This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please help improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (August 2020) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Spurius Carvilius Ruga ( fl. 230 BC) was the freedman of Spurius Carvilius Maximus Ruga. He is often credited with inventing the Latin letter G. His invention would have been quickly adopted in the Roman Republic, because the letter C was used for both the /k/ and /g/ sounds. For example, Ruga's own name (SPVRIVS CARVILIVS RVCA) contained this ambiguity. In the latter half of the 3rd century BC, Ruga is the first man recorded to have been attested as opening a private elementary school, although other such schools may have existed in Rome prior to his. ^[1]

Plutarch is the main source for these inventions, and Quintus Terentius Scaurus confirms the former in De Orthographia. The letter G was already in use before 230 BC; Wilhelm Paul Corssen theorized in Über Aussprache that Plutarch intended to communicate that Ruga's school was the first to assign C and G to the phonemes of /k/ and /g/.^{[ clarification needed]}

See also

• Carvilia (gens)

References

Sources

• Quaestiones Romanae questions 54 and 59.
• Earliest Roman Divorces: Divergent Memories or Hidden Agendas? Archived 2017-07-17 at the Wayback Machine by Gary Martin
• The Origin of the Latin Letters G and Z by George Hempl