Apex (diacritic)

The apex (plural apices ) is a BC appearing in Latin inscriptions from the middle of the 1st century diacritical mark, with the length of vowels ( vowel quantity) was highlighted. It is an over the vowel signs, often slightly offset to the right, from bottom left to top right running line or down flat curved arc, that is, it corresponds in shape to a large extent the acute through which he reproduced in modern transcription can. Examples: Traxi, PRÍSCVS, Olla.

The appearance of the apex in inscriptions is often very inconspicuous, because the bottom line is often carried out very thin. In fact, it corresponds by the proverbial icing on the cake as something that is symbolic of an easily overlooked trifle. So to say a phrase nullum apicem quaestionis praemittere ( " not a finishing touch to the question about race") or Arnobius speaks of apicibus juris in the sense of " Rechtsspitzfindigkeiten ".

The marking of the long vowel " ī " was first realized not through Apex, but by an extension of the sign up. This form of the letter is referred to as I longa ( " long I"). Examples: QU ꟾ NQVE, M ꟾ llia

Before using the Apex the mark was doubled to show a long vowel: PAASTORES, PEQVLATVV.

This handling of the marking of the duplication by a diacritical mark corresponds in the case of doubled consonants of the so-called Sicilicus. The sign is similar to the Apex, but is more curved, hence the name comes because sicilis Latin " sickle " means. Revilo Oliver has argued that Apex and Sicilius was a sign, namely, to mark with one and the same function duplication. The Sicilicus can be represented by U 0357 COMBINING RIGHT HALF RING ABOVE in Unicode.

Today when playing Latin texts the vowel length is marked by Macron, PRÍSCVS will therefore appear as Priscus, the acute on the other hand is used to mark stressed syllables.