Colorado Inventor Showcase 2008 - November 10, 2008 - DaVinci Institute
February 3rd, 2008 at 8:09 am

The Man Who Invented the Letter G

Strange Wikipedia Entry:  Spurius Carvilius Ruga (possibly 230 BC) was a freedman living in Rome who allegedly invented the letter G. His invention would have been quickly adopted in the Roman Republic because the letter C was, at the time, confusingly used both for the /k/ and /g/ sounds.

http://lostperspicacity.com/photos/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=941&g2_serialNumber=2

Ruga was also the first man in recorded history to open a private elementary school.

Plutarch is our only source for the second invention, and Quintus Terentius Scaurus confirms the first one in De Orthographia. The letter G was already in use before 230 BC; Wilhelm Paul Corssen theorized in Über Aussprache
that what Plutarch really meant was that Ruga’s elementary school was
the first place to assign the C and G to their current phonemes of /k/
and /g/. G was imported from the Greek zeta,
which stood for quite a different sound, and usually confused with C
and Z. This is the reason G is in the middle of the alphabet rather
than at the end; at whatever point the confusion was stamped out,
probably Ruga’s doing, it replaced the Z used in the Old Italic alphabet.

Spurius Carvilius Maximus

A novus homo,
he was consul in 293, and celebrated a triumph over the Samnites. He
founded a temple of Fors Fortuna and dedicated a colossal statue of
Jupiter Capitolinus made from captured Samnite armour. (Pliny N.H.
34.43; Livy 10.43; Fasti Capit.). According to Velleius Paterculus
(2.128), he was censor, probably in 289. In 272 he had a second
consulship, again campaigning against the Samnites (Front. Aq. 10.6).

Spurius Carvilius Maximus Ruga

Perhaps son of the above, was consul in 234, celebrating a triumph
for his victories in Corsica and Sardinia. He was consul again in 228,
and augur in 211. A tradition cited by Valerius Maximus claimed that he was the first Roman to divorce his wife. Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Aulus Gellius also attest to the story of the divorce. According to Dionysius’ account,

Spurius Carvilius, a man of distinction, was the first to divorce
his wife … yet because of his action, though it was based on
necessity, he was ever afterwards hated by the people.

However, their date of 230 BC for Ruga’s divorce is somewhat absurd, because the Twelve Tables
written in 450 BC include a provision for divorce. There is no
consensus as to how many of Ruga’s alleged inventions should be
attributed to him, but no other ancient text claims other inventors.

His freedman is the Spurius Carvilius Ruga of this article.

Via Wikipedia

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