Well, thank you,
Seraphinus ... that's a quite a lot of listening
)
And this might possibly take me even few hours...
Also thank you about all the comments and the description of your pronunciation.
About the hidden quantities:
- I guess this must be one of the cases where the length in the classical Latin is controversial and I simply decided to go for the non-controversial option + that's also the policy Pražák-Novotný takes (but, when speaking about Czech dictionaries that show the hidden quantity, I must give you that the Czech-Latin one I told you about [Quitt-Kucharský], shows it with a long one also, when looking at the lemma
až). Well treat this then as a kind of
academic compromise, where not to write the macron is the best option, if you're not sure. But I'll take this into account, if you read it long (and I might read it long too, inadvertently)
(btw. that Schenk's dictionary is "Caesarian" = it is made especially for the new readers of Caesar - at that time, when it was made, it was directed at the high school students who would use this as their first text, so that's why it is so concise)
-
forma: this is a similar story as with the word before. That Quitt-Kucharský Czech-Latin dict. gives a long one here, but it's probably too controversial (or was at that time) for Pražák-Novotný to implement it, since they really tried to be as much careful as possible even after the curagous decision to include the hidden quantities at all (no doubt for the benefit of the high school students too). But yes, I remember seeing this one with a long vowel too... But right now, I don't recall if Allen mentions this case at all or not - or what the today opinion is.
By the way: the recordings I have done in this thread were done on Christmas and still contained some popular, but not strictly correct elements (as fully pronounced -m, qu- as [kw], no change in the vowel quality in ē and ō but just simple quantity change). Today my philosophy of how I do everyday recordings has changed (as you might have heard in some of my recordings for LLPSI students). But all of these imperfections were stated in the disclaimer where I describe the pronunciation I used. I just feel I should repeat it.
=================================
So thank you again for your recordings. They are all quite great and I would be tempted to say that therefore there's not much to criticize, but since you've given to it so much work, it would be unfair to make my assessment so short and I'll try to pick on some many times meaningless details
But please hold in mind that anything I'll say from this moment on just omits the fact that the recordings are generally very
good - I'm saying this as not to make you frustrated if I manage to write a long list. ; )
(I actually didn't expect somebody would post so many recordings at once... in the past at a similar thread I used to give a feedback just to e.g. 30 seconds of only one recording since I found out that writing this can go to hours... But because it's you : P)
1) In all of your recordings you speak quite fast... and, to say this honestly, I think that comes as a detriment for the recordings, since usually the fast speakers also tend to hide some potential imperfections in the fact that it's been said fast. I think it would be best to
ask you, in the case you would ever upload anything again,
to speak more slowly as to give me a fair chance to tell you whether I think that something could be done differently or not and so we don't argue whether you said something correctly or didn't, because it was so fast. And we'll be dealing with this problem probably a lot in these recordings.
- This is after all a "prounciation analysis thread" and so it shouldn't be hindered by the speaker potentially hiding something : P (I told the same to Aap not long time ago on a similar occasion...)
2) Due to the problem described in number 1, there will be many instances of double-consonants which seem to be said as simple consonants
AND also quite a few cases where I'm persuaded that you indeed said simple consonants, no matter the speed. So this will probably be the chief problem I will repeat again and again... I realize that in e.g. conversation/loose speech this might come to us today as normal, but this is after all a careful prepared recording that you could edit, cut in it, redo as many times as you could. So I think it should therefore be criticized :- )
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Edit (after writing the lists): most of the mistakes are alike and it's just one or two mistakes repeating over and over again, so the actual list would be much much shorter.
Caesar:
- in Aquītānī I can't decide whether I heard AquīTĀnī or AquīTAnī ... I guess one should be more careful when there are 3 long vowels in the row not to reduce any of them (but keep the others long)
- in appellantur I might hear some slight pp, but I definitely don't hear any ll
- in differunt I hear only one f
- in ab Aquītānīs - again, short a, should be long.
- fortissimī - I can hear the accent where it should be, but I don't hear the actual ss
- in hūmanitāte - I think you pronounced the first consonant (possibly inadvertendly, since you do it well elsewhere) as a velar voiceless fricative (while you know it's properly a glottal voiceless fricative), also the last a - again ,the stress was there, but not length
- longissimē - absence of ss
- in mercātōrēs - I hear the stress in ō, but not the length (probably the rapid speech doesn't help it as I mentioned earlier [and it would be really helpful, if you recorded next time a recording where you speak slowly...] though I natively am able to tell the lengths in a very rapid speech usually)
- commeant - I don't hear any mm
- quite in all words with -que (minimēque, proximīque) I don't hear any accent in the penultimate syllable (or it is indistinguishable from e.g. initial accent)
- in bellum - well done
ll Here I really think you did it well.
But otherwise well done! As I said, it's just details... though that's the point of this thread, right.
- here in glādiātōrum I think I would say that the ō here is a long vowel (as I head this problem in Caesar), but probably still relatively shorter than the others... but maybe at this point it is just my problem and it's actually alright. I just thought I would mention it.
- also I'm a bit uncertain in clārissimus, fortissimus whether I hear the geminate s or not, since the stress is quite strong here and it certainly makes the right illusion, but I'm unable to tell... it certainly is not especially (like twice as) longer, though it might be longer a bit...
- in vērō I rather here vēro
- I praise very nicely done closer vowel quality in ō in
exerceō!
(I would do that in my present recordings, I didn't do that in the recordings I did on Christmas, which are those you have listened to. But that's in the disclaimer about the pronunciation used.
- in Rōmānī I definitely heard just RoMAnī (that is, two vowel lengths omitted, the third one correctly, and correctly done accent) <- this should probably be payed attention to.
- dēlectābitis - correct stress, but short a
- in Deus fīēs... I'm actually sorry myself, since I forgot to add a macron to -ēs (the original had no macrons, I added them for this thread and sometimes I just missed something....) :-/
- I praise your
ss in
glōriosissima - and I compare it with the two superlatives at the beginning, then I must say that this one was actually done very correctly
- I praise the lengths in the title of the text Rōmānum!
- In the first three sentences I'm not able to tell that the ablative ā ending was actually long there (the speech is rapid... ok, but still). And as I said before, I will VERY much appreciate, if your future recordings are done in a slower pace : ). The fourth sentence in Eurōpā sunt seems to be Ok.
- Hispānia, similarly as before, I rather thing that I hear short accented a...
- in the Eurōpā sunt right before Aegyptus, I definitely hear a short a
- in Aegyptus you have a choice, but given how well you have already received even some obscure elements of the restituted pronunciation (as the final -m nasalization) I would expect that you would accept this one too: that is, that the y here (the accented y) should an educated Roman pronounce rather rounded as [y], as it was pronounced in Greek: since this is a Greek word. Now, it is reasonable to think that in the popular/later speech this was perfectly regularized to the unrounded version you yourself said... but as I say: why not to use it since we already adopt the ways the educated speakers would probably say it (since that is the only thing we really reconstruct and can reconstruct, as you know). Then Eurōpā follows, which seems to have short a again...
- also the nōn in the same sentence seem to me rather as non (as you might expect in a similar form in some Romance languages... but in Latin it's definitely long)
- Āfrīcā - I believe I hear the ablative ending done well in this case, but the initial Ā was said shortly (as we would do in modern languages, but not in Latin).
- in the first instance of the word Gallia I heard quite well ll, but in the second one it sounds just as l + it's followed by in Eurōpā where I'm not sure whether you've included any long vowel at all (maybe the ō could be argued for, but the ā is definitely short)
- funny, in Syria I almost think you rounded it (unlike what I heard in Aegyptus) - the y. Also in this sentence the ā in
Eurōpā was done well
!
- the other instance of the word Syria on the other hand seems to be unrounded again... (and in the same sentence the ablative ā seems short again, while it was correct when you said first in Asiā a few sentences before)
- the final Eurōpā... again, not sure about the
ā: it seems somehow that you thought it was long in your head while saying it, but the rapid way you said it butchered it and made it relatively short...
(at least that would be my impression)
But I think that apart from the y thing, all my issues were just with the prosody, which is I think a good way. Many people come here having problems with the basic sounds... you are past this. (Only in the Caesar recording I detected one velar fricative in that hūmanitāte, but that was all).
Urbs Rōma...:
- in rīpā: short a
- passuum: the ss got lost a bit, though this might be a bit awkward to say: ss + doublesyllabic u
- locō: I'm unable to say whether there's long or short ō, relatively it seems almost short, though not clearly short...
- collēs: maybe a trace of ll, but comes out on 90% as a single one
- possunt: the first syllable is probably longer, I give you that, but hard to say whether really ss
- Rōmāna: short accented a
- collēs ^ again
- colle ^
- I very much praise the lengths as you have done in Capitōlīnō - maybe the ō was ended prematurely (and it wasn't so beautiful close/high vowel quality as you've done once in exerceō in the other recording, thought I haven't done this myself in those recordings that are here), but that was very well done!
But in all in all: very well done! This might the best rendition of this part of
Rōma Aeterna I've heard so far either here or at the sister-former thread.
Harrius:
- Just some funny thoughts I have about the "Dursley" in Latin: I guess one couldn't really criticize e.g. that you have pronounced the first vowel as a Roman would, knowing nothing of some English conventions or having none customs in his own language how such foreign words are commonly pronounced in that country with some kinds of elements of the native pronunciation (I mean an approximated pronunciation), but on the other hand: you pronounced the final two graphs
ey just as if you approximated the word to Roman phonotactics as I would expect (and as I did in my pronunciation) while retaining a non-approximated vowel in "u" so there is a hybrid now
I don't think I even could have an issue with this, since it's incredibly hard to tell how to tackle this from the viewpoint of Romans... I just thought that it was an interesting combination to read the first vowel in a Roman way and the other vowel as if approximating... I in my pronunciation tried to approximate both vowels with respect to *some* Roman phonotactics (that is saying approximately "a" in the first syllable). That's also how we do it commonly here + in the Czech dubbing of the movies - though I'm saying this rather just as an anecdote than as any argument...
- vīvēbant: short accented e
- superbiā: the ā seems short
- dīcēbant: short accented e
- illīus: not sure I've heard ll here
- tōtō: not sure again about the final length...it's kind of semi-reduced, but I praise the
rr in
terrārum!
- crēdās: short a
Otherwise very nice and intelligible!
Ovid:
(and here I will probably pay attention to the prosody even more than I do normally, sine here it's actually important : P)
- mūtātās: possibly well done both ā lengths, but the u was rather short (or quite shorter than the following vowels)
- vōs: short o
- in mūtāstis the ū seemed better here
- I praise the
ll in
illās!
- in adspīrāte: this has been here before. I don't say in this particular case the ā was short here, but surely shorter than the preceding ī
- hmm, you seem to accept the
caesuras I proposed, but in the line after
tōtō there is suddenly none...
 Tongue.gif "(1) Tongue out :p")
(and that might create again a kind of illusion for me that the tōtō was quite as long as would like, at least the final vowel, though this might just the illusion caused by a suddenly missing caesura).
- with chaos I guess we should be careful (now I don't know how I did it myself Edit: actually I did this myself... with a kind of long -s), because we are somehow tempted to make the -os long (it probably sounds well, more melodic), but it must be strictly short... though here it makes no difference, since it will be a heavy syllable anyway... At least that was my impression that you prolonged it a bit.
Nonetheless, very well done and I even liked the rhythm/general intonation you have made there... so thank you for this, I think nobody has yet posted this one
And this was quite a successfull attempt I would say
So again, most of the mistakes were of the same character, but repeated again and again and mostly (in 95%) they were prosodic mistakes which is probably the hardest part of the whole pronunciation model. But quite always all the basic sounds were done really well and also the stresses were adhered to.
I would just like to excuse myself for the next time: I'm not going to write long feedback on minutes and minutes of recordings
(I'm probably too lazy to do that), so maybe one shorter (under one minute) recording at a time... and read slowly! ;- )
Anyway, I generally liked all your recordings and thank you for them!
