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Latin Being Read Aloud | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6659 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 25 of 45 13 September 2011 at 9:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I might add that people may speak whatever version of latin that they prefer and that one has to be able to, if one
want to be a part of a living latin community, many variations of the spoken form of Latin. Thus I myself prefer the more hardcore reconstruction don’t advocate that one must use latin this way — especially if one might only want to read mediæval poetry and diplomatic correspondence. As for not aspirating, the y-sound and long vowels none of them seem to be a ‹hard› thing to me. Neither are one taught any of this when reading latin aloud in Sweden. Long vowels are only cared for to know what feet in say hexameter a word belongs in and to know where the accent goes in prose. My grammar explains most of it, yet, it does not propagates people to try to sound like Romans because it’s seen as a waste of time due to the languages state of being dead. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5228 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 26 of 45 13 September 2011 at 9:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
Agreed.
My point was only that these are as difficult as nasalizing vowels, so if we're ruling out a text's pronouncement because it doesn't teach difficult things like nasalizing vowels, then we'd expect it to not teach any comparably difficult things: as an English speaker, I attest that non-aspiration of consonants, the French y, and long vowels are all difficult to grasp, as difficult as nasalization of vowels. I'm also talking about texts geared towards the English reader. As a Swede, you'll be familiar with long vowels and y, right? We Englishers lack that familiarity. Edited by ScottScheule on 13 September 2011 at 10:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Zwlth Super Polyglot Senior Member United States Joined 5226 days ago 154 posts - 320 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written), Dutch, Swedish, Portuguese, Latin, French, Persian, Greek | Message 27 of 45 14 September 2011 at 5:19am | IP Logged | |||||
As Iversen put it, there were no tape recorders back then , and it takes an enormous leap of faith to believe that any postulated reconstruction is truly accurate. Just think about it - from my writing, can you tell what I sound like? And which do you believe would be a more accurate guide: the best of written phonetic introductions to the sounds of any language, or simple sample recordings of it? An any rate, I certainly don't look down uopn those who want to read Classical Latin according to their concept of authenticity. However, it does bother me when (as it inevitably does) that pronunciation becomes all pervasive. In my opinion, Latin is far too heavily dominated by Classicists. Of course it all began with the Romans, and of course the remains of their Golden and Silver Ages of Literature should have their rightful weighty role on any Great Books list. However, Latin was far more than the Language of the Romans - it was the lifesblood of Western Civilization for a good 1200 years at least after their eclipse. I read just as much Medieval and Neo-Latin as I do Classical: should I use a different pronunciation for each author as I try to recreate what I thought he sounded like? Let's step back from Latin for a moment to our own native languages: when we read books aloud, we don't try to read as we imagine their authors' might have sounded, we just read them in our own voices. Back to Latin: if, for the sake of the argument, I grant that Cicero nasalized, what then about Augustine? Aquinas? Erasmus? Moore? Descartes? Why should I want to sound more like Cicero than any of these? No, give me one single pronunciation, please, and let's make it as simple, as clear, and as pleasing to the ear as possible. To each his own and beauty is in the ear of the behearer and all that, but I think there is a fairly broad consensus that Italian and Spanish sound prettier than French or Portuguese. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| oldearth Groupie United States Joined 4895 days ago 72 posts - 173 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 28 of 45 14 September 2011 at 6:31am | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't know how common this is, but I remember from my days at MIT
that Harvard still has a Latin oration delivered as part of their graduation ceremonies. Other stuffy ivy league schools may have similar traditions. Check youtube. Obviously it won't be a huge quantity of listening material, but it might make a nice break from serious ancient works. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5565 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 29 of 45 14 September 2011 at 9:31am | IP Logged | |||||
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Of course later medieval and early modern authors didn't nasalise - on the other hand the move back to
restored classical pronounciation started with Erasmus (although the Counter Reformation stopped its development in academia for a few centuries). We also know that Moore and Descartes would have spoken Latin using the French system of pronounciation as that was the one taught in early modern French and English grammar schools, so no 'beautiful' Italianate pronunciation. As to a leap of faith in accepting the most probable way of pronounciation - works like Sidney Allen (which is really a lucid distillation of a centuries hard research) give sufficient examples to indicate that one is not taking a leap of faith - and as I read it the nasalisation is one of less contentious areas as it was described by Latin grammarians. Of course restored classical latin is an approximation based on the balance of probabilities and (dare I say Anglo- American) academic consensus. By all means speak Latin how you want - but don't confuse personal ideas of aesthetics with the most probable reconstruction of how classical Latin was pronounced. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6659 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 30 of 45 14 September 2011 at 3:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think Spanish is an ugly language yet I like the sound of French. I actually do not find Latin a beautiful language -
nor ugly - just plain neutral. The nasalations are not ugly in my point of view and they actually make language less.. well.. artificial sounding. In domum ambulat. Sounds more like a real language rendered /in.do:’mwãm’bulat/ than /in.do:’mum.am’bulat/. How come you accept all the restored sound except the nasalation of m? You’re picking from a fruit basket accusing everyone who tries to use the reconstructed system religious when as a matter of fact the reason that people don’t speak like this at University is just because they don’t care about pronunciation — and that is fine. But I think it’s very odd to look down upon those who do, and then at the same time use the ‹I don’t care to lengthen my vowels› academian pronunciation. It’s just not important to some people, therefore they don’t care to make their Latin even remotely good. /Enn.dow:’mem.am’bjulajt/ I tend to read medieval latin in reconstructed classical, just as the medieval scholars read Cicero in their own vernacular Latin dialect. Where I to read poetry, I’d change it. The rules are simpler and it’s easy to go from reconstructed classical to medieval-ish to get the rhymes and metre right. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5228 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 31 of 45 14 September 2011 at 3:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
I thought nasalization only occurred before a fricative or at the end of a word. So only the -um in domum should be nasal.
Are you talking to me or someone else? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5056 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 32 of 45 14 September 2011 at 3:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The reconstructions of the Classic Latin pronunciation are quite reliable, only a few
things are disputed. I think the Latin phonology was somehow described at that time. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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