Africitas

Africitas is a putative African dialect of Latin. In the 20th century, the concept of Africitas was discussed by scholars, who often analyzed African authors like the Church Father Augustine and the grammarian Marcus Cornelius Fronto in regard to this hypothetical dialect. After 1945, this scholarly conversation died off for many years. However, the discussion was revived in the early 21st century by the publishing of the book, Apuleius and Africa: Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies (2014), which examined the concept of Africitas anew, this time largely in regard to the prose writer Apuleius.[1]

Proponents of Africitas claim that the dialect is demarcated by "peculiarities of vocabulary, syntax, sentence-structure, and style".[2] However, such an understanding can be viewed as racist, according to Catherine Conybeare of Bryn Mawr.[3] In regards to this, Vincent Hunink of Radboud University Nijmegen notes that, while it is undeniable that regional variants of spoken Latin existed, "no similar scholarly debate discussion" about the vocabulary, syntax, sentence-structure, and style of "'Germanitas' or 'Brittanitas' has ever come up", suggesting that a fixation on the existence of a supposed Africitas is problematic.[1]