Since Corssen's great work (last edition, Leipzig, 1868–70), there has been no book devoted to a separate investigation by Comparative Philological methods of the Latin Language, its declensions, its conjugations, its formation of the various parts of speech, and the changes of its pronunciation and orthography, if we except the short summary (last edition, Nördlingen, 1889) written by Professor Stolz for the Iwan Müller Series of Handbooks of Classical Antiquity. And yet the additions to our knowledge of the subject since Corssen's time have been very great. Not only has the whole Science of Comparative Philology been, by the help of men like Johannes Schmidt, Osthoff, and Brugmann, set on a sounder basis, but a vast amount has been added to our knowledge of the Early Latin authors, especially Plautus, of the Umbrian, Oscan, and other dialects of ancient Italy, of Romance, and above all of the Celtic family of languages, a family closely united with the Italic group. The time has surely come for a new treatment of the subject, such as I venture to offer in the ten chapters of this volume.

I should have liked to have added to them a fuller discussion of the relation of Latin to the other languages of Italy. But I had already exceeded the generous limits allowed by the Delegates of the Press, and it seemed to me that until more evidence is forthcoming in the shape of dialectal inscriptions certainty can hardly be attained.