Durocortorum Vulgare: linguistic change and cultural integration in the non-standard Latin inscriptions of Rheims

The non-standard Latin inscriptions of Durocortorum (modern Rheims) offer a unique profile among the inscriptions of the Northwest. They exhibit a reduced range of factors of Romanisation and of linguistic features, some of which, though, are unmatched within this regional corpus. The city’s role as capital of the province Belgica and as the place of Clovis’ christening contrasts with the lowest numbers of official and Christian inscriptions, whilst the unique successful resistance against Late Antique Germanic invaders chimes with the absence of Germanic names. Citizenship, military service, interethnic marriages and religion played an inferior role in the integration of a large resident Gaulish population that was achieved via economic opportunities (esp. pottery making) and the importation and production of amenity commodities (esp. oculist boxes) which the city’s location at a crossroad of Roman roads favoured. While Gaulish substratum influence is limited proportionately to the writing occasions ( -o(s) , drop of -s and other final consonants, syncope, degemination), we find the first appellative in the Northwest ( vi(m)pi ‘pretty’) and may claim Gaulish influence on the prominent vicious use of cases. The inscriptions further stand out by phonetic changes that are to be accounted for by assimilation or analogy as well as possibly by Gaulish (degemination) and Greek (degemination, loss of h and of nasal before stop) influence.