|
 |
Modern speakers for Ancient languages | ||
Tags: Dead Languages | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 17 of 20 24 January 2010 at 11:35pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
I know that there are reasonably wellfounded theories about how several extinct languages sounded, and that some of those results are rather suprising even for those that can read the written sources. I do try to adopt some af the things the experts tell me when I read for instance Old Norse or Latin. But given that my chances of meeting someone who speak Latin as Cicero or Old Norse like Snorri are fairly slim, I just find a way to think in those languages, and if one of them suddenly should become the current craze and spoken by everybody then I could probably find time to adapt to the preferred pronunciation.
So until further notice I 'think' and 'read' Old Norse more or less as Modern Icelandic, and I pronounce/think Latin with hard 'c' and 'g', but without the nasal wowels (or nasalized consonants) suggested by Tertullian et al. When I read the old forms of the Romance languages I can basically use modern pronunciation for Occitan, Catalan, Spanish and Italian back to around 1200-1300, while I have to make a number of deviations from the modern language when I read Old French (for example I move the whole series of nasal vowels one step to make room for nasalised /i/, and a lot of currently 'mute' endings have to be pronounced in Old French). I have rarely attempted to read the old forms of Greek, but until I learn Classical Greek or Koine properly my Modern Greek will have to make do. However I do think that it is fun to learn to use at least Latin actively, so I actually do try to think and write small essays in this language. But as long as I don't try to write poetry in Latin it simply doesn't matter whether my pronunciation is totally in accordance with the latest theories about the subject. Edited by Iversen on 24 January 2010 at 11:48pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| horshod Pentaglot Groupie India Joined 5770 days ago 74 posts - 107 votes Speaks: Hindi, Marathi*, Bengali, Gujarati, English Studies: German, Spanish, Turkish | Message 18 of 20 26 January 2010 at 7:03am | IP Logged | ||||||||
In fact I think the heavy usage of Persian and Arabic words in spoken Hindi pushes it farther away from Sanskrit in comparison with other North Indian languages. Considering vocabulary, I think Bengali could be considered the closest, while pronunciation-wise Marathi is a bit closer than the others. Grammatically all the N.Indian languages must be equally close. Talking about Sanskrit vocabulary being used in modern languages, hundreds of Sanskrit words, without any change, are used in spoken conversations in all the major North (and except Tamil, to a considerable extent in South) Indian languages. I was wondering if there are any European languages which use Latin words directly this way.
Well that way Sanskrit is used for almost all (Hindu) religious activities in India. In fact probably because of the religious importance of Sanskrit, modern Indian languages have retained so many Sanskrit words. Edited by horshod on 26 January 2010 at 7:19am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5521 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 19 of 20 26 January 2010 at 11:31am | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
Let's not forget the Sanskrit village, where people supposedly still speak something that qualifies as Sanskrit!
http://www.hvk.org/articles/0203/35.html 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Delodephius Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 5403 days ago 342 posts - 501 votes Speaks: Slovak*, Serbo-Croatian*, EnglishC1, Czech Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 20 of 20 09 April 2010 at 10:20pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Actually OLD Church Slavonic is not used anywhere as far as I know. Church Slavonic, its descendant, is used and has been since the Middle Ages. There are actually a couple of versions of Church Slavonic depending of the country of origin. They're called recensions. Today the most widely used recension is the Russian Church Slavonic. I know Serbian Church Slavonic was largely abandoned in favour of the Russian CS in the 18th century, I'm not sure about other recensions. 1 person has voted this message useful |
If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
