24-09-2016, 02:34 AM
JKP,
I agree on both counts. While trying to save money on paper (which wasn't so cheap in the Middle Ages), scribes needed to save space, which led to a whole complicated system of abbreviations as you mention. And since nobody spoke Latin as a native language (but every scribe spoke it as a second language) the Latin abbreviations could drift into German or Italian or French texts.... thus complicating the situation, if the language does turn out to be a European language
I agree on both counts. While trying to save money on paper (which wasn't so cheap in the Middle Ages), scribes needed to save space, which led to a whole complicated system of abbreviations as you mention. And since nobody spoke Latin as a native language (but every scribe spoke it as a second language) the Latin abbreviations could drift into German or Italian or French texts.... thus complicating the situation, if the language does turn out to be a European language