were originated and applied to things.