Angelo O Mercado
Part of what attracted Angelo Mercado as a college freshman to Classical Latin was the language’s antiquity. It didn’t take long for Angelo to fall in love with its sound and rhythm. His excitement grew to include the comparison of texts from different languages, embracing Greek and languages of ancient Italy related to Latin, as well as other languages in the Indo-European family. His life’s pursuit thus became the description of ancient poetry as products of formal systems that descend from a common ancestor, aspects of which can be recovered in light of linguistic theory and methodology.
Professor Mercado is best known for his work on Old Latin and related Italic meters. Recently, he has published series of papers on meter in Italic prayer texts and on the role of word accent in Latin meters adapted from Greek, which are based on syllable duration.
As a teacher, Professor Mercado thrives on introducing students to ancient language and epic. He regularly teaches Tutorial on epic, “Ancient Greek World” (HUM-101), elementary–intermediate Latin (LAT-103 and 222), Vergil (LAT-323), and Indo-European language and culture (CLS|LIN-270). He has also taught mythology (CLS|GLS-242), gender and sexuality in ancient Greece and Italy (CLS-395), and Plautus in Latin (LAT-395).
Education and Degrees
- Ph.D. in Indo-European Studies, 2006, University of California, Los Angeles
- M.A. in Latin, 1998, University of California, Los Angeles
- B.A. in Classics, 1996, Loyola Marymount University (Los Angeles, CA)
- Minor in Spanish
- High School Diploma, 1992, Bellarmine College Preparatory (San Jose, CA)
Selected Publications
Representative:
- Italic Verse: A Study of the Poetic Remains of Old Latin, Faliscan, and Sabellic. Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft 145. Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachen und Literaturen der Universität Innsbruck, 2012.
- Co-editor with Dieter Gunkel, Stephanie W. Jamison, and Kazuhiko Yoshida. Vina Diem Celebrent: Studies in Linguistics and Philology in Honor of Brent Vine. Ann Arbor: Beech Stave, 2018.
- “Rhythm and Responsion in Some Italic Prayers.” In David M. Goldstein, Stephanie W. Jamison, and Brent Vine, eds., Proceedings of the 30th Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference, November 9th and 10th, 2018, 161–86. Bremen: Hempen, 2016.
- “Word Stress in the Early Latin Hexameter.” In Satoko Hisatsugi, ed., Die italischen Sprachen: Neue linguistische und philologische Aspekte, 85–102. Studien zur historisch-vergleichenden Sprachwissenschaft 19. Hamburg: Baar, 2021.
- “Greek Lyric Meter: Form, Structure, and System”. Lecture given via Zoom, February 11, 2022 to the Cornell University Department of Classics.
- “On the Problem of Homeric Greek ἀμφιφορεύς.” In Gunkel, Jamison, Mercado, and Yoshida 2018, 242–55.
- “Šāhs at the Pass of Thermopylae.” In Dieter Gunkel, Joshua T. Katz, Brent Vine, and Michael Weiss, eds., Sahasram Ati Srajas: Indo-Iranian and Indo-European Studies in Honor of Stephanie W. Jamison, 250–63. Ann Arbor: Beech Stave, 2016.
- With Joseph F. Eska. “More on the Metrical Structure in the Inscription of Vergiate.” Historische Sprachforschung 124 (2011): 227–38.
In the News
- Bellarmine News, “Alumni Spotlight: Angelo Mercado ’96” (Loyola Marymount University, April 4, 2016)