 This however can be explained in a different way, that the inscription simply fails to note the nasality of the final vowels (just as "consul" was customarily abbreviated as )

Confusions between "b" and "v" show that the Classical semivowel , and intervocalic partially merged to become a bilabial fricative (Classical semivowel became in Vulgar Latin, while became an allophone of in intervocalic position).Already by the 1st century AD, a document by one Eunus writes for and for .In most of the Romance varieties, this sound would further develop into , with the notable exception of the betacist varieties of Hispano-Romance