Papyri.info

APIS Translation (English)

(P.Mich. inv. 4649 verso);;. . . ; if, say, you place a X <read: an U> before the letter I, it makes [(the diphtong) UI, just] as, by Hercules!, an U [and an A] make (the diphtong) UA; in a similar way, if you join the vowels A and U, it makes AU; likewise, an A and an E make [(the diphtong) AI], for it is obvious that this syllable should not be written A and E, for many reasons, of which the first and most important is that the Greeks, from whom we have received the use of the letters, write this syllable with A and I; then, the greatest poets make it up with an A and an I, for the reason that they [divide] this one syllable into two by metaplasmus, [as Vergil], who says, for "dives pictae", ["dives pictai] vestis et auri" . . .;;(P.Lond. Inv. 2723 verso, col. I);;. . . is therefore so defined, in the same way that one would say that the word (dictio) is a sound (vox) having the form of significant sounds; for a sound of that kind can be said, but cannot be understood; accordingly, the word that has a signification and an intelligibility is speech (oratio). Speech, then, is . . . like the reason of the mouth (oris ratio); certain grammarians have multiplied its parts to such an extent that the mass of the teachers [- - -];;(col. II);;[- - - The parts of the speech are:] the noun, the pronoun, the verb, the participle, the adverb, the conjunction, the preposition, the interjection. The noun is, so to speak, a distinctive sign by which we recognize every individual thing by designating it with a mark; it is like a sign of a certain thing, for, when I say anything, even if you don't find the object of this word present, nevertheless, as the sign of the word is heard, immediately an image of the thing cleaves to the mind . . . [- - -]