Abstract

In the history of the Italian language polymorphism is constant, multifaceted, and various, because of a language born in the written use as meeting point of different varieties: Italian language has always added recording all the entries. An investigation on graphic polymorphism of ancient Italian follows the goal to recognize concordances, or divergences, in the language system, only approximately represented by the Latin alphabet, on this way generating polymorphic constancies in the graphic use, or co-presence of many graphic signs for the same phonetic sound. Spellings of ancient texts from “Italia medianaµ (the most ancient in the language and literature) are quite homogenous, with apparently little differences, generally depending on the written use of each geographic area: the graphic use is directly related to the linguistic variety and, at the same time, to the interpretation, and therefore the edition, of ancient texts.