5 Minutes of Fluently Spoken Classical Latin
September 27, 2024 8:52 AM Subscribe
A short description of the types of segmented Roman armor. In Latin. If you'd like to learn more, there is an english-langauge wikipedia page.
Do we know if Latin actually sounded like this accent originally?
I can confirm that he is speaking classical Latin not church Latin, using the Hard C and the soft J. However beyond that I cannot say. Some philologist could probably argue about his accent either saying it's accurate or not, and likely some other philologist could dispute it. He does appear to be following best historical practices.
Classical Latin was spoken for a little over three centuries before it evolved into Late Latin. It was spoken in parallel with Vulgar Latin - Basically the Roman Empire was big, and you wouldn't expect someone speaking Latin in Rome in 75 BCE to have the same accent as someone speaking Latin in Germania in 275 CE or even someone speaking Latin in Egypt in 275 CE. The Romans themselves commented on the different accents they heard when other people from other parts of the Empire were speaking. If they got confused enough back then, they would probably have reverted to Greek, because that was the Lingua Franca that they used in their own era.
posted by Jane the Brown at 10:39 AM on September 27 [4 favorites]
I can confirm that he is speaking classical Latin not church Latin, using the Hard C and the soft J. However beyond that I cannot say. Some philologist could probably argue about his accent either saying it's accurate or not, and likely some other philologist could dispute it. He does appear to be following best historical practices.
Classical Latin was spoken for a little over three centuries before it evolved into Late Latin. It was spoken in parallel with Vulgar Latin - Basically the Roman Empire was big, and you wouldn't expect someone speaking Latin in Rome in 75 BCE to have the same accent as someone speaking Latin in Germania in 275 CE or even someone speaking Latin in Egypt in 275 CE. The Romans themselves commented on the different accents they heard when other people from other parts of the Empire were speaking. If they got confused enough back then, they would probably have reverted to Greek, because that was the Lingua Franca that they used in their own era.
posted by Jane the Brown at 10:39 AM on September 27 [4 favorites]
Graecum est, non legitur.
posted by y2karl at 10:39 AM on September 27 [4 favorites]
posted by y2karl at 10:39 AM on September 27 [4 favorites]
Well that was unexpectedly delightful. I was able to park the misery of [not] learning Latin as a 10yo - and appreciate that some of it had sunk in. Like listening to the news in Portuguese: can get the gist.
posted by BobTheScientist at 10:50 AM on September 27 [3 favorites]
posted by BobTheScientist at 10:50 AM on September 27 [3 favorites]
Hopefully far in the future people will give demonstrations of early 21st Century English using only Fern Brady's accent.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 12:11 PM on September 27 [2 favorites]
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 12:11 PM on September 27 [2 favorites]
> Do we know if Latin actually sounded like this accent originally or is this modern Italian-accented Latin?
Funny you should ask! I first found his channel because of this video about Italian accents.
posted by bq at 12:27 PM on September 27
Funny you should ask! I first found his channel because of this video about Italian accents.
posted by bq at 12:27 PM on September 27
> Do we know if Latin actually sounded like this accent originally or is this modern Italian-accented Latin?
What Ancient Latin Sounded Like, And How We Know It: Josh Rutter on NativLang makes some inferences from graffiti, meter and Quintillian.
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:38 PM on September 27 [1 favorite]
What Ancient Latin Sounded Like, And How We Know It: Josh Rutter on NativLang makes some inferences from graffiti, meter and Quintillian.
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:38 PM on September 27 [1 favorite]
> Do we know if Latin actually sounded like this accent originally or is this modern Italian-accented Latin?
The way we know how Latin originally sounded comes from Roman textbooks, poetry, and literary criticism—ancient scholars talking about the length of syllables and whether or not repeating similar sounds was an appropriate stylistic device in a certain context, etc. The Perseus Project at Tufts and the Silva Rhetoricae at BYU are both excellent and fascinating resources for digging into these sorts of questions.
posted by vitia at 12:42 PM on September 27 [2 favorites]
The way we know how Latin originally sounded comes from Roman textbooks, poetry, and literary criticism—ancient scholars talking about the length of syllables and whether or not repeating similar sounds was an appropriate stylistic device in a certain context, etc. The Perseus Project at Tufts and the Silva Rhetoricae at BYU are both excellent and fascinating resources for digging into these sorts of questions.
posted by vitia at 12:42 PM on September 27 [2 favorites]
Do we know if Latin actually sounded like this accent originally or is this modern Italian-accented Latin?
Lots of good answers upthread, so I'll only add that it's sometimes useful as a thought experiment to consider how quickly vocabulary, accent, etc. change in such a short span as a century. Mass media changed a bunch of things in this regard, but try listening to early recordings (late 19th/early 20th century) for a taste of how different people can sound over a short time's change.
posted by cupcakeninja at 1:25 PM on September 27 [1 favorite]
Lots of good answers upthread, so I'll only add that it's sometimes useful as a thought experiment to consider how quickly vocabulary, accent, etc. change in such a short span as a century. Mass media changed a bunch of things in this regard, but try listening to early recordings (late 19th/early 20th century) for a taste of how different people can sound over a short time's change.
posted by cupcakeninja at 1:25 PM on September 27 [1 favorite]
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posted by star gentle uterus at 10:18 AM on September 27 [1 favorite]