Spelling 'vixit'

I mentioned the fluidity of spelling and pronunciation yesterday reagarding 'sebete'.  In my very first post (Hic requiescit..), the normal word for "she lived", "Vixit", is spelled "viscit".

There are several possible reasons for this, but the first thing to be aware of is that 'x' is a double consonant.  Even in English, it's a combination of 'k' and 's', so the Romans could, and did, sometimes spell 'vixit' as 'vicsit'. The first possible explanation for 'viscit', then, is simple error:  the person making the inscription transposed the 'c' and the 's'.  Much the same thing happens today when native speakers of English say "I want to aks you a question", or when they refer to the 'little star' as an 'asteriks'.

Another possiblilty is that the pronunciation of the 'x' in 'vixit' had started to change.  We will soon see that the 'v' is spelled as both 'v' and 'b' in inscriptions (sometimes both in the same inscription).  So perhaps the 'ks' sound is already starting to morph into its Spanish, French, and Italian descendants.