In reply to:

And I wonder, did they have arguments about grammar when most people didn't write?

I looked up soloikismos and soloikizo, the origins of our word solecism. The LSJ entry for soloikismos http://makeashorterlink.com/?C54F241B5 tells us that a solecism is a grammatical mistake, while a barbarism (barbarismos) is a misuse of words. One of the earlies uses of soloikizo (commit solecims) comes from Herodotus, where he tells us that the Sauromatae speak Scythian (not a written language) but with many solecisms.http://makeashorterlink.com/?O38F121B5

While googling for solecism I found this, which at first glance looks fascinating, if somewhat irrelevant:

http://makeashorterlink.com/?O38F121B5

Bingley


Bingley