Let us hear and analyse each other's Latin pronunciation
- Thread starter Godmy
- Start date
Personally, I'm not terribly annoyed by it, but in principle I quite agree with you; I certainly wouldn't use it myself. This is something, it seems to me, that some people carry over from their native languages, but there is, as you mentioned (and as far as I know), no indication that this was a feature of the classical Latin pronunciation. Now, I'm not sure I could disprove it if someone hypothetically claimed the Romans did do that, but whenever there might be doubts with regards to restored Latin pronunciation, I prefer to glance at the Italians, who manage their vowels just fine without intervening glottal stops.
My responseI thought I would have (and perhaps give) some fun with this.(I certainly messed up a few things as I was trying to keep that rather fast dramatic tone.)
Tum Domitius vóce atque vultú atrócióre "nulla" inquit "prorsus bonae salútis spés reliqua est, cum vós quoque, philosophórum inlustrissimí, nihil iam aliud quam verba auctóritátésque verbórum cordí habétis. Mittam autem librum tibi, in quó id reperiás, quod quaeris. Ego enim grammaticus vítae iam atque mórum disciplínás quaeró, vós philosophí mera estis, ut M. Cato áit, "mortuália"; glossária namque colligitis et lexidia, rés taetrás et inánés et frívolás tamquam mulierum vócés praeficárum. Atque utinam" inquit "mútí omnés hominés essémus! minus improbitás instrúmentí habéret."
))(to those of you who wonder why, it's because of the conversation threads we started in the Game section)
correction:
*made progress (not "did")
Thanks.
Concerning the assimilation thing: I was aware of that, actually, but it somehow just slipped my mind here as I was reading quickly and dramatically. (That's also what caused me to go wrong in some vowel quantities and stresses even though I had the transcription with lengths and stresses marked in front of me.)
Now, in the first recordings I posted in the other thread which you mentioned, I didn't have such transcriptions, so it isn't surprising that I do it better now with it. It's kind of cheating, but well.
Concerning the assimilation thing: I was aware of that, actually, but it somehow just slipped my mind here as I was reading quickly and dramatically.
(That's also what caused me to go wrong in some vowel quantities and stresses even though I had the transcription with lengths and stresses marked in front of me.)Now, in the first recordings I posted in the other thread which you mentioned, I didn't have such transcriptions, so it isn't surprising that I do it better now with it. It's kind of cheating, but well.
I knew that one and I even pronounced it consciously. If it didn't get heard I don't know what went wrong.
Godmy, your talking about the Czech stress being weak has just reminded me of something I had wondered recently: I had precisely wondered if we had any idea how strong the Latin stress was; if I should do my Latin stresses quite like my English ones (which are supposed to be pretty strong), or something milder. I don't know if we've had any means of telling that; very possible we haven't, but I ask you just in case we had and you'd read something about it.
Oh.. perhaps... I don't remember. I just wanted to mention it.
We don't know that much about it. There were even opinions about the tonal/musical/pitch accent in Latin, but it seems debunked today.
Simply do the stress so it's discernible and that's also the least I would expect from Romans
It was most likely a bit weaker than the English stress accent.
What is there to make us think so? Just the way it ended up in the Romance languages, or is there something else? Perhaps the fact that Latin poetry isn't (for the most part) based on stress, which would have been impossible if the stress was very strong?
Do be honest I'm not entirely sure, because I'm just repeating what I've read/heard. I think that must be a large part of it, however.
Take 1
https://clyp.it/vlv2cq2u
https://clyp.it/vlv2cq2u
Answer to Weebl, Imperfacundus and Weebl again in the end.
correction: *will make a big deal -> will make a huge difference / will be a big deal
*recommend <- I actually have a bad pronunciation habit for this word, can be heard here (the first vowel is wrong, if nothing)
correction: *will make a big deal -> will make a huge difference / will be a big deal
*recommend <- I actually have a bad pronunciation habit for this word, can be heard here (the first vowel is wrong, if nothing)
Thanks, Godmy! Although you say that you don't think the medium of audio is as good for giving comments as text is, but I think it quite useful, not only because you can respond to us without having to do as much work in typing out a long response, but also because one gets to hear their recording while you do, thus receiving comments without needing to listen back to their recordings separately.
I would agree with you that my short "o" should be rounded. I guess I subconsciously have in mind that short "o" should be pronounced as "pot" without remembering that the reference is to RP pronunciation. Now that I'm aware of it, I should be able to change that fairly easily, as I can make that rounded vowel well. I'm sure that my "u" in "abutere" needs to be longer; it sounded long to me, certainly in quality, perhaps a little short compared to the following "e" (which I guess I held a bit long for emphasis), as you say, in quantity. On the quantity of the "i" in "egeris, fueris, convocaveris," etc.: it should be long because it is not future perfect (in which the i would be short) but perfect subjunctive, being in an indirect question clause.
I would agree with you that my short "o" should be rounded. I guess I subconsciously have in mind that short "o" should be pronounced as "pot" without remembering that the reference is to RP pronunciation. Now that I'm aware of it, I should be able to change that fairly easily, as I can make that rounded vowel well. I'm sure that my "u" in "abutere" needs to be longer; it sounded long to me, certainly in quality, perhaps a little short compared to the following "e" (which I guess I held a bit long for emphasis), as you say, in quantity. On the quantity of the "i" in "egeris, fueris, convocaveris," etc.: it should be long because it is not future perfect (in which the i would be short) but perfect subjunctive, being in an indirect question clause.